Farsi Interview: Prospects of a less-for-less nuclear deal with Iran

 

Farsi Interview: How Close are Tehran and Washington to Reviving the Nuclear Deal?

 

Farsi Interview: Implications of the IAEA Resolution against Iran on JCPOA Revival Talks

 

Farsi Interview: Causes of the Current Stalemate in Iran-US Nuclear Talks

 

Saving the Iran Nuclear Deal Requires Balancing it

It has become increasingly evident that restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal, is extremely challenging without ensuring its durability. Several years after Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA and began pursuing a maximum pressure campaign against Iran, and Tehran retaliated by accelerating and expanding its nuclear program, policymakers in Washington and Tehran must ensure that the deal, once revived, remains in force for all its parties over its entire duration. While some politicians call for intensifying economic pressure and military threats against Iran to bring it into conformity with U.S. objectives, these tools have proven to be counterproductive and dangerously escalating. Rather, the best solution lies in strengthening the JCPOA in a manner that would minimize the possibility of defection by the parties.

It is no secret that the JCPOA’s enforcement mechanisms and overall costs and benefits are distorted, but what is less recognized is that the JCPOA’s built-in imbalance is undermining U.S. interests and nuclear nonproliferation goals. By far the most notable manifestation of this imbalance is the agreement’s failure to establish mutual legal and political deterrence between Iran and the United States with respect to violating the agreement or quitting it altogether. Instead, the JCPOA constructed one-sided deterrence against Iran by threatening the snapback of multilateral and unilateral sanctions against it and automatically triggering its referral to the UN Security Council, should it violate the agreement or withdraw from it. Continue reading on The National Interest or Foreign Policy In Focus

Why Trump’s Maximum Pressure Strategy Won’t Make Iran Budge

The Trump administration’s strategy of applying “maximum pressure” on Iran has succeeded in inflicting unprecedented economic pain on the country, particularly since the U.S. withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and subsequently reimposed punishing sanctions. Yet, despite the resulting political pressures that have mounted in Iran, the strategy has failed to meet its ostensible goal of bringing Tehran back to the negotiating table to agree to a far more  comprehensive deal. Nor has it persuaded Iran to significantly alter its regional behavior, particularly its support for proxies that are hostile to the U.S. and Washington’s partners in the Middle East.

The main reason for this failure is not that the sanctions have lacked in intensity and rigor, but because the necessary domestic political conditions within Iran for reengaging with Washington no longer exist. Continue reading.

The meaning of Rouhani’s electoral victory for Iran’s foreign policy

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy In Focus and some other journals. 

The landslide victory of Hassan Rouhani, a moderate and pro-reform cleric, in Iran’s recent presidential election came as a surprise to many observers within and outside of Iran.

Although Rouhani’s electoral victory was a major gain for the moderate and reformist political groups -and consequently a major loss for the conservative groups in Iran- its implications are  far greater than a mere adjustment in the balance of power in Iran’s domestic politics. Restoring public trust in Iran’s electoral system can be regarded as the most important byproduct of Rouhani’s electoral victory. While a sizable portion of Iran’s population had lost faith in the integrity and fairness of Iran’s electoral system and had become alienated after the disputed 2009 presidential elections, the electoral of victory of Rouhani in his race against several conservative government-favored presidential candidates without recourse to run-off elections helped restore public trust in the electoral system and promote national reconciliation and cohesion. Although the political competition in Iran is relatively constrained, the somewhat regular rotation of executive and parliamentary power between the reformist and conservative camps over the past two decades has provided the Iranian political system with a democratic face, thus boosting its political legitimacy in the eyes of most citizens.

This has in turn led to increased security for the Iranian political system.  The unprecedented 2009 post-election protests and the continued challenges posed by the so-called Green Movement to the conservative authorities in the following months and years had created an acute sense of vulnerability for the Iranian leaders, thus resulting in an unusually paranoid rule and a highly-politicized domestic climate over much of the last four years in Iran.  The healthy and undisputed nature of Iran’s recent presidential election, along with high voter turnout, have contributed to a greater sense of security for the Iranian political system. Increased regime security is expected to translate into improved political tolerance at home and increased self-confidence in external relations by the Iranian government.  

                     

Domestic political constraints facing Rouhani

While greater regime security translates into increased self-confidence in external relations, the direction of Iran’s foreign policy will be a function of the preferences of its current political elites acting within domestic and external constraints. Although Iran’s president elect is a moderate and pro-reform politician who has promised ‘constructive engagement’ with the outside world and a more rational and calculated foreign policy, as I have noted elsewhere, “given the fragmented nature of Iran’s political system and various checks and balances therein, no radical change is produced by a mere change of president, in Iran’s domestic politics as well as in its foreign policy”. It helps to recall that “even under the simultaneous control of the executive and the legislature by the reformists in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Iran’s domestic politics and foreign policy were not radically transformed, even though some meaningful change was noticeable in some areas of foreign policy and domestic politics”.  However, “while the supreme leader has the final say on key foreign policy issues, the president may also influence those foreign policy decisions, due to his role as the elected representative of the national electorate. Generally speaking, a pragmatic or moderate president can to a certain degree moderate Iran’s foreign policy while an ultraconservative or revolutionary president can radicalize Iran’s foreign policy behavior”.

Will Rouhani be the second Khatami?

How successful Rouhani will be in exerting influence on Iran’s key foreign policy decisions as well as on issues of domestic politics remains to be seen. One tempting way to outline the prospects of Rouhani’s presidency in terms of both foreign policy and domestic politics is to compare it with the performance of former President Mohammad Khatami, whose surprise landslide victory in 1997 presidential election lead to the rise of the Iranian reform movement. While the two events are similar in some fundamental ways, they also differ in some important respects.  One of the main differences is that, having witnessed the political developments of the late 1990s and early 2000s in Iran, the Iranian conservative authorities have already gained practical experience in containing the power of reformist-controlled executive and legislative branches. This is why, unlike the landslide electoral victory of Khatami in 1997 which sent panic through the ranks of conservative political circles in Iran, the electoral victory of Rouhani has not created any noticeable fears among the conservatives. After all, Rouhani’s rise to executive power is not viewed as threatening to the foundations of the Islamic political system. In light of the above and given Rouhani’s centrist position and his trusted relationship with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Rouhani is expected to face less resistance from conservative circles in realizing his electoral promises. This would stand in sharp contrast to Khatami’s tenure which was punctuated by numerous domestic political crises.  

       

The second major difference is that Khatami predominantly ran his electoral campaign on the promises of creating a better environment for civil and political liberties at home and normalizing Iran’s foreign relations in 1997. Running against the backdrop of Rafsanjani’s two-term presidency, which was primarily devoted to promoting economic development and reconstruction, Khatami’s narrative was less prominent in his vision of a more efficient economic management. Khatami, instead, emphasized that political development should be pursued in tandem with economic development, thus achieving a balanced development. Unlike Khatami, Rouhani ran his electoral campaign both on the promises of a sound and more efficient economic management and a wiser and more ‘constructive engagement’ with the outside world. Meanwhile, he also advocated a more relaxed social and political environment at home. This difference is another reason why Rouhani is expected to face less challenges from conservative circles as compared to Khatami in realizing his plans, as a lot of his electoral promises are shared with his conservative rivals. 

             

Dealing with economic problems as first priority   

The special domestic and international circumstances facing Iran today have defined different priorities for the Iranian leadership today than in the late 1990s. This explains why Rouhani, like most of his conservative rivals, highlighted his plans for addressing the dire economic situation at home through a more efficient economic management and better relations with the outside world. It also explains why most presidential candidates were critical of Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy including his handling of the nuclear issue and attacked Saeed Jalili’s role (another conservative government-favored presidential candidate) as the chief nuclear negotiator under Ahamadinejad for being incompetent and unproductive.

The electoral victory of Rouhani thus reflects the public perception that he will be better poised than his conservative rivals to address those immediate needs. Perhaps no words better capture this sentiment than the opening lines of an editorial by a Persian-language Iranian news website, affiliated with the former Revolutionary Guards commander and a losing independent-leaning presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaee. Published right after Iran’s election results were announced, the editorial read “The defeat of the Principlists (conservatives) was necessary, even more so than daily bread! The Principlists should understand that they cannot be inefficient and at the same time expect the people to once again embrace them in droves”. The editorial reached its punch line by noting that “The people said ‘no’ to the Principlists because they cherish life and wished to send a new greeting to life. The Principlists should understand that people desire a better life more than anything else”. 

Rouhani’s electoral victory and the general consensus among the Iranian political elites today on the need to address Iran’s economic problems as the first priority and to pursue a more calculated and rational foreign policy, however, should not be understood to mean that Iran is willing to  suspend its core uranium enrichment activities. What it signifies however is that Iran is more determined now to address Western concerns about its nuclear activities and to build further international trust in its nuclear program in return for lifting Western economic sanctions and recognizing its peaceful nuclear activities. As Rouhani stated in his post-election press conference, there are a variety of mutual confidence-building measures, short of suspending nuclear enrichment activities, that Iran is willing to engage in to help build further international trust in its nuclear program, provided that Western powers are committed to genuine reciprocity vis-à-vis Iran. While Iran’s new elected president has declared to be open to ‘constructive engagement’ with Western powers over Iran’s nuclear issue, the Iranian leadership  is expected to be realistic as before in its expectations of Western powers to respond in kind to its new overtures. This is why the main pillar of Iran’s multi-pronged strategy in its current standoff with the West over its nuclear issue is expected to be continued national resistance through immunizing its economy to Western economic pressures by taking a variety of economic measures to reduce dependency on oil revenues, foster economic growth and curtail unnecessary imports.     

Iran's upcoming presidential election and the future course of its nuclear issue

Iranians are going to the polls to elect a new president on Friday, June 14^th. Many wonder whether and how Iran’s upcoming presidential election will affect its foreign policy, mainly the future course of its nuclear issue, as well as its domestic politics,. The following interview with Abolghasem Bayyenat, an independent political analyst covering Iran’s foreign policy developments ,conducted for El Mercurio newspaper,  sheds lights on these questions.       

Jean Palou; Why is the upcoming Iranian presidential election so important? If Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the authority who takes the key decisions in the country, what is the significance of the President?

Abolghasem Bayyenat; Iran is a major actor in a volatile region of the world, that is capable of influencing regional developments. Any change in the top leadership of Iran thus draws interest and attention from regional countries and beyond.  The special domestic economic and political circumstances as well as the precarious regional political conditions facing the Iranian leadership today all add to the importance of Iran’s upcoming presidential election for both Iranian citizens and interested foreign observes.

Who controls the executive in Iran has an important bearing on the balance of power between various political forces in the country. The president controls substantial resources and is in charge of managing the national economy and implementing foreign policy, among others. While the supreme leader has the final say on key foreign policy issues, the president may also influence those foreign policy decisions, due to his role as the elected representative of the national electorate. Generally speaking, a pragmatic or moderate president can to a certain degree moderate Iran’s foreign policy while an ultraconservative or revolutionary president can radicalize Iran’s foreign policy behavior.

Jean Palou; Does it matter that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not represented in this election? What will happen to Ahmadinejad after the election, given that his candidate, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, has been disqualified, and he has challenged in some way the authority of Khamenei?

Abolghasem Bayyenat; Ahmadinejad has lost much of his popularity over the last two years because of the economic crisis plaguing the country, including rampant inflation and sharp currency depreciation, caused in part by his economic mismanagement and Western economic sanctions. Due to his dismal economic legacy and his falling out of favor with Khamenei and his supporters over other issues, it has become too costly for presidential candidates to associate themselves with Ahmadinejad. Most of presidential candidates have, to varying degrees, distanced themselves from much of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies and his confrontational rhetoric in foreign policy. Although Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Ahmadinejad’s close aide, has been barred from running in the upcoming presidential election, there is at least one main figure among the existing presidential candidates who largely embraces Ahmadinejad’s main foreign policy posture, built largely on fierce resistance against imperial powers. Ahmadinejad is expected to retire from politics for now and gradually fall into oblivion along with much of his economic legacy when his current tenure comes to an end in the next few months. However, it is possible, though not very probable, that he will try to make a comeback to politics by running in the next parliamentary or presidential elections after he has met the constitutional term limits by staying out of presidential race for one term. 

   

Jean Palou; What happened to the Green movement? Is a similar movement thinkable this time?

Abolghasem Bayyenat; The Green Movement has lost much of its relevance and has become detached from its popular base in light of new political realities in Iran. It no longer represents a potent social or political force as it once used to do in its heyday and can best be viewed as being associated with some Iranian expatriate intellectual circles. The setup of the current presidential race is not expected to reproduce the conditions leading to the rise of the Green Movement in 2009. Great care has been taken to prevent the polarization of the political atmosphere along reformist and conservative lines in this election season. The presidential race is fought as much among conservative politicians themselves as it is fought between the reformist and conservative presidential candidates. The most immediate priority of the public is rescuing the economy and restoring stability and predictability to the economic environment rather than indulging on ideological rhetoric. As such, there is little room for mobilizing the masses on the scale of the 2009 presidential elections as most of the presidential candidates concur on the more efficient management of the economy and a wiser interaction with the outside world with a view to avoiding unwarranted costs for Iran’s national interests . What divide the presidential candidates are largely their different views of the constituent elements of a sound economic strategy and appropriate tactics regarding Iran’s nuclear issue, rather than diametrically opposed conceptions of public goals and national interests capable of polarizing the Iranian society.

Jean Palou; Considering the eight candidates in the race, could we expect a change in Iran’s politics? Or will be the same?

Abolghasem Bayyenat; In light of the above, and given the fragmented nature of Iran’s political system and various checks and balances therein, including direct and indirect oversight by the supreme leader over the entire political system, which all work to limit the power of the president and other elected political institutions, no radical change is expected to be brought about, by a change of president, in Iran’s domestic politics as well as in its foreign policy. Even under the simultaneous control of the executive and the legislature by the reformists in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Iran’s domestic politics and foreign policy were not radically transformed, even though some meaningful change was noticeable in some areas of foreign policy and domestic politics. However, given the economic and political realities in Iran today as well as the beliefs of the presidential candidates, the victory of nearly any presidential candidate, whether reformist or conservative, in the upcoming election is expected to result in some level of moderation, even if only in tone, in Iran’s foreign policy and a more rational and conventional management of Iran’s economy, thus representing a shift from Ahmadinejad’s revolutionary-style foreign policy and unconventional and populist economic policies.  While there is a general consensus among Iranian political elites on Iran’s core position on its nuclear issue, whether a reformist or a conservative candidate is elected as Iran’s next president may also have a significant bearing on how Iran’s current standoff with the West over its nuclear issue will evolve over the next four years and beyond.

Jean Palou; What is your opinion of Saeed Jalili, who seems to be the leading candidate in the elections? Is he a hard liner politician?

Abolghasem Bayyenat; Saeed Jalili was little known in Iran before being thrown into the spotlight following his appointment as secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council by president Ahmadinejad and as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, virtually by default . He has not been involved in any partisan politics and has held no ministerial-level executive position in the past, a fact which works both as an advantage and a disadvantage for him in this election. Largely due to his unyielding stance on Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West, Jalili has gained, among some religious and political circles in Iran, the reputation of an authentic revolutionary official, and as such as more in harmony with Khamenei. He is viewed to best represent the ideals of the Islamic revolution in foreign policy, founded mainly on resistance against Western colonial powers and defending the Islamic ummah and oppressed nations. If elected as president, Jalili is expected to continue Iran’s existing foreign policy, albeit perhaps with a less controversial style, while enhancing domestic capacities for a self-reliant economy, capable of sustaining his favored foreign policy. Among the existing presidential candidates, Jalili can thus be regarded as closest to Ahamdinejad’s ideological line, and if elected as president, his presidency can be viewed, by and large, as the second iteration of Ahamadinejad’s term, at least on foreign policy grounds.  

Jean Palou; What could the next Iranian President do to calm down the foreign pressure against Teheran?

Abolghasem Bayyenat; In order to reduce Western economic pressures, the next Iranian President can intensify the ongoing diplomatic engagement with Western powers to find a mutually-satisfactory solution to Iran’s nuclear issue. Iran could take a variety of confidence-building measures to build further trust in the exclusively-peaceful nature of its nuclear issue. This could work if Western powers were ready to recognize Iran’s rights under the NPT to the peaceful use of nuclear technology and accept its core uranium enrichment activities while taking reciprocal measures to relieve their economic sanctions against Iran. In parallel, Iran could also build mutual trust with major Arab countries in the region by expanding its economic and political ties with them and mitigating their security concerns about its nuclear capabilities and regional intentions. 

But no amount of cooperation and flexibility by Iran is guaranteed to secure a diplomatic agreement with a party already bent on pursuing a confrontational path through intensifying economic sanctions and issuing military threats against Iran. This is why the next Iranian president would have to adopt various measures to further immunize his country to Western economic pressures. Undertaking ambitious economic reforms to foster economic growth and stability, reduce dependence on oil revenues, curtail unnecessary imports, and encourage domestic production are necessary steps to minimize vulnerabilities to Western economic pressures and to protect Iran’s much-valued national honor and political independence.                                 

* Jean Palou is a journalist for El Mercurio newspaper in Santiago, Chile.

Western economic sanctions and Iran's survival strategy

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy In Focus, Asia Times, Eurasia Review, Middle East Online, Foreign Policy Journal and Online Opinion.  

It is by now common knowledge that Western-imposed economic sanctions on Iran have detrimental impacts on the Iranian economy. In fact, Iranian officials have long since shifted their public statements from outright denial to explicit acknowledgement of the effect of sanctions on Iran’s economy. They have, for instance, acknowledged that sanctions were partly to blame for Iran’s recent currency depreciation as well as its rampant inflation.

On what regards the impact of sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, Western media have reported  a loss of over $50 billion in oil revenues by Iran over the last year, an estimate which Iranian officials have so far been reluctant to acknowledge. Although, according to some sources, Iran’s petroleum minister recently reported the loss of around $40 billion in oil revenues over the last nine months, his ministry’s spokesman swiftly dismissed the report as unfounded,  a fact which indicates the controversial nature of the issue. Regardless of the existing controversy over the degree of effectiveness of Western sanctions on Iran, they have won the praise of Israeli officials who have generally been skeptical of the effectiveness of non-military options towards Iran. Heartened by Iran’s recent sharp currency depreciation, the Israeli finance minister went even so far as to characterize the Iranian economy as on the verge of collapse.      

Insofar as the economic effectiveness of Western sanctions is concerned, it is safe to conclude that they have partly contributed to the sharp rise in the price of commodities and other consumer goods in Iran, thus eroding the general welfare of ordinary Iranians and may create further economic hardships for them down the road, if not mitigated. In the longer run, Western-imposed sanctions may also significantly undermine the capacity of the Iranian government to provide public welfare programs and other social services to its people by cutting its revenues and hindering its capacity to engage in financial transactions with foreign countries to import necessary foodstuffs and medicine.

Whether Western crippling economic sanctions will meet their ostensible political goal of bringing change in Iran’s nuclear position is a different story. Although initially advertised as ‘targeted’ and ‘smart’ aimed only at disrupting Iran’s nuclear procurements and to deny it financing sources for its nuclear program, it has become increasingly difficult for Western officials to sweep under the rug the indiscriminate and ‘dumb’ nature of their crippling sanctions on Iran. The extent and depth of current Western economic sanctions cannot fail to reveal the fact that they are geared toward pressuring the Iranian government by inflicting economic hardships on ordinary Iranians in the hope of inciting public discontent and possible revolts against it.    

What is clear is that crippling economic sanctions on Iran have not yet produced the Western-desired outcome of economic collapse and public revolts in Iran or otherwise a substantial change in Iran’s nuclear posture. Finding itself the target of an economic onslaught of unprecedented scale by Western powers, Iran pursues its own three-pronged strategy to survive and emerge victorious. Iran’s survival strategy consists of economic, diplomatic and psychological dimensions.        

On the economic front, Iran’s strategy is geared toward rendering the sanctions ineffective or minimizing their adverse effects on its general population. For example, anticipating the US plan to impose gasoline embargo on it in recent years, the Iranian government moved in advance to produce extra gasoline domestically by shifting the operations of a number of its petrochemical complexes to gasoline production. Iran also adopted price measures to effectively curb domestic gasoline consumption thus obviating the need for gasoline imports. In other areas, Iran’s economic strategy has taken the form of government intervention in the market to regulate and control prices. The recent measure by the Iranian government to establish a parallel currency exchange center was meant to stifle further currency depreciation by providing alternative sources of foreign currency supply for imports and other needs. In similar crisis situations, it is expected that the Iranian government will intervene more forcefully in the market by taking over some economic activities, imposing stricter price regulations and, if push comes to shove, rationing essential commodities. To these measures, one should also add a variety of initiatives to curb inessential imports, encourage domestic production as well as bypass the sanctions.                          

On the diplomatic front, Iran has left the door open for a face-saving compromise over its nuclear program. Although it is unimaginable that the Iranian government would compromise its core right of nuclear enrichment under the NPT in light of both the principled beliefs of Iranian political elites and the social costs involved in pursuing such an option, Iran possesses the necessary bargaining chips, short of suspending its core nuclear enrichment activities, to reach a deal with Western powers to achieve at least a partial removal of the sanctions. Suspending its 20-percent level nuclear enrichment activities, providing further transparency on its nuclear activities in cooperation with the IAEA and implementing the IAEA Additional Protocol are among such bargaining chips.   

 

On the psychological front, Iranian officials are well aware that economic hardships do not automatically and mechanically produce public revolt against the government. What is obviously more important than the scope of objective economic hardships is how they are perceived by the general public in Iran.  Iranian officials have made their best effort to convince their general public of the logic of their resistance against Western pressures on their nuclear program and to encourage them to make sacrifices in the face of sanctions-induced economic hardships. As I have noted elsewhere, the general Iranian public are presented with the official narrative that economic hardships are the price that they need to pay to safeguard their political independence. Western demands on Iran’s nuclear program are represented as illogical and discriminatory and thus must be resisted. Adopting this attitude naturally defines a higher tolerance threshold for average Iranians in the face of sanctions-induced economic hardships.

On top of the above factors, the self-sustained nature of Iran’s economy, which is capable of producing most of its own commodities and consumer durable goods, Iran’s geographical location, which provides numerous outlets  to the outside world and gives it potential control over the strategic region of the Persian Gulf, as well as its political influence in the greater Middle East region, which gives it a degree of deterrence against its adversaries in the event of heightened confrontations, all seem to give Iranian officials confidence that they will be able to weather the storm of crippling economic sanctions. 

The West's unrealistic optimism on Iran sanctions

The full text of this article is accessible through this blog on the World Politics Review. Reprint of this article is subject to the rules of the World Politics Review.   

The latest round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries came to a stalemate in Moscow last week, as the two sides once again failed to bridge their differences. Although the previous meeting in Istanbul generated some optimism that a mutually satisfactory solution to Iran’s nuclear program could be within reach, these hopes turned out to be premature in light of the negotiating positions the parties have taken over the past several months.

It is now obvious that Western powers were wrong to expect that increased unilateral economic sanctions on Iran could effect some change in Iran’s negotiating position and thus realize some of the West’s tactical, if not strategic, goals with regard to the country’s nuclear program. Specifically, the U.S. and its allies had hoped that Iran would agree to at least suspend its 20 percent uranium enrichment activities, ship its current stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium abroad and close its Fordo uranium enrichment center, all in return for fuel rods for Tehran’s nuclear research reactor and some other sweeteners, such as a lifting of the embargo on civilian aircraft parts. Continue reading.

Future of nuclear talks between Iran and P5+1

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy In Focus, Online Opinion, Foreign Policy Journal, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Eurasia Review and a number of other online journals .

The first round of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries concluded in Istanbul last weekend with a rare expression of optimism and satisfaction by both parties. The two parties characterized their talks as constructive and positive and agreed to resume their negotiations next month in Baghdad. There were several indications over the past few months that the new round of nuclear talks between Iran the P5+1 countries was going to be different than the previous talks held also in Istanbul in January 2011. The letter of Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili to his European counterpart Catherine Ashton on February 14 provided the main ground for such optimism, mainly because he refrained from using any language that would give the impression of non-negotiability of any aspect of Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities, unlike some of his previous communications.

The cautious optimism expressed soon thereafter by both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton on Jalili’s letter at their joint meeting in Washington further strengthened such expectations. To further feed into such optimism, more recently, Iranian officials also expressed hope that the new nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries would be different than the previous talks and that the scheduled meeting would mark a step forward in resolving the remaining issues between the two parties. In a rare act of public diplomacy of this sort by an Iranian political official, Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi published an opinion article in Washington Post two days before the nuclear negotiators were to meet in Istanbul, emphasizing the need for building mutual trust between Iran and the United States, while advising the parties to have realistic expectations of the upcoming talks between Iran and the Western powers, noting that the differences between the parties cannot be bridged overnight.

While welcoming this optimistic ambience, both parties recognize that they have yet to agree on specific concrete measures aimed at building mutual confidence on a host of issues of common concern. As both chief nuclear negotiators have announced, last weekend they were able to agree on a general framework founded on reciprocity and a step-by-step approach as guiding principles of their future negotiations, while taking into account the rights and obligations of all parties under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iranian officials have made it clear that the next rounds of talks should also aim at removing the unilateral Western oil and financial sanctions on Iran. While crippling unilateral economic sanctions, imposed by Western powers on Iran, have provided them with more bargaining chips vis-à-vis Iran, it should not be assumed that Iran will negotiate from a position of weakness in future talks with the West. In fact, it is a general belief among Iranian officials that Iran is in a stronger position compared to the previous talks which were held in January 2011 in Istanbul. As the head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament Alaeddin Boroujerdi recently stated, Iran’s success in enriching uranium to 20 percent level and producing its own nuclear fuel for Tehran Research Reactor as well as improved internal political stability in Iran since the June 2009 disputed presidential elections have all increased Iran’s bargaining power vis-à-vis Western powers as compared to the previous round of talks in January 2011.

The existing atmosphere of optimism between the two parties should not and does not obscure the fact that there are major hurdles on the path to reaching a lasting solution to Iran’s nuclear issue. It should go without saying that, like any other negotiation, setting unrealistic goals for the upcoming nuclear talks between Iran and the Western powers will kill off any chance for a compromise between the two parties. Yet, in practice determining the negotiating baseline of the other party is not always a straightforward task and the parties may end up miscalculating the capacity of the other party for compromise.

There are sufficient reasons to be concerned that the Western party may be misreading Iran’s potential for compromise on its nuclear issue in the upcoming talks. Catherine Ashton’s letter of March 6, 2012 to Saeed Jalili provided the first signs of such a possible miscalculation. While highlighting the need for confidence-building measures in the upcoming talks, Ashton wrote, “these confidence-building steps should form first elements of a phased approach which would eventually lead to a full settlement between us, involving the full implementation by Iran of UNSC and IAEA Board of Governors’ resolutions”. In this letter, Ashton sets “the full implementation of UNSC resolutions” by Iran as the ultimate goal of future nuclear talks with Iran thus ignoring the fact that Iran considers the UNSC resolutions, which call for the suspension of nuclear enrichment and other related activities by Iran, as unlawful, violating its obvious and fundamental rights under the NPT. If Ashton’s statement truly represents the baseline of the negotiating position of the Western party and is not just a negotiating tactic, it would not be far-fetched to predict the ultimate collapse of the upcoming talks.

Failure to give equal weight to the concerns of the other party and to create an atmosphere of mutual respect and reciprocity is another possible scenario which may undermine the chances for a compromise between the two parties. Despite some lip service paid to the principles of mutual respect and equality, practical commitment to these principles is largely lacking in the official discourse of Western officials toward Iran. Ashton’s remarks on Iran at a press conference in Istanbul represents a general mindset among Western officials that is in part responsible for a relationship between Iran and the West plagued with mistrust, hostility and crisis over the past three decades and so . In her interview, Ashton stated that the Istanbul talks is “an important opportunity for Iran to discuss with the E3 +3 to try and find ways through our concerns about the nuclear weapons program that we believe Iran is moving towards”. “What we are here to do is to find ways in which we can build confidence between us and ways in which we can demonstrate that Iran is moving away from a nuclear weapons program" she continued. In these controversial remarks, Ashton not only took it for granted that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program, an accusation which the IAEA has not been able to verify despite years of intensive and rigorous inspection and investigation, but also implicitly likens the negotiations to a virtual tribunal where Iran would have to answer Western concerns.

One may argue that the type of language and demeanor used by Western officials toward Iran reflects the reality of material power disparity between Iran and the Western powers and that such an approach has characterized the relationships of unequal powers since the beginning of history. Yet it is simply anachronous in the 21st century to allow the language of diplomatic communications to be reduced to such realist considerations, if not for anything but for being counterproductive and creating resistance and resentment by the other party, especially if the other party happens to be a proud nation like Iran. Iran prides itself for having several thousand years of history as a civilized nation pioneering in arts, science and literature throughout much of its long history, a fact which has deeply influenced Iran’s relations with other states. There is no doubt that many Iranian officials also have a lot to learn about how to properly address Western audiences, but it is also unfortunate that after more than thirty years since the Iranian revolution, which transformed the official political culture of Iran, many Western officials have not yet developed a solid understanding of how to properly and effectively communicate with Iranian political officials.

For instance, it should have been evident from very early on that any explicit or implicit display of superiority is destined to put off high Iranian political officials. A look into the statements of Iranian officials on the recent nuclear talks in Istanbul provides some fresh examples of such Iranian sensitivity to equality and justice in interstate relations. While describing the talks as constructive and positive, Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili countered Ashton’s language of superiority by stating that the West should restore the trust of the Iranian nation as part of the ongoing nuclear talks between the two parties. Similarly, it helps to note that the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi used seven times the phrases “mutual respect” and “as equals” in his recent short opinion article in Washington Post, a fact which also demonstrates Iranian obsession with equality in interstate relations. In light of the above and given the deep roots of principles of equality and mutual respect in the post-revolutionary political culture of Iran, the success of the future nuclear talks between Iran and the West will depend in part on how far both the language and practice of Western powers toward Iran honestly reflect those principles.

Ironies of Israeli military threats and Western economic sanctions against Iran

This article is simultaneously published in Online Opinion and Foreign Policy Journal.

Over the past several weeks, Iran’s nuclear program has occupied a central place in the reports of mainstream Western media and demonization of Iran has reached new levels along with that. Suspicions and speculations about Iran’s nuclear program continue to be presented as undisputable facts and the military threat of a hypothetically nuclear-armed Iran is magnified out of proportions. Constant reports of imminent Israeli military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities are working to remove the stigma around that and gradually habituate the world public opinion to such an illegal and adventurous military action by Israel or the U.S.

These developments are indeed reminiscent of the propaganda campaigns of mainstream American media in the prelude to the U.S. war on Iraq in 2003, psychologically preparing domestic and international public opinions for the catastrophes that were soon going to be unleashed under the leadership of the former president of the only superpower of the world, George W. Bush. While excelling in the arts of distortion, the dominant discourse of the mainstream Western media on Iran has also worked effectively to push out of public sight some of the basic facts about Iran and Israel.

At the risk of stating the obvious for many, reminding a few facts are in order in the midst of the ongoing media attention to Iran’s nuclear program. Many tend to forget the blatant fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reiterated many times, including in its latest periodic report, that there is no evidence that Iran’s nuclear program has been diverted to military purposes and that it has continued to verify the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities. It also tends to be forgotten that all Iran’s nuclear facilities are under constant surveillance and monitoring by the IAEA and that there is no possibility of military diversion of Iran’s nuclear activities without it being discovered by the IAEA enough in advance to prevent such a hypothetical scenario. Another fact which tends to be ignored is that possessing nuclear fuel cycle technology is not equal to having the capacity to build nuclear bombs and that producing nuclear weapons requires many other components and technologies than just being able to enrich uranium.

What also tends to remain out of sight is the fact that many other countries in the world also possess far more advanced and extensive nuclear enrichment facilities than Iran, without raising any hysteria for Western governments. It also tends to be forgotten that, as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is entitled to peaceful nuclear technology, including full nuclear fuel cycle. The current Western double standards towards Iran, a country which has been in no material breach of its obligations under the NPT despite being subject to a series of disproportionate illegal punitive sanctions by the UN Security Council, and a country which has never launched any military attacks against any country in its modern history and has actually been a forgotten victim of weapons of mass-destruction by Saddam’s regime, can not be justified on any legal or moral grounds.

On the other hand, the current mainstream Western media campaigns, including their reports of imminent Israeli military attacks on Iran, apart from their habituating and naturalizing effects, also have the effect of exonerating the Israeli regime itself and ignoring the genuine threat that it poses to regional peace and stability. Thanks to mainstream Western media campaigns and the political maneuvering of Israeli and Western political leaders, world attention has effectively been diverted from the more fundamental issues of the continued Israeli occupation of Palestine and its monopoly of nuclear weapons in the region.

It is indeed one of the greatest ironies of today’s world politics that a large arsenal of nuclear weapons in the hands of Israel, a country with an obvious record of military aggression against several of its neighbors and its refusal to subject its nuclear facilities to international monitoring and to join the NPT, has fallen into total oblivion while the threat of a non-existent nuclear weapons program by Iran has been blown out of proportions. Iran has been characterized as too unreliable and irresponsible to be allowed to possess peaceful civilian nuclear technology while Israel, a regime which has proven to be wiling to unleash its entire military force to pound the whole civilian infrastructure of a neighboring country and murdering thousands of its people only for the capture of one or two of its border guards, a regime that has driven millions of Palestinians out of their homes, occupying their lands for more than half a century and virtually incarcerating in open-air prisons those who have dared to stay, has been permitted to build and maintain a large arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Presenting the threat of Israeli military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities as real and genuine, in the event Western powers fail to apply effective pressure on Iran, has also helped Western politicians justify and gain political support for imposing further crippling economic sanctions on Iran. Crippling economic sanctions are publicly advertised by Western political leaders as an alternative to a military confrontation with Iran. But these representations fail to hide the fact that crippling economic sanctions are themselves a declaration of war on Iran. There should be no question that imposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran and threatening to cut off its economic lifeline is the gateway to and a recipe for an ultimate military confrontation in the strategic region of the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East and beyond.

The logic of crippling economic sanctions is also as morally bankrupt as the logic of al-Qaeda and its likes. According to U.N. agencies, the crippling economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Iraq in the 1990s sent an estimated half a million Iraqi children to their graves. Imposing expanded crippling economic sanctions on Iran is expected to claim far more civilian tolls, if sustained over a long period. Inflicting economic hardships on civilians, including women and children, with the aim of changing the behavior of the Iranian government will have adverse effects by feeding into the official anti-imperialist discourse in Iran. It will also feed into more extremist ideologies in the region, legitimize terrorism against Western countries and fuel further anti-American sentiments in the Muslim world, thus creating more security challenges for the U.S. and other Western powers in the longer run.

Whatever the costs for U.S. national interests, American political leaders seem determined to outbid each other in projecting themselves as more loyal protectors of Israeli vested interests. It was in line with this fact that President Obama, in his recent State of the Union address, reiterated his ‘iron-clad commitment’ to the security of Israel, without even bothering to remember the natural rights of Palestinians to dignity and free life. Obama’s current strategy towards Iran contradicts his calls for change and his cautions against exaggerating the military threat of Iran in 2008 presidential campaigns as well as in the first year of his presidency, but it shows his capacity to quickly internalize one of the key laws of survival in the American political system by presenting himself as the most steadfast champion of Israeli interests. 　

U.S. sanctions and the economic realities of Iran

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy Journal, Middle East Online, Online Opinion and American Chronicle. 

The recent IMF report on Iran economy has ruffled feathers in the West by presenting a positive assessment of the economic reforms undertaken by the Iranian government and drawing an optimistic outlook of Iran’s economic growth. The IMF has particularly lauded Iran’s much-fretted subsidy reform, which removed around 100 billion dollars worth of mainly energy subsidies late last year, noting “The subsidy reform is expected to increase efficiency and competitiveness of the economy, improve income distribution, reduce poverty, and help Iran unlock its full growth potential”. The report also highlights that “cash transfers, financed out of the revenues arising from the energy price increases, were instrumental in supporting domestic demand, improving income distribution, and reducing poverty”.

It is not the first time that the IMF has presented a moderately positive assessment of Iran’s economic outlook. In previous years, the IMF also positively evaluated structural economic reforms undertaken by the Iranian government in the form of privatization, reducing the role of the government in economic activities and liberalizing the prices of energy and agricultural products. However, the latest IMF report on Iran’s economy has received wide negative reactions from different quarters in the West. Some mainstream American media lambasted the IMF assessment of Iran’s economy for ignoring what they consider to be “the dire reality of Iran's economy, weighed down by strict international sanctions, mismanagement and inefficiencies”.

While some of these negative characterizations of Iran’s economy are no doubt warranted, as Iran’s economy still suffers from a host of structural problems and lack of political consensus among the elites on certain economic goals and policies, they do not represent the whole reality about Iran’s economy. It can hardly be disputed that Iran has daringly undertaken major economic reforms over the past several years which have the potential to give enormous boost to Iran’s economy in the longer run. These reforms, albeit undertaken out of necessity rather than a principled commitment to market economy principles, have already provided positive stimulus to Iran’s economy and are expected to add more efficiency to it in the longer run.

Massive privatization of state-owned enterprises over the past several years, which had hitherto justified the state sponsorship of major economic activities, have been the hallmark of economic reforms in Iran, which was enabled after the reinterpretation of the relevant provisions of Iran’s constitution and following authorization by the highest political decision-making bodies in Iran. According to the Iran Privatization Organization, over the past five years 589 state-owned companies with nearly 83 billion dollars worth of shares have been privatized. Although the process of privatization in Iran has been influenced by factors other than growth and efficiency considerations, such as redistributive justice, and, as the IMF also recognized in 2008, due to “the lack of large private investors, many government-owned entities have been acquired through non-cash or deferred settlements by quasi-public sector institutions”, some of the privatized companies, mainly those in the telecommunication sector, have already recorded positive growth following their privatization.

Iran’s non-oil sector has also increasingly been contributing to the country’s economic growth in recent years. Although Iran’s vast, yet still largely protected, domestic market has historically acted as a disincentive for the expansion of non-oil exports, the privatization of state-owned companies, especially those in the energy and manufactures sectors, seem to have accounted for a boost to Iran’s non-oil exports in recent years. Given that petrochemical products have come to comprise the lion’s share of Iran’s non-oil exports, it seems plausible to attribute the surge in Iran’s non-oil exports in part to the privatization of state-owned enterprises in recent years .

As illustrated in the following chart, in a steady sharp rise over the past six years, Iran’s non-oil exports have more than quadrupled, increasing from 6.4 billion dollars in 2004 to 26.3 billion dollars by the end of 2010.

While oil exports still account for the large bulk of Iran’s foreign exchange revenues in light of high oil prices in recent years, the share of non-oil products in Iran’s total exports has steadily been increasing over the past several years to the point that it now accounts for close to 30 percent of Iran’s total exports.

Privatization and other economic reforms also seem to have played a role in improving Iran’s chance for attracting foreign direct investment. Despite a drastic fall in the world’s total FDI inflow in recent years, UNCTAD’s World Investment Reports show that the total FDI inflow to Iran has increased nearly 13 fold over the past six years. As illustrated in the chart below, after two years of no growth in attracting FDI, FDI inflow to Iran has sharply risen again since 2008, thus registering a growth rate of 86 percent in 2009 and a 20-percent growth rate in 2010.

Although the volume of FDI inflows to Iran is still modest as compared to the volume of FDI inflow to some other developing countries, including some of Iran’s regional competitors such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, it clearly demonstrates Iran’s improved capacity to attract foreign direct investment.

On the morality of economic sanctions against Iran: INTERVIEW Part II

Kourosh Ziabari: Over the past years, the United Nations Security Council, under the pressure of the United States and its European allies, imposed four rounds of crippling economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. These sanctions targeted Iran's oil and gas sector, aviation industry, health and medicine sector, consular affairs and in a nutshell, every aspect of the daily life of the Iranian citizens who had been trying to rise from the ashes of the devastating war with Iraq in 1980s. What do you think about these sanctions and their impact on the life of the Iranian citizens? Don't these sanctions resemble some kind of human rights violation? Iranian people are deprived of having access to the most essential commodities of their daily life as a result of these sanctions. What's your take on that?

Abolghasem Bayyenat: The sanctions against Iran have publicly been represented by Western powers as selective and targeted measures with the aim of only pressuring the Iranian government to reconsider its position on its nuclear issue. This public image has been promoted to avoid a public opinion backlash against Western governments. The experience of the U.S. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, which contributed to a humanitarian catastrophe in that country whereby hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children reportedly perished as a result of malnutrition and shortage of medicines and other medical supplies exacerbated by the U.S. sanctions, had created public aversion to the use of sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy. Despite Western governments' rejection of any analogy between their current sanctions against Iran and those imposed on Iraq in the 1990s, the reality is that Western governments have set their feet on the same path especially by introducing unilateral sanctions against Iran.

Many of the measures adopted against Iran, such as those targeting Iran's energy sector, civil aviation and maritime transportation, among others, are indiscriminate by nature and have impacts much wider than that publicly advertised by Western governments. They are designed to inflict collective punishment on the whole country with the ostensible aim of pressuring the Iranian government. As such, they are contrary to international law and international moral principles as established and advocated by Western governments themselves.

To have a better sense of the impact of the Western sanctions on the general population of Iran, we can take a look at the sanctions imposed against Iran's energy sector as an example. The stated goal of these measures is to deprive Iran from its principal source of revenue over time by prohibiting foreign investments in its oil and natural gas sectors and disrupting Iran's international financial transactions in these products. Western governments justify these measures by arguing that revenues emanating from oil exports and the sale of other energy products help Iran finance its nuclear program. However, the reality is that while a fraction of Iran's foreign exchange revenues may also be channeled to finance Iran's nuclear program, Western governments tend to ignore the fact that these same revenues also account for the bulk of Iran's public budget which helps finance public health services, public education, subsidized food for the poor and many other social services programs.

Around 80 percent of Iran's foreign exchange revenues come from the export of energy products and any long-term disruption of such revenues can seriously hamper the Iranian government's capacity to provide public services to its people. Western governments may rejoice at this prospect but they would be disappointed to find out that this will have minimal impact on the resolution of Iran's nuclear issue. The Iranian government will be able to continue financing its nuclear program as it does not constitute a substantial item on the government budget and the public anger at the disruption of social services will also be directed at the West rather than the Iranian government. Other Western sanctions against Iran such as those targeting civil aviation and maritime transportation sectors also have the effect of inflicting a collective punishment upon the general population of Iran without making any meaningful contribution to the resolution of Iran's nuclear issue.