NOTE: Middle East Eye published my critique of the American Jewish leadership’s celebratory embrace of the new Israeli government. Please give it a read and boost it on social media.
The next president of Iran will be a hardliner, Ebrahim Raisi. He heads the judiciary, a center of power for the clerical regime, and is a close confidant of Ayatollah Khamenei. In 1989, in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, he was responsible for the purge and execution of thousands of opponents of the regime. In short, he’s a bloody monster. My friend, Prof. Muhammad Sahimi published this chilling account of these grave crimes against humanity.
Though he is ultra-conservative and shares Khamenei’s mistrust, if not hatred of the US, he also supports talks aiming to renew the JCPOA agreement and remove sanctions against Iran. Though Raisi’s candidacy is a direct assault on the legacy of his predecessor, the moderate Hassan Rouhani, it was the latter who championed the nuclear deal and anticipated that it would bring long-sought relief to Iran’s stumbling economy. When it didn’t due to the Obama administration’s refusal to relieve some of the most onerous sanctions, Rouhani bore the blame.
It’s hard to see how Raisi will be any more willing or forthcoming in these talks now being held in Vienna regarding a return to JCPOA. It also seems extremely unlikely he will yield to demands for IAEA access to Iranian nuclear facilities, one of the sticking points in the current negotiations.
Why is he going to win the election? One reason and one reason alone: the US, including Barack Obama and even more so, Donald Trump. When Obama negotiated the JCPOA nuclear deal, he was supposed to relieve sanctions against Iran. He didn’t. There was partial relief, but nowhere near the level Iran expected. Then Donald Trump pulled out the deal entirely and imposed even more punishing sanctions. The result was the discrediting of Pres. Rouhani. Iranians felt that Trump had made a fool of them. And he had. Or at least he had tried to. Now the new president is Iran’s revenge.
He will make life a living hell for Biden, who would like to restore some stability to the region and take the Shia-Sunni cold war off the boil. While I hope I am mistaken, relations could go very cold over the course of Raisi’s term as president.
It’s worth noting an alternate view of the election offered here by a former ally of Pres. Khatami, another former moderate president. Hossein Moussavian holds the contrarian view that Raisi could be Iran’s De Gaulle, the powerful figure whose support from the Revolutionary Guards and Grand Ayatollah would enable him to pursue policies of rapprochement with Iran’s Gulf enemies and to complete a nuclear deal:
Firstly, a principlist [conservative] president trusted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would likely face less opposition at home on foreign and domestic issues, including the nuclear deal, Iran’s affairs vis-a-vis neighbouring countries, and the West.
…The nuclear deal and regional issues will remain the most challenging files for the next administration. Since the next president will likely share similar beliefs as the centres of power in Iran, he will have greater decision-making autonomy, forming a unified government whose key ministers are not viewed as “threats” to the ideals of the supreme leader.
As a result, the new president will face fewer challenges from the principlist parliament, judiciary, IRGC and other key establishments.
…If the current nuclear talks in Vienna succeed and the nuclear deal is fully reimplemented, this would deliver the economic benefits to which Iran is entitled. The new government in Iran would then have significant incentive to push forward with resolving other disputed issues.
A regional cooperation system in the Gulf would be the most realistic, natural and necessary venue for Iran and neighbouring countries to start negotiating and resolving outstanding regional issues. This would require the UN Security Council to step in, but given the likely characteristics of the next Iranian administration, such a regional cooperation pact has a genuine chance of success.
This seems to me an entirely too rosy picture full of wish-fulfillment, with little basis in cold, hard reality. It presumes that Ayatollah Khamenei has embarked upon an entirely new course in his relations with Iran’s former regional enemies in the Gulf. Though it is true that there have been unprecedented talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia; and Qatar, an Iranian friend, has been restored to the Gulf Cooperation Council after years of being blockaded, whether Iran’s Supreme Leader is really prepared for such a radical shift remains to be seen.
@Richard
You’ve neglected to mention that Iran’s Guardian Council, which reflects the preferences of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, narrowed the field to seven candidates from hundreds who had registered and disqualified prominent figures associated with centrist or reform-minded political factions.
That said, I’m not going to self-flagellate over this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iran-presidential-election-candidates/2021/05/25/aef604b2-b8c6-11eb-bc4a-62849cf6cca9_story.html
@,Amnon: you neglected to mention 2 of the 7 final candidates are moderates. Why?
Three of seven candidates, including one ‘moderate’ pull out of Iran presidential race, which then leaves four hopefuls in the race, of whom the ultraconservative judiciary chief Raisi, 60, is seen as the clear favorite after other prominent politicians were barred from running.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/three-of-seven-candidates-pull-out-of-iran-presidential-race/
That leaves one, handpicked ‘moderate’ against three ultra conservatives, one of whom, Raisi, is the favorite of Supreme Leader Khameinei.
No wonder most Iranian voters stayed at home.
@ Amnon: You said there were no moderate candidates. There were 2. One withdrew because he wanted to give the other moderate a better chance. Of the four remaining candidates, one was moderate.
If you want to rail against Iran, you might want to first consider the absolute political dysfunction of your own electoral system, in which you have four elections in two years, none of which offered a stable government. And you know have a laughingstock of a government which was only cobbled together out of desperation to get rid of Bibi. It will last less than a year, I predict.
Or shall we explore all the other anti-democratic aspects of Israeli politics and society, since you’re playing the same shell game regarding Iran??
Richard said:
“When it didn’t, due to the Obama administration’s refusal to relieve some of the most onerous sanctions, Rouhani bore the blame.”
No. That’s not what your link said.
Your link said that the Obama Administration Iran legacy is ‘noble and complicated’ but that the Obama Administration, according to Iranian officials, “..has not given international banks enough of a green light to be confident in doing business with Iran.”
How’s it (lame duck)Obama’s fault if international banks considered doing business with Iran too great a risk at that time?
International banks may well steer clear of financing Iran even if the Biden Administration forges another deal with Iran.
@ Amnon: You poor shlep. Thinking you can pull a Gotcha. Think again:
Guess what happened? Did US and European companies begin clamoring to do business with Iran? No they didn’t. Why? Because the US didn’t devise any financing mechanism that would have permitted these companies to feel comfortable their investments would be secure.
And this:
Guess what, due to Obama’s ineffectiveness businesses never did make those investments. And the reason is almost entirely due to the US refusal to create the financial mechanisms which would encourage this. Here’s another report outlining Rouhani’s anger at Congressional sanctions which Obama signed into law AFTER JCPOA was approved.
And further, the US had frozen $10-billion in Iranian assets. It only released less than $2-billion. How do you think the Iranians felt about that? Happy with Obama? I think not.
Dear Readers: Note well that Amnon is yet another in a long line of tag-team hasbara wrestlers assigned by Hasbara Central to stalk the site. A few break the rules, get banned, then they tag up to the next shlep. Poor Amnon is “it” for the time being till he tags the next guy.
[comment deleted : you have been moderated. When I tell you you are done in a thread you are, whether you like or or not. Only future comments which respect the comment rules will be posted. Now tag the next hasbara wrestler as you fade into oblivion where you belong.]
Where did you tell me that I was done with the thread?
*you didn’t*
‘When all you have is hammer, everything looks like a nail’
@ Amnon: You are right. I have many commenters here. You’re not the only one. I warned another commenter, BDK not to comment further in the thread. I confused him with you.
You are not moderated. But respect the comment rules in future.
Oh, great. Now I can re-post what you’d deleted.
Hear Obama, in his own words.
Despite the lifting of most global economic sanctions on Iran in January, many restrictions remain in place in the United States because of Iran’s status as a state sponsor of terrorism, its repeated testing of ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear warheads, and violations of human rights.
Obama did not provide details at his press conference, but he stressed that some of the disappointment Iran is experiencing with sanctions relief thus far is due to Tehran’s own misbehavior, not the remaining U.S. sanctions.
“Iran so far has followed the letter of the agreement, but the spirit of the agreement involves Iran also sending signals to the world community and businesses that it is not going to be engaging in a range of provocative actions that might scare businesses off,” Obama said.
“When they launch ballistic missiles with slogans calling for the destruction of Israel, that makes businesses nervous,” he said.
“Iran has to understand that businesses want to go where they feel safe,” he said. “There is a geopolitical risk that is heightened when Iran ships missiles to Hizballah and threatens Israel.”
Iran also “faces the challenge that companies have not been doing business there for a long time, and they have to get comfortable” with the idea of going back into Iran, he said.
“It is going to take time over the next several months for companies and their legal departments to feel confident…there may not be risks of liability if they do business with Iran.”
Earlier in the day, Obama cautioned that “it will take time for Iran to reintegrate into the global economy, but Iran is already beginning to see the benefit of [the nuclear] deal.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/obama-says-will-address-some-iranian-concerns-us-sanctions-nuclear-deal/27649729.html
@ Amnon: Again, your comment is irrelevant. The US maintained sancctions which were not based on Iran’s nuclear program, but on its “behavior,” including it’s testing of ballistic missiles and its intervention in Syria. But those are actions any sovereign state is entitled to engage in. Israel, the US routinely do the same thing, yet have no sanctions imposed on them. These sanctions have nothing to do with JCOPOA, which was specifically the subject of my post. Nor were the sanctions associated with JCPOA lifted. Business transactions IRan expected and was promised by Obama never happened. All this was, once again, the US’ and Obama’s fault. He failed. Despite his hollow claims that Iran was “seeing the benefit of lifting sanctions” it saw no benefit whatsoever except for a single act of unfreezing Iranian assets (and those only partially) in US banks.
Again, no one has any right to impose sanctions on Iran for doing pecisely what the US and Israel do routinely: test ballistic missiles and intervene in affairs of neighboring countries. TO maintain two standards is hypocritical and unacceptable.
You are done in this thread.
A tough hardline leader requires tough negotiations because he will be tough. But Iran has a right to feel that any deal made by a US President is not durable. Given also their right to develop nuclear arms in defense of the threats from Israel (and us)- their way of looking at it I presume- their nuclear program needs time, and, because of aggression against it, secrecy. Do we believe that Iran has no design on making a nuclear weapon as they have said? Are we bringing them to that? But too, are we believable? Israel claims deterrence. Iran can’t?
As far as internal affairs go- they are internal affairs, for their people to deal. When foreign affairs threaten them, like everywhere, they will support their government.
I do believe that if allowed, there would be some rapprochement between Iran and the Arabs in this business minded interconnected world. And I believe Iran has great potential to be a good normal partner in world affairs.
One major irritant, the Israel-Iran “thing”, needs major cooling (to end) and the US unconditional backing of Israel including calling the Iranians bad and terrorists, gets their backs up. The heavy hand also needs to be used on Israel as well as misguided Iran leaders. Ahmadinejad did his damage verbally and Netanyahu ran with it (on it).
Richard as an expert on Iran and middle-east geopolitics, can you share any information about the Iranian nuclear program?
We know it is not about WMD because Iran closed that program years ago because of the fatwa against WMDs, but what do Iranian develop in their nuclear program? Is it medical? Is is about energy?
@ Dan: An “expert on Middle-East geopolicts?” Really? You flatter me. I’ve written about this subject and answered your question. Do a Google search and you will hopefully find what I’ve written. I think your questions put the issues a bit too black & white.
Dan as an Israeli tell us for what reason Israel has produced for over 50 years weapon grade plutonium in its French built reactor specialised only in that “product line”. Not certainly for energy use and if it is for medical reasons the amounts of plutonium are “incredible”.
Iran at least has a energy producing nuclear power station and so real need for nuclear material for power production and for medical use. All countries militaries in Israel’s neighbourhood must have plans how to neutralise Israel’s nuclear arsenal in different conditions. That includes the Arab countries, Turkey, Iran and Europe. Sadly the only way to neutralise the nuclear threat is to have an own or a bigger ally which has them. Saying that we do not admit having nuclear weapons is laughable if you have produced for a halve century plutonium.
Simo – to make nuclear weapons. DAHHHHH!!!
Richard – can you please provide a link. I do not find anything concrete on the subject you have written.
Thank you.
[comment deleted: read the comment rules, which you clearly haven’t. Do not compare Iran to Nazi Germany. Violate the rules again and you will be moderated]
[comment deleted: WTF?? You think you can comment here advocating executing people? Where do you think you are? Not here buddy, that’s for sure.]