Negotiations to reactivate nuclear pact exacerbate power struggle in Iran | International

The Vienna nuclear talks have exacerbated the power struggle that characterizes politics in Iran. While the most immobile sectors of the regime chant “they won’t move us”, the most pragmatic the damage of the sanctions is agitated in search of a consensus which will allow the problem to be solved. The tensions felt by the negotiators are reflected in the letter that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Javad Zarif, wrote to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, asking for his support. Also, the leak of an interview in which Zarif confesses his powerlessness in the face of the preeminence of the Revolutionary Guards over the government.

“In the Islamic Republic, the military is in control,” Zarif says in a recording that was not intended for publication and in which he also assures us that the Revolutionary Guards often overrule government decisions and ignore their advice. . The minister claims that General Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Guard expeditionary force assassinated by the United States in January 2020, has undermined his work on numerous occasions, although he also expresses his admiration for him.

There is no big news in the content of the leaked documents, as part of a seven-hour conversation with economist Saeed Leylaz for an oral history project on Hasan Rohaní’s presidency, to which all ministers participate. Any observer knows that the Revolutionary Guards are the power that sustains the Iranian theocracy. However, Zarif’s frankness and, most importantly, the timing of the airing were surprising: in the midst of an internal battle over whether to seal a new deal with the West to reactivate the 2015 nuclear pact, and with the presidential elections in the middle of June.

Rouhani himself interpreted that it was a question of “creating discord within” Iran as the talks in Vienna “approached success”. Given the opacity of the Iranian regime, it is difficult to decipher the intention of the leak. For some analysts, it’s about discrediting Zarif in the public eye (amid rumors about his candidacy). Indeed, the Conservatives have called for his resignation, accusing him of endangering national security by exposing the intricacies of the country’s politics. Others, however, claim that it seeks to exonerate it from and favors foreign policy failures.

Arash Azizi, author of The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the global ambitions of the United States and Iran, acknowledges in an exchange of messages that the audio broadcast can both benefit and harm Zarif, which “makes it very difficult” to identify the responsible person. “The whole picture [oficial] that “Soleimani and Zarif are united” and that “Iran’s objectives are the same, in Syria or in the nuclear agreement” has been broken “, however, underlines the historian, who in his book already echoed the tensions between the minister and the general.

The author of the interview with Zarif, for his part, does not want to discuss the matter. “No comment,” answers questions about who leaked it and whether it benefits or harms the foreign minister. Leylaz admits, however, that “diplomacy is the natural continuation of foreign policy.” For this reason, he explains, “Zarif sent a letter to the supreme leader, five or six days ago, in which he assures that he will not stand for election and asks him to support the negotiators in Vienna. so that they can do their job. The letter, to which the Iranian media referred without revealing its entire contents, comes at a time when critics of the nuclear deal are once again labeling Zarif and his team as ‘traitors’, as they already did before the pact. from 2015.

Leylaz, a reformist arrested after the 2009 protests and sentenced to nine years in prison which he did not serve, defends in a telephone conversation that “there is no ideological or strategic obstacle” to achieving an agreement in Vienna. According to him, the main Iranian political tendencies (moderate, conservative, ultra-conservative) agree on their need. “The problem is, everyone wants to score the goal,” he said. Even so, he considers it possible that this could be done before the presidential elections. “As Rouhani can no longer stand for election, if he obtains the agreement, it will not be a triumph for him, but for the Islamic Republic”, he concludes.

Not everyone agrees. The head of the judiciary and potential candidate of the conservatives, Ebrahim Raisi, deems the dialogue “useless” for Washington to lift the sanctions. To the skepticism aroused by the United States after the abandonment of the nuclear pact under the presidency of Donald Trump is added the pride that the regime has not succumbed to its policy of maximum pressure. “Abandon the Vienna talks, suspend all nuclear commitments, retaliate against Israel,” an op-ed in the newspaper. Kayhan, spokesperson for the ultra sectors, after the sabotage of the Natanz factory.

Ultimately, Azizi recalls, “the last word in negotiations is always held by the supreme leader, but it usually takes internal struggles into account.” On this occasion, he specified in advance to the two hawks as well as to the moderates that Iran will only fully comply with what was signed in 2015 if the Biden administration takes the first step and lifts all sanctions, and there will be no talks with the Western powers outside the nuclear issue. These are just the two hurdles that arose in Vienna, where the Iranian team called for the removal not only of sanctions for the atomic program, but also those related to terrorism and human rights, and rejects the European attempt to include in the debate countries neighboring Iran (which want to talk about their missiles and their support for armed groups in the region).