Orkhan Sattarov, head of the European Bureau of Vestnik Kavkaza
The recent progress on the path to a settlement of the Iranian nuclear problem encourages optimism. However, can we say the epoch of isolation of Iran is coming to an end, cancellation of sanctions is a matter of time, and soon a political architecture of the Middle East will change radically?
Not everybody felt optimism about the agreements with Iran from the very beginning. Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu stated at the General Assembly of the UN that Rouhani “is a wolf in lamb’s clothing”, who is a more dangerous politician than his predecessor. To a large extent normalization of relations with the West was a forced step for Rouhani. Sanctions against Iran imposed by the UN and the USA and the EU appeared to be a heavy load for the Iranian economy. A drop in living standards, price growth and inflation could cause social fallout, and Rouhani understood this. For him, cancellation or at least dilution of sanctions turned into a question of political survival. However, whether Rouhani considers rapprochement with the West as a general course or a least-evil solution is an unanswered question. And how far is he ready to go? The Iranian President has rather serious functions, but Rouhani is not head of state to a full extent. Supreme power belongs to the Spiritual Leader of the country – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At the moment he is supporting Rouhani’s policy, but if the President crosses a line of acceptable concessions, the Islamic leadership has a lot of opportunities to stop reforms.
And here we should recall the sad experience of the late 1990s, when Mohammad Hatami won the presidential elections in Iran. After his victory the world began to talk about Iranian “reformers.” Hatami made incredible steps for the time. He gave interviews to the American mass media, speaking about “a dialogue of civilizations,” hinted at the possibility of foreign political concessions, and began reforming internal life of Iran. Hatami was declared the “Iranian Gorbachev”; experts discussed a new political architecture in the Middle East.
Soon it appeared that the experts were out over skis. No visible progress in the internal and foreign policy of Iran was made. The Iranian conservative “mullahcration” didn’t let Hatami modernize the country. At the same time, the West made it clear that the time of “advances” and “gifts” had come to an end. Washington wouldn't launch new sanctions against Iran, but that’s all. Yes, the USA cancelled sanctions against the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company of Iran, but recently Washington announced a blacklist of companies which had broken active sanctions against Iran. John Kerry warned the world business against optimism on a release of the Iranian market. Sanctions are still operating, and if Tehran breaks the agreements signed in Geneva new sanctions will be launched against Iran.
Moreover, obviously even Washington has no free will. First of all, Barack Obama has to consider a negative reaction by his Middle East allies, first of all, Israel. The oil monarchies of the Gulf, first of all Saudi Arabia, are concerned about the prospect of a warming of relations between the USA and Iran. Tehran and Riyadh have always competed in the region, but Washington reined in the confrontation, when Iran was an American ally. Today the situation is different. Soon after the Islamic Revolution a war between Iran and Iraq burst out. Today the interests of Riyadh and Tehran are crossed in Yemen, Lebanon, and Bahrain.
However, the strongest confrontation takes place in Syria. Considering the situation in Ukraine, we cannot exclude a limited military operation of American troops against the regime of President Bashar Assad, who is supported by Iran and Russia. Any sharp steps by the Americans against Damascus could directly strike supporters of the American-Iranian rapprochement in Iran. Thus, warming of relations between the West and Iran could suffer from a new stage of American-Russian contradictions in Ukraine.
In this context obviously Obama has less space for a maneuver than Iran would want. At the same time, Rouhani can act only within strict limits permitted by Ayatollah. The USA expects wide-scale steps from Rouhani, but whether Spiritual Leader of Iran is ready for them, nobody knows.
