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The inauguration of Iran’s new hard-core new president on Thursday and the country’s increasingly aggressive approach to the outside world could spell the end of President Joe Biden’s attempt at diplomacy with Tehran, experts say.
In the weeks leading up to Ebrahim Raisi’s swearing-in as president, the regime took a combative stance on nuclear negotiations with the United States and other world powers, and it is now accused of having orchestrated a drone attack on an Israeli-run tanker that killed two crew members.
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Before Raisi’s election in June, three months of diplomatic talks in Vienna had seemed close to relaunching the 2015 nuclear deal.
But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate authority in Iran, never gave the green light to Iranian negotiators in Vienna to make the deal, and it is now unclear whether a deal will be concluded.
“All the signs are pointing in the wrong direction,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.
Two senior European officials told NBC News that it seemed increasingly unlikely that Iran would agree to resume nuclear talks in Vienna this month.
The 2015 agreement lifted sanctions against Iran in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear program. Former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal and Biden vowed to bring the United States back to the deal if Iran returns to complying with its nuclear provisions.
In defiance of its obligations under the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, Iran ramped up uranium enrichment, used more advanced centrifuges, started producing uranium metal and restricts the access of UN inspectors to nuclear facilities. In Iraq, Iranian-backed militias fired rockets at bases used by US troops and contractors.
Iran, meanwhile, has doubled down on negotiating demands that Washington has already dismissed as unrealistic, including a proposed “compensation” for the effects of Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the deal and a American guarantee that a future president will not do the same. Iranian media also reported that Tehran will no longer discuss a prisoner swap with the United States that could have secured the release of Americans held by Iran.
Iran reports that former President Hassan Rouhani’s cooperative approach “has ended and failed,” said Eric Brewer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. “And this is the start of a harsher, confrontational approach, which the Supreme Leader finds himself more comfortable with.”
Iranian political leaders believe that the closer they get to building nuclear capacity, the more leverage they have to secure concessions from the United States and its European allies, Vaez and other experts said.
Iran feels the Biden administration is keen to avoid being drawn into conflict in the Middle East and wants to focus on other priorities, said Karim Sadjadpour, senior researcher at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“They have the confidence of a bazaar merchant who thinks the American tourist won’t leave without buying the rug,” he said.
Iranian leaders also concluded that the worst of the US economic pressure had eased and the country was now exporting significant amounts of oil to China.
“Iran’s growing oil exports to China have lessened their sense of urgency to return to the JCPOA for sanctions relief,” he said.
But the Iranians run the risk of overplaying their game.
Their approach represents a “serious miscalculation,” Vaez said. The Iranians are ignoring the potential response from US and EU officials and how provocations in the region could trigger a dangerous cycle of escalation, he said.
Vaez compared the situation to a previous round of nuclear negotiations in 2005 under the leadership of another hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In this case, Iran adopted a belligerent tone in talks with European governments, and negotiations to curb Tehran’s nuclear program collapsed. Iran then stepped up its nuclear work, but Western governments stepped up economic pressure that squeezed the Iranian economy, sparking a stalemate until Rouhani took office several years later.
Even with Tehran’s more aggressive stance, there is still a possibility that an agreement can be reached to revive the 2015 deal, former US officials said. In that scenario, Raisi could get further sanctions relief and present it as a victory, claiming his administration got a better deal than the previous president.
By the end of the month, it will likely be clear whether Tehran is serious about the negotiations, said Brewer, who has worked on nuclear proliferation issues in the Obama and Trump administrations.
Until then, the Iranians will have to decide whether to hold another round of talks with the world powers, who would lead their negotiating team and what position they would take if they sat down for new talks.
But the prospects for a diplomatic deal look increasingly strained, and the Biden administration could face tough choices.
If the talks fail, the Biden administration will have to consider whether to keep the door open to diplomacy on a future deal or whether to introduce more sanctions to deter Tehran from expanding its nuclear program or taking action. other provocative measures. One option could be to impose sanctions to block Iran’s oil exports to China, experts said.
If Iran’s nuclear program continues to advance, the value of relaunching the 2015 deal will fade and hawks in Washington and Israel may once again urge military action to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon, said. experts. In similar circumstances under the Obama administration, Israel strongly pushed for military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, according to the briefs of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Suicide drones
In addition to Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and its allies in the Middle East are increasingly concerned about the more immediate threat from the regime’s drone and cruise missile arsenal.
The United States, Britain and Israel have blamed Iran for last week’s deadly attack on the Mercer Street tanker off the coast of Oman, which killed a British national and a Romanian citizen. Iran has denied any responsibility.
Iran has been accused of a number of other attacks on ships linked to Israel, but it was the first that killed people. Western governments said Iran used a one-way explosive “suicide drone” that exploded on impact.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said Iran is “increasingly using” the lethal weapon in the region, pledged a collective response to the attack.
In the wake of assaults on commercial shipping, including ships linked to Israel, the Gulf Arab states and Israel – which are skeptical of relaunching the nuclear deal – are urging the Biden administration to maintain a firm line against Iran.
Israel on Wednesday called for concerted international pressure to stop what it says is Iran’s regional aggression. Defense Minister Benny Gantz said it was “time to move on to diplomatic, economic and even military acts, otherwise the attacks will continue.”
Just days after Mercer Street was attacked, another commercial vessel was briefly hijacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf of Oman this week. Iran has denied any role in the incident. The hijackers left the ship on Wednesday.
End of an era
Raisi’s inauguration ceremony on Thursday marks the triumph of ultra-conservative elements in Iran and the defeat of a more pragmatic faction led by Rouhani, which has fostered diplomatic engagement with the West to help ease the country’s isolation.
Raisi won an election that rights groups said was neither free nor fair. The regime has banned several prominent political figures from appearing on the ballots, thus removing any serious competition. Many activists called on the Iranians to boycott the elections, which recorded low turnout. Iran said the election was fully legitimate.
Unlike his predecessor, Raisi never defended the advantages of diplomatic engagement with the American or European governments. Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, who was Raisi’s mentor, criticized Rouhani’s administration for being naïve for trusting the West.
Raisi was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for his alleged role in the executions of political prisoners as a prosecutor in the 1980s. Human rights organizations also claimed that Raisi was among those who ordered the executions . Raisi denies the allegations.
Richard Dalton, former British Ambassador to Iran, said Raisi is seen as a loyal figure who is likely to be more beholden to the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards than Rouhani.
“He is a long-time member of Iran’s leadership, and he did not gain the confidence of the supreme leader without being a warrior in the interests of the Islamic revolution,” said Dalton, who was ambassador to Iran from 2002 to 2006..
With the departure of Rouhani and his more pragmatic allies who have argued for constructive diplomacy with the West, there will be little or no dissenting voices among senior leaders, experts said.
“All of the key decision makers are from the same faction and share the same worldview and are responsive to group thinking,” Vaez said.
Brewer said Raisi, Khamenei and other hardliners appear ready to resist US sanctions despite the economic damage, believing the country has adjusted to the pressure.
“They understand the benefits that would come from the sanctions relief, but they believe Iran can weather this storm longer,” Brewer said. “They believe in this notion of the economy of resistance (…) that Iran does not need to be economically linked to the international community and to the West.”
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