Follow us on social

2022-04-18t060746z_744649997_rc2ipt9t1kcz_rtrmadp_3_iran-israel-raisi-scaled

Iran's hardliners are split over the fate of the nuclear deal

Despite their image in the West, Iran’s hardliners include pragmatic factions that favor a JCPOA return even if the IRGC remains on the US terror list.

Analysis | Middle East

Negotiations in Vienna between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany for reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, have been suspended for weeks.

All sides are in apparent agreement that most issues have been resolved and that a draft accord outlining the framework for returning Iran and the United States to their obligations under the JCPOA is, for all practical purposes, ready for signing. While Enrique Mora, the European Union’s foreign policy coordinator, has said that there remain a few unresolved issues, the most important obstacle to concluding negotiations is Washington’s refusal to remove Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

But, in contrast to the their Western media image as a cohesive and homogeneous political force completely united in insisting on the IRGC’s removal from the terrorism list, Iran’s hardliners actually have deep fissures within their ranks, deepened even more by the total economic incompetence of the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi.

During his “campaign” for the presidency, Raisi had promised that his administration will quickly tame the high inflation, reduce unemployment, take care of the poor, and build one million new homes every year for the people. After ten months in office, Iran’s economy is in worse shape than it was last year at this time, even though Iran now exports 1.2 million barrels per day of oil, nearly twice the amount compared to last year. Moreover, its export earnings should be significantly more today; the market price in 2021 was about 65 dollars per barrel; it now hovers around 120 dollars.

Regarding the JCPOA, Iran’s hardliners can be divided into two groups. The first group consists of the “rejectionists” — those who oppose JCPOA, with some even advocating exiting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Chief among these are Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator during the administration of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was so ineffective that when the United States and Iran began negotiating secretly in Oman in 2012, he was left out. 

Several months ago, Jalili wrote a 200-page letter to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urging him to leave the JCPOA altogether, enrich uranium to 90 percent or higher, beyond the threshold for making nuclear bomb, and then use it as a winning card in direct negotiations with the United States. Others in this group include Hossein Shariatmadari, managing editor of the hardline daily Kayhan, the media mouthpiece of a faction of IRGC officers; Javad Karimi-Ghodousi, a former commander of the IRGC’s Basij militia who now serves in parliament (Majlis); and the rejectionist faction in the Majlis that represents Jebheh Paydaari Enghelab-e Eslami (The Resistance Front of the Islamic Revolution), the most radical right wing of Iran’s political groups.

In addition, a group of relatively young hardliners, who refer to themselves as “innovative revolutionaries,” oppose any engagement with Washington and have assailed former President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, for negotiating and signing the JCPOA. A prominent member of this group is Vahid Jalili, Saeed’s younger brother, who is now deputy director of Seda va Sima [Voices and Visages], a national network of radio and television controlled by hardliners.

Ironically, Iran’s current chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, was himself one of the fiercest critics of both the previous government and the JCPOA itself. Many in Iran blame him for delaying negotiations between the Raisi and Biden administrations last year and now for failing to conclude the negotiations.

The second group consists of relatively pragmatic conservatives and hardliners who believe a return to the JCPOA serves their interests provided that a face-saving way can be found that will protect them against attacks by the first group. Chief among them is Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

A modus operandi of Iran’s hardliners is that, before embarking on a new major policy initiative, be it domestic or international, they float “rumors” or “trial balloons” in order to gauge the public’s reaction, as well as those of their opponents among the political factions. Amir-Abdollahian appeared to be doing just that a while ago when he said in an interview, “Top officials of the Sepah (IRGC) have emphasized to the Foreign Ministry that you should do whatever is needed for our nation’s national interests, and if you reached a point at which the [only] issue was Sepah, it should not be an impediment to [your] negotiations.”

In other words, Amir-Abdollahian, a conservative career diplomat, was hinting that the issue of removal of IRGC from the terrorist list should not prevent Tehran and Washington from concluding an agreement for returning to the JCPOA. The rejectionist front reacted fiercely to Amir-Abdollahian’s position, with Shariatmadari angrily demanding an explanation.

Although Amir-Abdollahian appeared to retreat, he is still quietly advocating a more flexible and moderate foreign policy, particularly regarding the nuclear negotiations. When he spoke recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he complained about rejectionists in the Majlis preventing him from concluding the Vienna negotiations. He also downplayed the importance of the discussions surrounding the IRGC’s terrorist designation and condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was surprising, given the close ties between the hardliners and Moscow.

Both Zarif and Rouhani have repeatedly emphasized that the tentative agreement that they had negotiated with the Biden administration last year regarding the restoration of the JCPOA, included the removal of the IRGC from the terrorist list. If true, it would be the Biden administration that is reneging on its earlier promises, once again missing an opportunity for reaching an agreement with Tehran that would reduce tensions in the Middle East.

Peaceful demonstrations against the government’s incompetence in addressing the deteriorating economic situation, and, more generally, the rule of the hardliners have been taking place in Iran for some time. The middle class, Iran’s engine of change, has, however, largely stayed home due to its own economic insecurity and fears that escalating tensions with the United States may lead Iran to a fate similar to those of Syria and Libya. But if the JCPOA is restored, the economy begins to recover, and tensions between Tehran and Washington are reduced, the middle class will much more likely join the push for a more representative political system in Iran.


Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi delivers a speech during the ceremony of the National Army Day parade in Tehran, Iran April 18, 2022. President Website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Analysis | Middle East
global warming
Top image credit: Scharfsinn via shutterstock.com

The US military is about to become a world class polluter

Military Industrial Complex

According to new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute (CCI), recent increases in Pentagon spending alone will produce an additional 26 megatons (Mt) of planet-heating gases — on a par with the annual carbon equivalent (CO2e) emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia.

With the Pentagon’s 2026 budget set to surge to $1 trillion (a 17% or $150 billion increase from 2023), its total greenhouse emissions will also increase to a staggering 178 Mt of CO2e. This will make the U.S. military and its industrial apparatus the 38th largest emitter in the world if it were its own nation. It will also result in an estimated $47 billion in economic damages globally, including impacts on agriculture, human health, and property from extreme weather, according to the EPA’s social cost of carbon calculator.

keep readingShow less
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
Top image credit: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev via Madina Nurmanova / Shutterstock.com

Is Trump's Armenia-Azeri peace plan yet another road to nowhere?

Asia-Pacific

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan — two longstanding foes in the South Caucasus who fought bloody wars in the 1990s and again in 2020 — was imminent.

He credited his administration’s diplomatic efforts: “Armenia and Azerbaijan. We worked magic there and it’s pretty close — if not, it’s already done,” he declared during a dinner with Republican senators.

keep readingShow less
Zelensky Putin
Top photo credit: Volodymyr Zelensky (Shutterstock/Pararazza) and Vladimir Putin (Shutterstock/miss.cabul)

There'll be no Ukraine peace breakthroughs today — or this year

Europe

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has said that a further round of talks between Ukraine and Russia could start as early as this week, and indicated that “everything had to be done to get a ceasefire.” Yet it is far from clear that a ceasefire will be possible. And it’s likely that the war will continue into 2026.

In June, Zelensky was pressing the European Union to go further in its sanctions against Russia, including calling for a $30 per barrel cap on Russian oil shipments. Washington effectively vetoed a lowering of the oil price cap at the recent G7 Summit in Canada. However, on July 18 the European Union agreed its 18th round of Russian sanctions since war began, overcoming a blocking move by Slovakia in the process.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.