tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/hassan-rouhani-7296/articlesHassan Rouhani – The Conversation2021-11-28T19:09:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1719372021-11-28T19:09:38Z2021-11-28T19:09:38ZThe Iran nuclear talks are resuming, but is there any trust left to strike a deal?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432769/original/file-20211118-24-jc1vmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=126%2C0%2C5516%2C3680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With nuclear talks between Iran, the US, and the other members of the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/JCPOA-at-a-glance">Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)</a> resuming on November 29, one question looms large. Is engagement with Iran likely to bear diplomatic fruit, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/no-plan-b-biden-iran-nuclear-talks-fail-experts-warn-2021-11?r=US&IR=T">or be squandered</a>? </p>
<p>Negotiated in 2015 by the Obama administration (alongside Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia), the JCPOA represented a major effort to curtail Iranian nuclear ambitions. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/index.htm">159-page agreement</a> committed the US and its European partners to lift longstanding sanctions to allow Iran to bring back foreign investment and sell its natural resources globally without restriction. </p>
<p>In exchange, Iran agreed to put a wide array of dampers on its nuclear program for 15 years. These <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/files/images/Pg_34.png">included</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>keeping uranium enrichment levels below 3.67% (the level used to produce fuel for commercial nuclear plants)</p></li>
<li><p>limit centrifuge numbers and the amount of stockpiled uranium </p></li>
<li><p>allow for greater monitoring, verification and transparency of its nuclear program by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)</p></li>
<li><p>and shut down several facilities. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>These steps would allow limited civilian activities to remain, but potential military applications would, for the time being, be neutralised.</p>
<p>Importantly, the JCPOA avoided addressing other Iranian actions viewed as destabilising by the US and its partners. These included Tehran’s support of insurgents like <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/hezbollahs-regional-activities-support-irans-proxy-networks">Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and various Iraqi and Syrian militias</a>, as well as its ever-expanding <a href="https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/iran/">ballistic missile and drone programs</a>. </p>
<p>The agreement explicitly noted that sanctions for these activities would remain in place and be treated as separate issues.</p>
<p>Beyond addressing the immediate crisis of possible nuclear proliferation, the agreement was intended to act as a trust-building exercise. US leaders believed that by offering an olive branch to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and acting in good faith, they could pave the way for a broader US-Iranian rapprochement. The deal would demonstrate the US could be a reliable partner for future negotiations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Iran nuclear talks in 2015." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432774/original/file-20211118-18-1ddf8fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432774/original/file-20211118-18-1ddf8fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432774/original/file-20211118-18-1ddf8fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432774/original/file-20211118-18-1ddf8fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432774/original/file-20211118-18-1ddf8fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432774/original/file-20211118-18-1ddf8fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432774/original/file-20211118-18-1ddf8fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the high point of the nuclear talks in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Smialowski/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Confidence not built</h2>
<p>Of course, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the US once again failed to anticipate arguably its biggest foil in foreign affairs: itself. </p>
<p>The surprise upset election of Donald Trump in 2016 threw the JCPOA into disarray. Whereas Obama had separated the issues of Iran’s nuclear program from its other destabilising acts, Trump viewed both through the same lens. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-decertification-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal-may-prove-a-costly-mistake-85594">led</a> Washington to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html">unilaterally withdraw</a> from the agreement in May 2018 and implement the so-called “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09700161.2020.1841099?journalCode=rsan20">maximum pressure</a>” campaign that sought to bully Iran into wider concessions.</p>
<p>This jarring shift occurred despite Iranian compliance with the JCPOA framework. The agreement actually continued for a year after the US withdrew in hopes the other signatories could guide Washington back to the table. </p>
<p>Such hopes proved fruitless, however, as Trump scorned the Europeans, levied new sanctions against Tehran, and engaged in other provocative behaviours. This included the assassination of <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-assassinations-were-once-unthinkable-why-the-us-killing-of-soleimani-sets-a-worrying-precedent-129622">General Qassem Soleimani</a>, a greatly respected figure in Iran.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/political-assassinations-were-once-unthinkable-why-the-us-killing-of-soleimani-sets-a-worrying-precedent-129622">Political assassinations were once unthinkable. Why the US killing of Soleimani sets a worrying precedent</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Trump’s about-face confirmed longstanding elite Iranian views about American duplicity and sullied Obama’s uncharacteristically liberal attempt at building a working relationship with Tehran. </p>
<p>Feeling betrayed, Iran began <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-likely-is-conflict-between-the-us-and-iran-123714">escalating tensions</a> in the Middle East – including strikes on Saudi oil processing facilities – and resumed enriching uranium <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/atomic-watchdog-iran-raising-nuclear-stockpile-81223715">well beyond</a> the levels agreed to in the JCPOA.</p>
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<h2>Heels dug in</h2>
<p>Many hoped that with Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US presidential election, Washington would rapidly move to reengage Tehran and return to the JCPOA agreement. Time was of the essence with Rouhani, the chief proponent of the deal in Iran, due to finish his term this August. (He was replaced by the more conservative and hawkish President Ebrahim Raisi.) </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Biden was not Obama, and despite sharing many of the same staff, his administration quickly displayed more <a href="https://theconversation.com/biden-is-already-carving-out-a-different-middle-east-policy-from-trump-and-even-obama-156206">conservative and bullish foreign policy chops</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1454190856404193281"}"></div></p>
<p>Rather than offer an act of good faith to clear the bad air, Biden signalled he expected Iran to resume adherence to the JCPOA before any US concessions would be made. At the G20 meeting last month, the US, Germany, France and Britain reaffirmed this message in a joint statement, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/30/joint-statement-by-the-president-of-france-emmanuel-macron-chancellor-of-germany-angela-merkel-prime-minister-of-the-united-kingdom-and-northern-ireland-boris-johnson-and-president-of-the-united-st/">saying</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Return to JCPOA compliance will provide sanctions lifting with long-lasting implications for Iran’s economic growth. This will only be possible if Iran changes course. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Iranian diplomats, however, want the US to right its betrayal and remove sanctions before Tehran begins to comply with the agreement again.</p>
<p>These two intractable and incompatible positions have so far scuttled any efforts to make meaningful headway in negotiations.</p>
<p>For both parties, it is clear the previous terms of the JCPOA simply won’t cut it – especially now that demands from both ends are no longer limited to the nuclear discussions and the wider strategic conditions in the region have changed. </p>
<p>Under Biden, the US focus has shifted towards <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/us-china-tensions-explained.html">confronting China</a> in the Asia-Pacific and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/15/biden-signs-1t-infrastructure-bill-with-bipartisan-audience">recovering domestically from COVID-19</a>. This has meant a slow <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-middle-east-disengagement-shape-how">disengagement from the Middle East</a>, placing the Iran issue on somewhat of a backburner (at least compared to 2015). </p>
<p>Iran may also be apprehensive due to the significant possibility of Biden as a one-term president (with a chance, however slim, he could be succeeded by Trump). Iran is also aware the US commitment to the region may not be what it once was, and that biding its time may be the best course of action. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/biden-is-already-carving-out-a-different-middle-east-policy-from-trump-and-even-obama-156206">Biden is already carving out a different Middle East policy from Trump — and even Obama</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Flickers of hope?</h2>
<p>Despite such gloom, there is cause for limited optimism through subtle gestures on both sides. </p>
<p>Iran has agreed to return to negotiations on November 29 without the lifting of US sanctions first. This can be considered a mild olive branch.</p>
<p>And US officials <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-gcc-iran-working-group-statement/">recently met</a> with representatives from Persian Gulf states in Saudi Arabia to discuss potential channels of diplomacy with Tehran. They also discussed deeper economic ties once sanctions are lifted under the JCPOA. </p>
<p>Such an optimistic declaration suggests US policymakers are at least entertaining the possibility of a positive outcome and path forward from negotiations – despite significant pressure from Republicans in the US and Israel to the contrary. </p>
<p>But making predictions in the current muck of diplomatic negotiations is difficult. There may be a path towards resuscitating the JCPOA. If possible, however, it will require reestablishing a level of trust that neither side seems open to embracing, nor fostering in the current frosty diplomatic climate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171937/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Much has changed since the Trump administration pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, and good will is seriously lacking.Ben Rich, Senior lecturer in History and International Relations, Curtin UniversityLeena Adel, PhD student, Political Science and International Relations, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1631062021-06-21T19:02:57Z2021-06-21T19:02:57ZIran election: what Ebrahim Raisi’s victory will mean for his country – and the rest of the world<p>When Iranians elect a new leader, the world watches. So the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/19/iran-presidential-election-result-raisi-hemmati">election of Ebrahim Raisi</a>, a hardline right-winger, to replace the more centrist Hassan Rouhani, is global news of some significance. </p>
<p>Raisi is the choice of Iran’s socially arch-conservative and politically anti-reformist “<a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/iranian-deep-state">deep state</a>”. This ideological core of the state includes the powerful Islamic Revolution Guard Corps and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who hovers at the centre of an intricate political system. </p>
<p>Raisi would also not have been voted into office without the disqualification of competing candidates by the Guardian Council, which vets candidates for their political and religious credentials. As a result of this skewed process, only two rather lacklustre “reformists” were left standing. </p>
<p>In this election in particular, the spectrum of choice was seriously narrowed, which benefited Raisi and the conservative camp. In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/iranian-voters-want-economic-justice-but-the-candidates-dont-measure-up-77069">2017 election</a>, Raisi lost to the rather more pragmatic Rouhani by quite a decisive margin.</p>
<p>Having said that, Raisi has now convinced <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/19/raisi-wins-irans-presidential-election-amid-low-turnout">17.9 million Iranians</a> that he is the right candidate. But the turnout, at <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/19/raisi-wins-irans-presidential-election-amid-low-turnout">28.9 million, or 48.8%</a> of the electorate, was the lowest for any elections held since the Islamic Republic was formed after the revolution in 1979.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-iranians-wont-vote-new-survey-reveals-massive-political-disenchantment-162374">Why Iranians won’t vote: new survey reveals massive political disenchantment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is due to two factors. The first is a real disillusionment with the Rouhani administration and the left-of-centre (or reformist) politicians that represented the core of his support, in particular their hypocrisy regarding social reforms and their incompetence in terms of economic policy. </p>
<p>The second is the decision by former US president Donald Trump in 2018 to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html">quit Iran’s nuclear deal with the west and extend sanctions</a>. This has impoverished the middle-income class of Iran, the natural constituency of the reformists. Under such circumstances, the only candidate representing the reformist camp, didn’t stand a chance. </p>
<p>It’s a similar story to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005. Ahmadinejad, the darling of the right-wing in 2005, managed to win, largely because overtures to the US by reformist president Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) had not been reciprocated by the US and Europe. In both elections it was fairly easy for the Iranian right to represent reformists as sell-outs and unpatriotic fools. </p>
<h2>Political disengagement</h2>
<p>It has been widely noted that voter turnout in this year’s elections was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/18/iran-presidential-voting-begins-with-hardline-cleric-expected-to-win">lowest</a> in the state’s history. This can’t be merely attributed to the pandemic. Rather, it reflects a long-term <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/opinion/activists-iran-election-boycott.html">disillusionment among many Iranians</a> with what they see as a self-serving political establishment and with its candidate. </p>
<p>Not voting is, therefore, a form of protest and resistance against empty sloganeering and the illiberal policies of the state – whether right or left wing. Not engaging in an election with limited options is a vote for civil resistance. For many Iranians, the candidates were seen to have only a nodding acquaintance and a faint acknowledgement of the social and political calamities in Iran.</p>
<p>In Iran as elsewhere, real reforms emanate from civil society, from those individuals who wield the informal power to dissent. In my latest book, “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/de/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/middle-east-government-politics-and-policy/what-iran-domestic-politics-and-international-relations-five-musical-pieces?format=PB">What is Iran?</a>”, I argue this is pluralistic momentum. Change in Iran is always forced upon the state from the bottom up. </p>
<p>The recurrent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/06/at-least-7000-people-reportedly-arrested-in-iran-protests-says-un">spasm of demonstrations</a>, the latest started in 2019 and ended just before COVID struck, are a good indicator that Iranians continue to voice their demands. The yardstick of freedom which the revolutionaries of 1979 set massively high is a real historical driver for this momentum towards change, even among some so-called “hardliners”.</p>
<h2>Apathy at home, apprehension abroad</h2>
<p>When Ahmadinejad took over the presidency in 2005, Israeli commentators mocked that their intelligence agency, Mossad, couldn’t have placed a better candidate in the country as Ahnadinejad’s escapades seriously deteriorated Iran’s international image. Similarly, many Iranians (correctly) felt the election of Donald Trump would destabilise the US.</p>
<p>With Raisi it’s similar again. Ironically for his political allies in the deep state, including the mighty Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), he too is likely to weaken the Iranian state, even the institutions that paved the way for his election. As a politician, Raisi lacks both legitimacy and acumen to unite the fractured political landscape in Iran. </p>
<p>Ayatollah Khamenei seemed to have recognised this danger when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/04/irans-supreme-leader-says-rejected-election-candidates-were-wronged">he said</a> in the build up to the election that some candidates were treated unfairly. He seemed to be wary of the voter apathy that the qualifications buttressed.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini recognised the importance of popular legitimacy of the system. Compared to him, Khamenei appears like a hapless CEO of an ailing political conglomerate. On this occasion, the system that he is meant to popularise has delivered a problematic outcome. </p>
<p>Indeed, Khamenei can’t be oblivious to the fact that Raisi has been accused of involvement in some of the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/06/iran-ebrahim-raisi-must-be-investigated-for-crimes-against-humanity/">worst human right atrocities in Iran</a> and that he is a divisive politician because of that. Undoubtedly, the legitimacy of the state that Khamenei stands for has been compromised by this election.</p>
<p>What are the consequences for the rest of the world? It’s almost certain that Iranian foreign policy will follow the trajectory of the past few years. Negotiations over the nuclear deal will continue. But unlike the outgoing president, Raisi’s political fortunes don’t hinge upon reaching an agreement. Therefore, he will <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1e257cb9-da14-4ebf-9bea-869f64918273">be less likely to compromise</a>. </p>
<p>Elsewhere, Iran will try to bargain its way out of isolation with China and Russia and the country will continue to support its allies in the region and try to reach out to powerful countries in the global south. </p>
<p>So there will be continuity. But given Raisi’s stated political views, the more progressive image projected by his predecessor Rouhani will be replaced by a rather more retroactive language of “defiance” by the new ultra-conservative president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arshin Adib-Moghaddam's book, What is Iran? Domestic Politics and International Relations in Five Musical Pieces, is published by Cambridge University Press.</span></em></p>Real change will come from the streets, not the ballot box.Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1628352021-06-17T19:58:19Z2021-06-17T19:58:19ZConservative hard-liner elected as Iran’s next president – what that means for the West and the nuclear deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407109/original/file-20210617-19-rurnrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C0%2C4000%2C2652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ebrahim Raisi, seen here during a 2017 rally, is expected to win Iran's presidential election.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Iran/0ac72fd2552e431d81abf5a4ff94e9df/photo?Query=iran%20AND%20raisi&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=204&currentItemNo=100">AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/world/middleeast/iran-election-khamenei-raisi.html">Iran’s conservative rulers’ effort to orchestrate</a> the outcome of the June 18 presidential election triggered a voter boycott – but the result may still bode well for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/09/world/middleeast/biden-iran-nuclear.htm">ongoing negotiations over the lapsed 2015 nuclear deal</a>. </p>
<p>Iran’s Interior Ministry on June 19 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/19/world/middleeast/iran-election-president-raisi.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">announced that the winner</a> is Ebrahim Raisi, chief of Iran’s judiciary and close ally of the supreme leader. He was all but assured of victory after the candidates who could have posed a serious challenge to him – including three reformists – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/world/middleeast/iran-election-khamenei-raisi.html">were disqualified</a> and prevented from participating in the election.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://ecfr.eu/article/council-of-despair-irans-uncompetitive-presidential-election/">unprecedented</a> disqualifications <a href="https://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-general/47115-apathy-in-presidential-election-is-not-because-of-disqualifications-iranian-officials-say/">outraged</a> large groups of liberal and moderate voters, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-iranians-wont-vote-new-survey-reveals-massive-political-disenchantment-162374">many boycotted the election</a>. As a result, the turnout <a href="https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-iran-judiciary-4d60554fd608a5dea2c76a303ec352d8">was just 49%</a>. </p>
<p>But who is Ebrahim Raisi, and how will his presidency alter Iran’s domestic and foreign policies? As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ErTIYroAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">economist and close observer of Iran</a>, I believe we can start to answer these questions by exploring his past.</p>
<h2>Loyal insider</h2>
<p>Raisi is a loyal regime insider with a long career in Iran’s judicial branch, which goes back <a href="https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/ebrahim-raisi-chief-justice-of-iran">more than four decades</a>.</p>
<p>He was only 19 when the <a href="https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/ebrahim-raisi-chief-justice-of-iran">Islamic revolution</a> deposed the shah in 1979. As a young Islamic activist, he caught the attention of several top revolutionary clerics, including Ali Khamenei, who became Iran’s <a href="https://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/supreme-leader">supreme leader</a> a decade later. </p>
<p>Named the general-prosecutor of Kataj – a small city near Tehran – at age 20, Raisi quickly rose to more prominent positions. In 1989, when Khamenei replaced Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader, Raisi was promoted to chief prosecutor-general of Tehran.</p>
<p>This promotion reflected the <a href="https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/ebrahim-raisi-chief-justice-of-iran">high level</a> of trust that Khamenei had in him. While serving in these positions, Raisi also attended seminary and religious studies under Khamenei and other influential religious leaders.</p>
<h2>Executing dissidents and fighting corruption</h2>
<p>During the first decade of his career, Raisi convicted a large number of dissidents and political opponents of the Islamic regime and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ali-khamenei-donald-trump-ap-top-news-elections-judiciary-ee0e777abf19424281c363ef1978ac7f">sentenced many of them to death</a>. </p>
<p>Regime critics and his political opponents <a href="https://iranhumanrights.org/2021/06/iran-election-dont-ignore-ebrahim-raisis-gross-rights-violations/">have condemned</a> his direct role in these executions, particularly the large number of political prisoners who were executed in 1988.</p>
<p>From 1994 to 2004, Raisi served as head of Iran’s general inspector office, which is responsible for preventing abuse of power and corruption in government institutions. It was in this position that he developed a <a href="https://www.fr24news.com/a/2021/06/iranian-ultra-conservative-raisi-favorite-in-anti-graft-polls.html">reputation as a crusader against government corruption</a>. Even as he was appointed as the first deputy chief justice in 2004 and finally promoted to chief justice in March 2019, he continued his fight <a href="https://lobelog.com/irans-goals-in-the-fight-against-economic-corruption/">against corruption</a> by prosecuting many government officials. </p>
<p>His critics have argued, however, that his fight against corruption has been highly <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/fighting-corruption-or-just-more-political-infighting-in-iran/">politicized and selective</a>. They claimed that he targeted individuals who were affiliated with his political rivals such as President Hassan Rouhani.</p>
<p>Raisi first ran for president in 2017 but <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/5/20/hassan-rouhani-wins-irans-presidential-election">was defeated</a> by Iran’s current President Hassan Rouhani, who after two terms is ineligible to run again.</p>
<p>In this year’s election, Raisi was the favorite candidate of the conservative right wing of the Islamic ruling elite and also enjoys the support of Ayatollah Khamenei, who has absolute power over all branches of government. Khamenei also directly appoints half of the 12-member <a href="https://irandataportal.syr.edu/the-guardian-council">Council of Guardians</a>, which oversees all political elections and has the power to disqualify candidates without any public explanation. Khamenei <a href="https://iranintl.com/en/iran/khamenei-defends-disqualification-key-presidential-candidates">publicly endorsed and defended the disqualifications</a>.</p>
<h2>Likely return to the nuclear deal</h2>
<p>One of the institutional weaknesses of Iran’s political system since the 1979 Islamic revolution is the potential for tension and disagreement between the elected presidents and the supreme leader.</p>
<p>That is, unlike in the U.S. system of government, the <a href="https://rasanah-iiis.org/english/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/02/The-Relationship-Between-the-Supreme-Leadership-and-Presidency-and-Its-Impact-on-the-Political-System-in-Iran-rasanah.pdf">Iranian president’s powers are extremely limited</a>. For example, a reformist president may want to engage more with the West or stay out of a foreign conflict, but the supreme leader could overrule or simply ignore him.</p>
<p>As a protege and close ally of the supreme leader, Raisi is expected to support Khamenei’s policies on both domestic and foreign policy – which means more coordination between the various branches of government. With the Parliament also dominated by Khamenei supporters, it also means that the conservatives will control all three branches of the government once again after eight years.</p>
<p>This harmony means Raisi will be a lot more effective as president because whatever policies he pursues will most likely be supported by the supreme leader. </p>
<p>And perhaps ironically, his victory could pave the way for a more compromising attitude on the side of Iran in the negotiations that are currently underway in Vienna for restoration of the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-iran-nuclear-deal">2015 nuclear agreement</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html">which was derailed</a> by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018. </p>
<p>The reason for this unconventional prediction is that both reformist and conservative factions in Iran are fully aware that a new nuclear agreement, which could end the severe economic sanctions imposed on the country, is <a href="https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/1623526450-iran-s-leading-presidential-candidate-voices-support-for-nuclear-deal">highly popular</a>. The team that signs the agreement will receive credit for ending the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/23/these-6-charts-show-how-sanctions-are-crushing-irans-economy.html">economic hardship</a> the country is currently enduring. For example, <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/iran/inflation-cpi">inflation is over 50%</a>, exports have plunged due to the sanctions and <a href="https://iranintl.com/en/iran/poverty-grows-iran-some-suggest-redistribution-wealth-taxation">over 60% of the population is now in poverty</a>, up from 48% just two years ago.</p>
<p>With Raisi president, the conservatives and the supreme leader have greater incentives to reach an agreement with the United States for lifting the sanctions as they can no longer blame a reformist president for the economic hardships.</p>
<p>The success of this strategy, however, is far from guaranteed.</p>
<p>First, if Khamenei, Raisi and their hard-line supporters insist on maintaining Iran’s <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/02/20/prospects-for-change-in-iranian-foreign-policy-pub-75569">confrontational foreign policy</a>, it seems unlikely to me that the economic sanctions against Iran will ease. Not all of them are tied directly to the nuclear deal, including <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/front-runner-iran-presidency-is-hardline-judge-sanctioned-by-us-2021-06-15/">sanctions against Raisi himself</a>. </p>
<p>Second, the growing alienation and frustration of large segments of Iran’s population – especially after reformists were banned from running for president – may still lead to <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2020/01/latest-irans-evolving-protests">mass unrest</a> and political instability. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An Iranian woman holds out her hand, which has the name 'Raisi' on it written in Persian script" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407108/original/file-20210617-21-1k1xw81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407108/original/file-20210617-21-1k1xw81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407108/original/file-20210617-21-1k1xw81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407108/original/file-20210617-21-1k1xw81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407108/original/file-20210617-21-1k1xw81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407108/original/file-20210617-21-1k1xw81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407108/original/file-20210617-21-1k1xw81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An Iranian woman shows her support for Raisi by writing his name, in Persian, on her hand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXIranElections/0318ab4f5253434582aed21829149655/photo?Query=iran%20AND%20president&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=12133&currentItemNo=12">AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi</a></span>
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<h2>Supreme Leader Raisi?</h2>
<p>Raisi’s victory may have an even more significant impact on Iran’s politics in the long run because it might pave the way for him to become Iran’s next supreme leader. </p>
<p>Ayatollah Khamenei is in his 80s, and a succession to a new supreme leader is considered probable in the next four years. According to many regime insiders, Raisi became <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55257059">the most likely</a> person to replace Khamenei by winning the presidential election. </p>
<p>If Raisi eventually becomes Iran’s supreme leader, he would have far more powers to shape all types of policies. Based on his background and values, he is likely to resist political and social reforms and try to gain legitimacy for the Islamic regime by focusing on economic development in <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/06/irans-hard-liners-take-page-chinas-election-playbook">a similar fashion</a> to the authoritarian regimes in Asia, such as China, by focusing on economic growth while curtailing political and social freedoms. </p>
<p>Raisi – and eventually as the supreme leader – is unlikely to abandon Iran’s anti-Western foreign policy, but he has the potential to lower the tensions to a more manageable level in order to improve Iran’s economy.</p>
<p>In my view, he seems to have recognized that the continuation of current economic hardships poses the largest threat to the Islamic regime in the long run.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nader Habibi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ebrahim Raisi was declared the winner of Iran’s June 18 presidential election, which critics called rigged after his top opponents were disqualified.Nader Habibi, Henry J. Leir Professor of Practice in Economics of the Middle East, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1629502021-06-17T16:06:30Z2021-06-17T16:06:30ZIran presidential elections: who will win and what will happen next?<p>Iranians are heading to the polls to elect their next president and – after years of economic hardship and internal crackdowns on government protests – this election could have long-term implications domestically, regionally and internationally. Here are four things to watch:</p>
<h2>Voter participation</h2>
<p>Expectation for voter turnout <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-iranians-wont-vote-new-survey-reveals-massive-political-disenchantment-162374">is low</a>. The parliamentary elections in 2020 had the lowest participation rate to date, with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51605942">turnout of only 42%</a> (in comparison to 70% in the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/692094/iran-voter-turnout-rate/">2017 presidential election</a>). </p>
<p>Participation in elections is crucial for the legitimacy of the Iranian regime. There has been a significant media campaign by <a href="https://en.irna.ir/news/84370720/Participation-in-election-a-responsibility-for-all-Iranian-people">officials</a> and <a href="https://www.isna.ir/amp/1400032518787/">high-profile leaders</a> to encourage voting, including direct appeals from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. </p>
<p>Before the 2020 elections, <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/02/iran-supreme-leader-khamenei-voter-turnout-elections.html">Khamenei declared voting to be a religious</a> as well as a national duty. More recently, he made a <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/irans-khamenei-appeals-to-people-for-maximum-participation-in-poll/2276352">televised speech</a> stating: “If people don’t participate in elections, enemies will maximise pressure on us.”</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-iranians-wont-vote-new-survey-reveals-massive-political-disenchantment-162374">Why Iranians won’t vote: new survey reveals massive political disenchantment</a>
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<p>There are many reasons why turnout may be low. Many believe <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210616-many-iranians-plan-to-boycott-vote-for-a-president-without-power">the president has little power</a> and there is widespread anger over what is seen as a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/12/irans-presidential-candidates-pull-out-the-stops-in-final-debate">conservative-heavy ticket</a> – and an assumption that the winner has already been chosen. There are also continuing concerns over COVID, with <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL">only 1%</a> of the population fully vaccinated.</p>
<p>But the biggest concern for the regime itself is that low turnout represents a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-iranians-wont-vote-new-survey-reveals-massive-political-disenchantment-162374">vote of no confidence</a> – with growing dissatisfaction over a <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23IraniansBoycottElections&src=typeahead_click">wide number of issues</a>. </p>
<h2>The likely winner</h2>
<p>It is widely expected that the conservative Ebrahim Raisi will win the presidency. From the outset, the Guardian Council that oversees elections created a <a href="https://twitter.com/LouiseSKettle/status/1397474810977046530">conservative-heavy ballot</a> (five conservative candidates in total, with one moderate and one reformist). Since then, two conservatives have withdrawn – each throwing their weight behind Raisi – as has the reformist, leaving only four contenders.</p>
<p>Raisi is the most well-known candidate, having been head of Iran’s judiciary and having run against current president Hassan Rouhani in the 2017 elections. The prominence of his name on the ticket was cemented by the disqualification of other familiar figures, including parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, current vice president Eshaq Jahangiri and former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As a result, it appears that the regime has made considerable <a href="https://agsiw.org/engineering-presidential-elections-in-iran-coronation-of-raisi/">efforts to engineer his success</a>. </p>
<p>If Raisi does become president it will compound domestic anger over election manipulation and have implications internationally. As a hardline conservative, Raisi is likely to prove more difficult to deal with than the moderate Rouhani. On the other hand, if Raisi doesn’t win, there will be considerable upset among the existing regime.</p>
<h2>The likely reaction</h2>
<p>The Ministry of the Interior has advised that results will be <a href="https://www.mesf.org.au/2021/06/16/election-result-announced-before-noon-saturday/">announced by midday on Saturday June 19</a>, less than 12 hours after the polls close. The reaction will depend on the results themselves, but there are likely to be large street protests in response. </p>
<p>A landslide Raisi victory or unexpected high turnout figures will no doubt result in questions of legitimacy. This could prompt similar demonstrations to those experienced in 2009, when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html">mass protests</a> demanded a rerun of the poll that reelected Ahmadinejad. But more likely is that the results will act as a catalyst to reignite broader anti-government protests.</p>
<p>Demonstrations against the regime, in response to the handling of the economy, increases in fuel price, government repression and the shooting down of a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-crash-ukraine-idUSKBN2B92CL">Ukrainian airline</a>, started in 2017 and gathered pace into 2020. The result was extreme government crackdowns with <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/iran-world-must-strongly-condemn-use-of-lethal-force-against-protesters-as-death-toll-rises-to-143/">at least 143</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50562584">protesters killed</a> and thousands injured or detained.</p>
<p>More protests will mean more of the same, with further destabilisation and tougher government intervention fuelling the cycle of dissatisfaction. The question will be which side will have to capitulate: the protesters or the regime, and to what extent international actors will become involved in any growing crisis.</p>
<h2>Long-term impact</h2>
<p>Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is 82 years old. There have been increased reports of ill health, prompting increasing speculation over his successor. The supreme leader has ultimate authority in Iran, the most powerful Shia country in the world, so Khamenei’s successor will have a significant impact on Iran, the Middle East region and further abroad.</p>
<p>In recent years speculation has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-55257059">centred on two candidates</a>: Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei and Ebrahim Raisi. There have even been accusations that the manipulation of candidates has been <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/a-raisi-presidential-win-may-be-his-undoing-as-future-supreme-leader/">designed by Mojtaba Khamenei</a> specifically to promote Raisi only to have him discredited in the upcoming election. </p>
<p>A loss or low turnout could damage Raisi’s reputation and ultimately his long-term ambition to become supreme leader, paving the way for a hereditary handover.</p>
<p>This is not beyond the realm of possibility. <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/will-khameneis-son-play-role-iranian-succession">Mojtaba Khamenei</a> manages his father’s office and with members of the Guardian Council selected by the supreme leader he is likely to have considerable influence within the committee. </p>
<p>Furthermore, even if turnout and support for Raisi does end up being higher than anticipated, the presidency represents a risky path to succession. He will have to deliver if he wants to remain in the running for the ultimate position of power. Rouhani was previously considered a <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/29/rouhanis-path-to-becoming-irans-supreme-leader/">contender for the supreme leadership</a>, but his failure to deliver reform has lost public support for this position.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Kettle has previously received funding from the AHRC.</span></em></p>The election result seems a foregone conclusion, but the country’s political future is far from certain.Louise Kettle, Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623742021-06-10T12:38:05Z2021-06-10T12:38:05ZWhy Iranians won’t vote: new survey reveals massive political disenchantment<p>The Islamic Republic of Iran has never organised free and fair elections since its establishment in 1979. By definition, the combination of modern totalitarianism and Iran’s Islamic theocracy, with a supreme leader, cannot allow for more than a voting spectacle, rather than elections in the normal sense of the word.</p>
<p>Yet, a majority of Iranians have used the platform of an election to <a href="https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/the-people-reloaded/">make their presence felt</a>. They did this in 1997 with the rise of the so-called Reformists, in the disputed 2009 elections that were followed by mass protests, and in 2017 when the current president, Hassan Rouhani, was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39984066">re-elected</a> with a turnout of more than 70%. However, the population’s mode of expression has now shifted. Many Iranians say they will refuse to participate in the upcoming elections, hacking at the regime’s sole remaining pillar of legitimacy.</p>
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<p><em>Listen to the authors discuss their research on The Conversation Weekly podcast.</em> </p>
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<p>Rouhani is standing down after serving two terms and presidential elections are taking place on June 18. The frontrunner is Ebrahim Raisi, an ultra-conservative and head of the judiciary who is responsible for <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/07/iran-serious-rights-violator-lead-judiciary">ordering</a> the execution of several thousands of political prisoners in 1988. Iran’s Guardian Council, a body of 12 members appointed by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the head of the judiciary, Raisi himself, must approve the candidates. Among <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210525-iran-bars-heavyweights-ahmadinejad-and-larijani-from-presidential-elections">those rejected</a> were former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. </p>
<p>Our research institute, the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), conducted an online survey between May 27 and June 3 on the upcoming vote. The <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/GAMAAN-Election-Survey-2021-English-Final.pdf">results</a> show that the Islamic Republic is facing its lowest turnout ever, with only 25% of respondents saying they would vote. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405149/original/file-20210608-135197-1wnhu56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing who Iranian votes plan to vote for, with abstention at 7.47%." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405149/original/file-20210608-135197-1wnhu56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405149/original/file-20210608-135197-1wnhu56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405149/original/file-20210608-135197-1wnhu56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405149/original/file-20210608-135197-1wnhu56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405149/original/file-20210608-135197-1wnhu56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405149/original/file-20210608-135197-1wnhu56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405149/original/file-20210608-135197-1wnhu56.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nearly three quarters of Iranians surveyed said they would not vote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/GAMAAN-Election-Survey-2021-English-Final.pdf">GAMAAN</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Polling in authoritarian countries</h2>
<p>Our estimated turnout is lower than the official numbers published by the state-run Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA), which <a href="https://iranintl.com/en/iran/iran-official-poll-shows-lower-turnout-after-elimination-key-candidates">predicts a turnout lower than 40%</a>. The discrepancies are likely to be caused by the differences between traditional telephone and on-site sampling on the one hand, and the less charted territories of online sampling, on the other. </p>
<p>From research in other authoritarian countries such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17457289.2016.1150284">Russia</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414015626450">China</a>, we know that respondents are much less willing to answer truthfully when they are reached using conventional, offline, survey methods. Inflated polling numbers can then be used to validate potentially fraudulent results to give autocrats an air of respectability. </p>
<p>That’s why GAMAAN conducts surveys using an anonymous digital platform, which makes people feel safe enough to share their true opinions about politically sensitive matters. </p>
<p>Iran’s internet penetration rate is comparable with Germany. According to <a href="https://www.irna.ir/news/84263095/%D8%B6%D8%B1%DB%8C%D8%A8-%D9%86%D9%81%D9%88%D8%B0-%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%DB%B9%DB%B2-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%B1-%DA%A9%D8%B1%D8%AF">the most recent statistics</a>, there are 77 million mobile internet subscribers and <a href="http://ispa.ir/Default/Details/fa/2282/73.6-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%DB%8C-18-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84-%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%8C-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%B6%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%87%E2%80%8C%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B9%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%87-%D9%85%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D9%86%D9%86%D8%AF--%D9%BE%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%B3-%D8%A7%D9%BE-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%B1%D8%AA%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%84">roughly 74% of Iranians</a> over 18 use at least one social media platform. So it’s possible to reach a substantial percentage of Iranians online and ask about their views.</p>
<p>We have conducted several such surveys on <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GAMAAN-Iran-Religion-Survey-2020-English.pdf">religion</a>, <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GAMAAN-Iran-Death-Penalty-Survey-2020-English.pdf">capital punishment</a>, and <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GAMAAN-Iran-Media-Survey-2021-English-Final.pdf">media popularity</a>, gaining insights into Iranian internet users’ behaviour that help target an appropriate range of digital channels spread across the country. </p>
<p>After cleaning the data for our most recent survey, we were left with a sample of 68,000 Iranians living in Iran. The sample was weighted and balanced to the target population of literate Iranians aged above 19, using five demographic variables, voting behaviour in the 2017 presidential elections, and new survey data on political preferences.</p>
<p>Crucial for the weighting is the participation of pro-regime respondents, whose absence would skew the results. In this survey, we attracted 9,000 respondents who voted for the conservative candidate, Raisi, in the 2017 elections. </p>
<h2>The meaning of not voting</h2>
<p>What can explain the turnout drop, from over 70% in 2017 to an expectation of less than 30% today? The vast majority of our respondents, 71%, said the main reason they were abstaining was because of “the unfree and ineffective nature of elections in the Islamic Republic.” Only 7% reported the Guardian Council’s recent “disqualification of my preferred candidate” as their reason. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405150/original/file-20210608-28272-1lw0gzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing 70% of Iranians say they won't vote because of the unfree nature of the elections." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405150/original/file-20210608-28272-1lw0gzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405150/original/file-20210608-28272-1lw0gzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405150/original/file-20210608-28272-1lw0gzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405150/original/file-20210608-28272-1lw0gzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405150/original/file-20210608-28272-1lw0gzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405150/original/file-20210608-28272-1lw0gzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405150/original/file-20210608-28272-1lw0gzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A lack of free and fair elections is keeping voters away from the polls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/GAMAAN-Election-Survey-2021-English-Final.pdf">GAMAAN</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In another survey we <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gamaan-referendum-survey-report-english-2019.pdf">conducted in April 2019</a>, 79% of respondents said they would vote no to the Islamic Republic in a free referendum. This was before the bloody crackdowns in November that year which led to the death of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-protests-specialreport-idUSKBN1YR0QR">an estimated 1,500</a> people, and before the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55488800">shooting down</a> a Ukrainian passenger airline in 2020.</p>
<p>Our latest results show that the majority’s desire to get rid of the theocratic system hasn’t changed. Around half of the population supports regime change as a precondition for meaningful change, and a quarter supports a softer transition away from the current system. Only 8% explicitly supported the Islamic Republic by identifying as Reformist, and only 13% saw themselves as Principlists, who support the Islamic Revolution and the supreme leader.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405153/original/file-20210608-23-1ypsz04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing more than half of Iranians surveyed want regime change as a precondition for change." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405153/original/file-20210608-23-1ypsz04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405153/original/file-20210608-23-1ypsz04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405153/original/file-20210608-23-1ypsz04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405153/original/file-20210608-23-1ypsz04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405153/original/file-20210608-23-1ypsz04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405153/original/file-20210608-23-1ypsz04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405153/original/file-20210608-23-1ypsz04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A majority of Iranians think change can only come with regime change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/GAMAAN-Election-Survey-2021-English-Final.pdf">GAMAAN</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are not the only group with such findings. A <a href="https://www.farsnews.ir/news/14000312000160/%D8%B1%D8%A6%DB%8C%D8%B3-%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B3%D9%BE%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%AA%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%81-%D8%B1%D8%A3%DB%8C-%D8%B1%D8%A6%DB%8C%D8%B3%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D9%82%DB%8C%D9%87-%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B2%D8%AF%D9%87%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%B2%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA-%DB%B8%DB%B0-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF">recent state-run survey</a> revealed that Reformists and Principlists together have about 20% of supporters. The respectable <a href="https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp">World Values Survey</a> conducted an on-site survey in Iran in the summer of 2020 and found that the Principlists’ base was no larger than 16%. </p>
<p>Worried about the expected low turnout, the supreme leader <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210604-iran-s-khamenei-urges-people-to-vote-amid-abstention-fears">hurried to describe</a> the act of voting as a religious duty. But if Iranians’ political disenchantment has turned into <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/01/21/disenchanted-iranians-are-turning-to-other-faiths">religious disappointment</a>, with millions abandoning or changing their faith, the leader has turned the elections into a test of the nation’s religiosity. It is this entanglement of religion and politics that is at the heart of Iranians’ discontent, and which the regime’s mismanagement and <a href="https://iranintl.com/en/iran-economy/iran-near-bottom-transparency-international%E2%80%99s-2020-corruption-index">corruption</a> and the economic sanctions have only exacerbated. </p>
<p>Like other authoritarian regimes, the Islamic Republic needs a high enough turnout so that its foreign minister <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_xEHZQ6Dfg&t=2538s">can sell an image</a> of a legitimate government abroad. By boycotting what are nothing but staged elections, ordinary Iranians are refusing to participate in this political theatre. It’s time the international community recognised their will to effect a real change in Iran.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162374/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pooyan Tamimi Arab is the secretary of the non-profit research institute GAMAAN.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ammar Maleki is the director of the non-profit research institute GAMAAN, which received public donations to carry out this research.</span></em></p>Ahead of June 18 presidential elections, a new survey found that only around a quarter of Iranians plan to vote.Pooyan Tamimi Arab, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Utrecht UniversityAmmar Maleki, Assistant Professor, Public Law and Governance, Tilburg UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1549122021-03-01T15:38:04Z2021-03-01T15:38:04ZIran’s leaders signal interest in new nuclear deal, but U.S. must act soon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386578/original/file-20210225-15-ihp67t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4200%2C2791&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iran's President Hassan Rouhani arrives for a news conference in Tehran, Iran, in February 2020, with a portrait of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hanging on the wall behind him. Both men have signalled an interest in a new nuclear deal. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the campaign trail, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/world/middleeast/iran-biden-trump-nuclear-sanctions.html">Joe Biden</a> pledged that if elected he would quickly return the United States to the Joint Collective Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal.</p>
<p>But negotiations have been slow to materialize, and with Iran’s presidential elections scheduled to take place in June, the window of opportunity may be closing. If Biden does not make a deal soon, he risks getting mired in the convoluted machinations of Iran’s domestic political system and sucked back into the brinksmanship that began under Donald Trump’s administration. </p>
<p>Just this week, Iran <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/iran-limits-nuclear-inspections-inching-closer-talks-us/story?id=76067958">restricted International Atomic Energy Agency</a> access to nuclear sites, and the United States <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-syria-strike-idUSKBN2AQ1L8">attacked</a> Iranian targets in Syria. No doubt neither side wants war, but games of chicken are never easy to control.</p>
<p>At the moment, political conditions in Tehran are favourable for a settlement. Iran’s current president, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-usa-idUSKBN29P0NK">Hassan Rouhani</a>, has said his country is ready to quickly rejoin the JCPOA, on the basis of <em>compliance for compliance</em> — meaning both sides return to their obligations as originally spelled out in the 2015 agreement.</p>
<p>Rouhani even has the go-ahead from the regime’s Supreme Leader, <a href="https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2169574-irans-rohani-gets-green-light-to-engage-with-biden">Ayatollah Ali Khamenei</a>, who is the ultimate arbiter of power in the regime. </p>
<h2>Making the first move</h2>
<p>All this means reaching an agreement on a new nuclear deal isn’t going to be a cakewalk. There’s still the question of who needs to make the first move, Washington or Tehran. But the remaining issues could all be finessed, particularly with the help of a country <a href="https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/458025/Qatar-FM-says-working-to-revive-JCPOA">like Qatar</a>, which has volunteered to mediate. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386495/original/file-20210225-15-181vnft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C209%2C3334%2C2006&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Iran's President Hassan Rouhani smiles" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386495/original/file-20210225-15-181vnft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C209%2C3334%2C2006&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386495/original/file-20210225-15-181vnft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386495/original/file-20210225-15-181vnft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386495/original/file-20210225-15-181vnft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386495/original/file-20210225-15-181vnft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386495/original/file-20210225-15-181vnft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386495/original/file-20210225-15-181vnft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani smiles during a news conference in Tehran, Iran, in February 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, these conditions are unlikely to last for more than a few months. Presidential elections are scheduled for June 18, at which point Rouhani will leave office after finishing his second term. Like the U.S., Iran puts a two-term limit on its presidents.</p>
<p>Campaigning will start even before that, probably in April or May, once the candidates have been vetted by the Council of Guardians, a clerical body tasked with ensuring candidates are loyal to the regime. At that point, Iran’s political elite will be consumed with domestic politics, and whatever talks are in progress will likely have to stop. </p>
<p>Iran’s presidential elections are notoriously hard to predict. Very few people picked Rouhani to win in 2013, just as very few people picked <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mohammad-Khatami">Mohammad Khatami</a> in 1997 or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad">Mahmoud Ahmadinejad</a> in 2005. The situation now is particularly fluid. </p>
<p>There are plenty of potential candidates, but <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iranian-media-name-potential-candidates-for-2021-presidential-election/30757385.html">no real favourites</a>, and until the Council of Guardians rules, no one really knows who will be allowed to run. </p>
<p>Prior to Biden’s election win, many pundits were predicting a win <a href="https://iranintl.com/en/iran/irans-parliament-paves-way-candidacy-generals-presidential-race">by the hardliners</a>. They had swept the 2020 parliamentary elections and the stagnation of the JCPOA seemed to leave the moderate camp directionless. However, after Biden’s win, momentum seemed to swing back towards <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/irans-hardliners-think-biden-might-hurt-their-june-presidential-election-strategy/">the moderates</a>. </p>
<p>That analysis though, was predicated on a swift return to the JCPOA. If the negotiations stall, or Biden plays hardball with Iran, the moderates may once again be in trouble.</p>
<h2>Does it matter?</h2>
<p>Some Iran watchers might argue that it really doesn’t matter. As already noted, the candidates are drawn from a narrow pool of regime loyalists and the real power remains in the hands of the Supreme Leader. Therefore, it will be Khamenei who decides if Iran negotiates, not the new president. </p>
<p>This argument is not so much wrong as over-simplified. There are significant divisions between hardliners and moderates concerning the JCPOA. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/04/hassan-rouhani-iran-nuclear-talks">hardliners</a> in Tehran have been just as critical of the deal as the hawks in Washington, Riyadh and Tel Aviv. They did not expect the U.S. would live up to <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/11/iran-rouhani-zarif-criticism-talks-us-biden-nuclear-deal.html">its JCPOA obligations</a> and argue that Biden is no less <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/irans-hardliners-think-biden-might-hurt-their-june-presidential-election-strategy/">anti-Iranian</a> than Trump. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protesters hold a burning photograph of Trump and Biden" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386512/original/file-20210225-17-1ws7w57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386512/original/file-20210225-17-1ws7w57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386512/original/file-20210225-17-1ws7w57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386512/original/file-20210225-17-1ws7w57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386512/original/file-20210225-17-1ws7w57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386512/original/file-20210225-17-1ws7w57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386512/original/file-20210225-17-1ws7w57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A group of protesters burn pictures of former U.S. president Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden a day after the killing of an Iranian scientist linked to the country’s nuclear program by unknown assailants near Tehran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is true that a hard-line president could not refuse to negotiate if Khamenei so ordered, but the dynamics of the process would be significantly different if the Iranian president was, at best, ambivalent about the outcome. Perhaps even more importantly, the optics of negotiating with a hardliner would be difficult for Biden to manage at home. </p>
<p>If a new Iranian president took the same ideological tone as former president Ahmadinejad, for example, Biden would probably be forced to withdraw from negotiations. At the very least, it would make it very difficult for his team to offer any compromises. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at a podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386521/original/file-20210225-15-ns7g5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386521/original/file-20210225-15-ns7g5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386521/original/file-20210225-15-ns7g5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386521/original/file-20210225-15-ns7g5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386521/original/file-20210225-15-ns7g5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386521/original/file-20210225-15-ns7g5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386521/original/file-20210225-15-ns7g5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the State Department in Washington on Feb. 4, 2021, about the Biden administration’s early efforts to resurrect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So far, the new U.S. administration is sending mixed messages about its intentions. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-iran-nuclear-france-idUSKBN2AI2UX">Biden recently said</a> he was willing to sit down with Iran immediately, along with the United Nations Security Council and France and Germany. However, in January, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/voa-news-iran/us-sanctions-iran-remain-blinken-says">Secretary of State Anthony Blinken</a> suggested that the administration wanted to expand the scope of the negotiations and foresaw a drawn-out negotiating process. </p>
<p>It’s possible that Blinken’s comments represent nothing more than pre-negotiation posturing. If so, Biden must not to wait too long before getting down to the real business of substantive talks. If, however, Blinken’s remarks are an accurate reflection of the administration’s thinking, Biden is trading a relatively quick foreign policy win for a much more perilous path.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Devine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Joe Biden has said he wants to return the United States to the Joint Collective Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
But the window of opportunity may be closing.James Devine, Associate Professor Politics and International Relations, Mount Allison UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1294002020-01-15T13:54:11Z2020-01-15T13:54:11ZWhat Iranians think of the US and their own government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310036/original/file-20200114-151844-x97cln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters during a demonstration in front of the British Embassy in Tehran, Iran on Jan. 12.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Iran-Plane-Crash/649e5ceebafd47e1aead7f237c80f1c8/7/0">AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the Trump administration killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-killing-qasem-soleimani">with a drone strike</a> on Jan. 3, anti-American protests in Iran <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/qassem-soleimani-anti-us-protests-iran_n_5e0f5c0ce4b0843d36117117">subsequently spiked</a>, with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50991810">thousands mourning Soleimani’s passing</a>. </p>
<p>As someone who studies <a href="https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/155/">the U.S. image and world opinion</a>, I am aware that this event is rapidly evolving, so it’s difficult to determine how things will settle. Polls aren’t yet available to reflect Iranians’ views on these recent incidents.</p>
<p>Good data are hard to come by, but <a href="https://www.iranpoll.com">IranPoll</a>, a Canadian-based polling company, sheds some light. IranPoll has focused on Iran exclusively for years and provides unique survey data, especially from <a href="https://cissm.umd.edu/research-impact/publications/iranian-public-opinion-under-maximum-pressure">surveys conducted from May to October 2019 of 1,000 Iranians</a>. </p>
<h2>Anti-Americanism</h2>
<p>Iranians have felt strongly antagonistic toward the United States in recent years. </p>
<p>Since President Donald Trump took office, unfavorability of the U.S. among Iranians steadily increased, from 71% in January 2016 to 86% in May 2019. </p>
<p>These findings overlap with Gallup’s Annual Global End of Year Survey. In 2017, <a href="http://www.gallup-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017_Global-Leaders.pdf">Gallup</a> reported that 81% of Iranians held unfavorable views toward Trump. </p>
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<p>America’s <a href="https://softpower30.com/what-is-soft-power/">soft power</a> – its ability to attract others to follow its example – is in a shambles among the Iranian public. </p>
<p>IranPoll compared survey data collected by <a href="https://www.zogbyanalytics.com">Zogby</a>, another polling firm, showing that Iranians have had a declining view of American values over the last 15 years. For example, two-thirds of respondents agreed in 2019 that “America is a dangerous country that seeks confrontation and control,” compared to just under half in 2005. </p>
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<h2>Shreds of the nuclear deal</h2>
<p>The United States withdrew from <a href="https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/full-text-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal/1651/">the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action</a>, better known as the Iran nuclear deal, back in May 2018. At that time, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/mike-pompeo-speech-12-demands-iran-180521151737787.html">12 conditions</a> that Iran would have to meet before America would consider going back to the bargaining table. </p>
<p>Iran hasn’t met these new restrictions, and has now <a href="http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Iran-scraps-limit-on-uranium-enrichment">withdrawn from the last restrictions</a> to which it agreed under the Obama administration. </p>
<p>So, is there any hope for support for the deal among the remaining signatories – Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, Russia and the European Union – to the agreement? Iranians don’t seem to think so. </p>
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<p>Although 61% of respondents were confident in 2016 that other countries besides the U.S. would “live up to their obligations toward the nuclear agreement,” this reversed after Trump scrapped the deal in 2018. As of October 2019, only 30% of Iranians were confident that other signatories would hold up their end of the bargain. </p>
<h2>Inside Iran</h2>
<p>U.S.-Iran relations are in turmoil. The stakes are quite high, given that the Iranian regime seems resolute now in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>But it’s not just the United States and Trump that Iranians have deep antipathy toward. Data shows that Iranians are ambivalent toward their own leadership.</p>
<p>On the one hand, the assassination of Soleimani <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/06/qassem-suleimani-killing-united-iran/">united Iranians</a> at a level not seen in decades. But after the Iranian government shot down a civilian plane, denied it, then finally admitted so, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/world/middleeast/iran-plane-crash-missile.html">public protests came out in force against the regime</a>. Following the momentum of the 2009 Green Movement, many youth in Iran <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2019-06-14/irans-green-movement-never-went-away">still desire more internal social reform</a>. </p>
<p>The gross domestic product per capita in Iran <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=IR">has fallen in recent years</a>, from about US$8,000 in 2012 to $5,265 in 2017. The average Iranian has felt the sting of economic sanctions and worries that the government is taking advantage of the situation through corrupt policies. </p>
<p>In an IranPoll in May 2019, 57% of respondents felt the economy was “run by a few big interests,” compared to just 31% who said that the economy was “run for all the people.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, half of respondents feel that, compared to the last year, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s efforts to fight economic corruption “remain unchanged” since last year. Another 19% feel Rouhani’s efforts have decreased.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monti Datta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since President Donald Trump took office, Iranians have held a more unfavorable view of the US.Monti Datta, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1294402020-01-07T01:47:38Z2020-01-07T01:47:38ZIran vows revenge for Soleimani’s killing, but here’s why it won’t seek direct confrontation with the US<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308716/original/file-20200107-123399-1yzujup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The assassination of General Qassem Soleimani was too provocative for Iran to let slide, but a military response is unlikely.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>US President Donald Trump has not held back on threatening Iran after the targeted killing of General Qassem Soleimani, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and a key player in expanding Iran’s links with armed groups across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. </p>
<p>In addition to extreme sanctions, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-threatens-iran-attacks-52-sites-n1110511">Trump’s latest threat</a> includes hitting 52 military and cultural targets in Iran. As might be expected, the Iranian leadership has doubled down on its anti-US rhetoric and promises of retribution. Soleimani was too important to the regime to let this slide.</p>
<p>As the commander of the Quds Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Soleimani was in direct contact with Hezbollah in Lebanon. He mobilised the militant group to defend Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad against US-backed rebels and armed Islamist groups. Soleimani also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-soleimani-in-moscow-for-talks-with-russian-leadership-2016-4?IR=T">visited Moscow in 2016</a> to make a case for, and coordinate, Russia’s military involvement in Syria. </p>
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<p>Soleimani made frequent trips to Iraq to bolster the Kurdish and later the Shia militia push-backs against the Islamic State. The recapture of Mosul from the Islamic State in 2016 by the US-backed Iraqi army and the Shia Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) was greeted in Iran with joy. </p>
<p>Soleimani was celebrated as a <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2016/0215/Gen.-Soleimani-A-new-brand-of-Iranian-hero-for-nationalist-times">national hero</a>. The Iranian regime praised him for serving the national security doctrine of offensive defence: defeating ISIS beyond Iran’s borders.</p>
<h2>Direct military confrontation is unlikely</h2>
<p>It makes sense, then, that the Iranian regime feels compelled to respond to Soleimani’s assassination. Iran cannot afford to let its national hero be slain without retribution. When Soleimani’s daughter asked President Hassan Rouhani, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an0DnfNGTHc">Who will avenge my father’s blood?”</a>, his response was swift: “We will all take revenge”. </p>
<p>But what can Iran do? The Iranian leadership has been woefully aware of its limitations in case of any direct confrontation with the United States. Iran’s armed forces, including the zealot IRGC, are no match for US firepower. Direct military confrontation will amount to suicide, and the Iranian leadership is in no hurry to act crazy, no matter how deeply hurt it may feel. </p>
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<p>This fits the pattern of the cat-and-mouse game the IRGC has been playing with the US navy in the Persian Gulf to disrupt oil shipments without raising the stakes too high. Iran <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-22/iran-will-close-strait-of-hormuz-if-it-can-t-use-it-fars">threatened</a> on many occasions to block the Strait of Hormuz and seriously hurt the global economy, but never carried through as it could have prompted a military retaliation from the US.</p>
<p>Iran, likewise, had a calibrated response to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/05/iran-launches-military-drill-response-return-us-sanctions">re-imposition of crippling US sanctions</a> following Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal: a combination of harsh rhetoric and mild action. Tehran sought to look tough but not too threatening to invite a US reprisal. </p>
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<p>But the targeted killing of a celebrated Iranian commander is a game changer, meaning the Iranian response will likely be stronger.</p>
<p>Given the perils of direct confrontation for the Iranian regime, the most likely recourse may be a mobilisation of Iran’s proxy affiliations to exact revenge on the United States, most likely in Iraq. </p>
<p>In fact, Iran does not really need to instruct Shia militia in Iraq to hurt the United States. The Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) also lost its second-in-command (Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis) in the same drone attack that killed Soleimani. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/at-least-two-rockets-hit-near-us-embassy-in-baghdad-12236122">Rocket attacks</a> in recent days on the Green Zone in Baghdad are likely to be just the prelude to a major PMU action against US assets in Iraq. </p>
<p>The turning tide against the US military presence, evident in the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/iraqi-parliament-calls-expulsion-foreign-troops-200105150709628.html">Iraqi parliament’s resolution to expel foreign forces</a>, could embolden PMU to step up its operations even further. This would be disastrous for the war-ravaged country, and there is no guarantee that Iran would not be embroiled in the conflict.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308717/original/file-20200107-123411-ij51a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308717/original/file-20200107-123411-ij51a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308717/original/file-20200107-123411-ij51a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308717/original/file-20200107-123411-ij51a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308717/original/file-20200107-123411-ij51a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308717/original/file-20200107-123411-ij51a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308717/original/file-20200107-123411-ij51a3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Pro-Iranian demonstrators targeted the US embassy in Iraq after American airstrikes against an Iran-backed militia late last month.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Murtaja Lateef/EPA</span></span>
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<h2>Diplomatic responses also have limited appeal</h2>
<p>Beyond the military options, Iran also has two immediate diplomatic options. The first is to completely revoke the nuclear deal and resume its nuclear program. </p>
<p>With the US withdrawal from the deal in 2018 – and the Trump administration’s subsequent imposition of a “<a href="https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/2019/iran-tensions-3">maximum pressure</a>” strategy on Tehran – Iran already has no incentive to observe its commitments. </p>
<p>And Iran was edging away from the deal even before the latest escalation of tensions. After Soleimani’s assassination, Rouhani said <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/body-of-commander-slain-by-us-strike-arrives-in-iran-to-crowds-of-mourners/2020/01/05/4ca3281a-2f17-11ea-bffe-020c88b3f120_story.html">Iran will recommence uranium enrichment and stockpiles</a>, measures that the nuclear deal was designed to seriously limit and monitor. </p>
<p>The Iranian leadership claims it is still in compliance with the general rules set by the International Atomic Energy Agency to govern nuclear activity for civilian use. This move is designed to drive a wedge between the United States and its European allies. By addressing European leaders directly, Rouhani reiterated that Iran would be prepared to return to the deal, but only if Europe, Russia and China could offer a way around US sanctions. This scenario looks extremely unlikely.</p>
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<p>Second, Iran could take its case to the United Nations and seek justice through international law. </p>
<p>In the wake of the Soleimani killing, the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/iranian-ambassador-un-says-iran-will-retaliate-illegal-act-aggression-n1110241">Iranian ambassador to the UN</a> lambasted the United States for “an illegitimate action” and “an act of aggression”. </p>
<p>This move could resonate with the majority opinion in the United Nations, as well as many US lawmakers and international law experts, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/04/politics/trump-iran-soleimani-strike-concerns/index.html">who have questioned</a> Trump’s justification for assassinating Soleimani to prevent an imminent threat against the United States. </p>
<p>But going through the UN would be a lengthy and ineffective process as the United States has made a habit of dismissing or ignoring UN resolutions it does not like.</p>
<p>In addition, it is difficult to imagine that any non-military option would be enough to satisfy Iran’s impulse for revenge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129440/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shahram Akbarzadeh receives funding from Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Given the perils of direct confrontation with the US, the most likely recourse for Iran may be to mobilise its proxy militias to attack American assets in Iraq.Shahram Akbarzadeh, Professor of Middle East & Central Asian Politics, Deputy Director (International), Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1237142019-09-18T20:37:25Z2019-09-18T20:37:25ZHow likely is conflict between the US and Iran?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292937/original/file-20190918-148960-1507yer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This week's attack on Saudi oil facilities appears to be the latest effort by Iran to escalate tensions in the Persian Gulf to push back on the US 'maximum pressure' sanctions campaign.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pavel Golovkin/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-refineries-drone-attack.html">strikes on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing facilities</a> in Saudi Arabia likely represent the latest in a pattern of actions by the Islamic Republic of Iran to escalate tensions in the Persian Gulf. </p>
<p>Unlike previous incidents, the impact of this attack has not just been felt locally. With <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/14/business/saudi-oil-output-impacted-drone-attack/index.html">half of Saudi oil output halted</a> – around 6% of total world production – global fuel oil prices <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/353bce38-d806-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17">have spiked</a>. The markets are spooked. </p>
<p>Direct culpability for the attack remains unclear. While Yemeni Houthi rebels <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/14/middleeast/yemen-houthi-rebels-drone-attacks-saudi-aramco-intl/index.html">have claimed</a> responsibility, other sources and evidence have pointed to an Iraqi source, potentially the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-iranian-drones-launched-iraq-carried-out-attacks-saudi-oil-plants">Hashd al-Shaabi militia</a>. </p>
<p>Some sources inside the US government have also outright <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-18/us-believes-attack-on-saudi-arabia-came-from-southwest-iran/11522678">accused Iran itself</a>. This seems unlikely, though, given Iran’s penchant for proxy activity and plausible deniability.</p>
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<p>Regardless of who physically pressed the launch button, however, it is almost certain that Tehran was the primary enabler of the strike. The state has a <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-tacit-threat-idf-reveals-details-of-iran-hezbollah-precision-missile-project/">long history</a> of supplying proxy non-state actors with the equipment, intelligence and training necessary to execute such attacks. </p>
<p>Indeed, in the context of the past few months, the attack appears to be the latest in a series of efforts by Iran to escalate tensions and insecurity in the Persian Gulf to push back on the US “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/intensifies-pressure-iran-sanctions-190904164333873.html">maximum pressure</a>” sanctions campaign. </p>
<h2>A strategy of tension</h2>
<p>Since early this year, Iran has committed itself to a strategy of destabilisation in and around the Arabian Peninsula. </p>
<p>The reasons have been myriad, but primarily revolve around the fallout from the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/5/8/17328520/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-withdraw">US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement</a>. This has left Iran diplomatically isolated, economically strained and feeling betrayed by the wider international community. </p>
<p>Seeing few good options, the Iranian leadership has decided to promote chaos and instability to inflict what pain it can on global energy markets. The hope is this will add urgency to the negotiations with world powers and force them to seek a political solution to the economic and security standoff that provides an acceptable exit for Iran.</p>
<p>According to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Islamic Republic has been involved <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/14/pompeo-iran-saudi-arabia-oil-yemen-houthi">in nearly 100 incidents</a> over the past few months targeting oil, transport and security infrastructure and equipment. </p>
<p>These have included <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mines-used-in-tanker-attack-look-like-those-shown-by-iranian-military-explosives-expert-says/2019/06/19/3cc4cd4c-9294-11e9-956a-88c291ab5c38_story.html?noredirect=on">attacks</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190916-iran-claims-have-seized-oil-tanker-near-strait-hormuz">seizures</a> of several oil tankers in the gulf, as well as strikes on <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/yemen-houthis-launch-drone-attacks-saudi-airports-airbase-190805105248712.html">airports, military bases</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/19/rocket-attack-iraq-baghdad-1333063">diplomatic compounds</a> and now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/world/middleeast/saudi-oil-attack.html">oil facilities</a> in Saudi Arabia. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292942/original/file-20190918-148960-1bvnmql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292942/original/file-20190918-148960-1bvnmql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292942/original/file-20190918-148960-1bvnmql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292942/original/file-20190918-148960-1bvnmql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292942/original/file-20190918-148960-1bvnmql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292942/original/file-20190918-148960-1bvnmql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292942/original/file-20190918-148960-1bvnmql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Iran seized the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in July.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hasan Shirvani/EPA</span></span>
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<p>While Iran has been directly implicated in a few of these cases, the majority appear to have been undertaken by allied non-state actors in Iraq and Yemen. </p>
<p>If one considers Iran’s historical patronage of such organisations, this should come as no surprise. Since the revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic has actively cultivated relationships with such groups as a key part of its foreign policy, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/wars-and-warfare/invisible-armies-insurgency-tracker/p29917#">most famously with Hezbollah</a> in Lebanon. </p>
<p>Such close alliances have permitted Tehran to project its influence into areas it otherwise would have little access to. They also grant a degree of plausible deniability when it comes to radical actions like those witnessed this week. </p>
<p>This can make it diplomatically more difficult for affected countries to assign blame and, more importantly, react to such provocations. </p>
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<p>In the case of the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, the Iranian leadership has staunchly rejected any responsibility, framing <a href="https://twitter.com/JZarif/status/1174002704483520514">the attack as Houthi revenge against Saudi war crimes</a>.</p>
<p>What was notable in these attacks was their relative bloodlessness and precision. They were primarily designed to threaten and inflict economic harm and uncertainty, rather than kill and maim. </p>
<p>This, combined with a general commitment to employing militant proxies, highlights the Iranian desire to create enough tension to achieve political outcomes, while avoiding crossing a threshold that would lead to dramatic military blowback from the US and its allies. </p>
<p>This is a fine line to walk at the best of times.</p>
<h2>Gambling on inaction</h2>
<p>Tehran’s brinkmanship rests on an assumption that calibrated provocations will not elicit serious reprisals. </p>
<p>Iran’s security elites have concluded that the Trump administration has little stomach for serious foreign military adventurism. A quick examination of the recent historical record shows that while the current American leadership has demonstrated an unprecedented amount of security policy bark – particularly on Twitter – this has not coincided with a similar level of bite.</p>
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<p>Trump’s initial threats of “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/world/asia/north-korea-trump-threat-fire-and-fury.html">fire and fury</a>” towards North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in 2017 were quickly shown to be pure bluster. </p>
<p>Indeed, such bellicose posturing quickly gave way to unprecedented dialogue between the two countries. This culminated in an ongoing series of <a href="https://www.politico.com/latest-news-updates/trump-kim-jong-un-meeting-us-north-korea-summit-2018">no-strings-attached summits</a> in which the US president bizarrely prostrated himself before the Hermit Kingdom’s autocrat for little clear gain. </p>
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<p>More evidence of American reticence can be found in Syria. Trump loudly and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45404086">continually</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43727829">warned</a> against Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. </p>
<p>But, when push came to shove, punitive measures by the US proved little more than <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-syria-air-strikes-chemcial-attack-airbase-cruise-missiles-tomohawks-bashar-al-assad-a7671816.html">anaemic symbolism</a> and posed no serious threat to the regime’s survival.</p>
<p>Just a few months ago, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/trump-abruptly-calls-off-strike-on-iran-after-us-allies-voiced-concerns/">Trump also aborted several military strikes</a> on Iranian military targets after the downing of a US drone. It was another indication Washington has little appetite for open conflict.</p>
<p>Internally, Trump has also clashed heavily with several of the hawks in his administration. In some cases, he has purged them when their views clashed too heavily with his own risk aversion. </p>
<p>The most notable recent example was the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/why-boltons-days-were-numbered-from-the-start/597778/">humiliating dismissal</a> of his national security adviser, John Bolton, one of the 2003 Iraq war’s chief architects and a staunch advocate of regime change in Iran.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292943/original/file-20190918-148964-1d1x4c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292943/original/file-20190918-148964-1d1x4c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292943/original/file-20190918-148964-1d1x4c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292943/original/file-20190918-148964-1d1x4c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292943/original/file-20190918-148964-1d1x4c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292943/original/file-20190918-148964-1d1x4c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292943/original/file-20190918-148964-1d1x4c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Trump has backed away from confrontation with Iran in recent days, saying he wants to wait for the result of an investigation into the Saudi strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA</span></span>
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<h2>Rolling the dice</h2>
<p>The Saudi incident this week represents an undeniable and significant escalation by Iran in its ongoing campaign of tension in the region. The attack has seriously raised the stakes and potential for a conflict between both regional and global players. </p>
<p>But looking at the Trump administration’s recent history, Iranian foreign policymakers are assuming their actions will not spark a dramatic escalation. </p>
<p>In theory, this is a reasonable conclusion, supported by evidence. But security dilemmas like this are characterised by an incredibly complex intersection of competing interests, understandings and short time frames. This often leads to tragic and unpredictable outcomes for those involved. </p>
<p>One has only to look at the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/16/the-forgotten-story-of-iran-air-flight-655/">ramifications</a> of a previous US intervention against Iranian disruption in the gulf, <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/middle-east/praying-mantis.html">Operation Praying Mantis</a> in 1988, for evidence of the potential for a rapid escalation to large-scale military exchange.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Rich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Iran’s goal is to sow discord and inflict pain on energy markets, while avoiding crossing a threshold that prompts retaliation from the US. This is a fine line to walk at the best of times.Ben Rich, Lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1199972019-07-10T02:19:52Z2019-07-10T02:19:52ZIran’s leader is losing his grasp on power. Does this mean diplomacy is doomed?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283409/original/file-20190709-44441-1htj32v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Hassan Rouhani came to office with an olive branch, but his hard-liners rivals now appear to be setting the political agenda in Iran.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iranian Presidency Office Handout/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Iran’s announcement last Sunday that it would <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48910136">break the limit on uranium enrichment</a> agreed to in the nuclear deal with world powers was not a surprise. It came hot on the heels of another <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/01/iran-breaks-nuclear-deal-and-puts-pressure-on-eu-over-sanctions">breach</a> only a few days earlier on the 300-kilogram limit agreed to in the deal on stockpiles of low-enriched uranium. </p>
<p>Iran had warned Europe that it would start dismantling the nuclear accord if the promised economic benefits of the agreement did not materialise. A year after the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-ending-united-states-participation-unacceptable-iran-deal/">US withdrew</a> from the nuclear deal, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, and imposed very strict sanctions on Iran, the Iranian leadership appears ready to give up on finding a diplomatic solution to this deadlock. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/irans-nuclear-program-breaches-limits-for-uranium-enrichment-4-key-questions-answered-119992">Iran's nuclear program breaches limits for uranium enrichment: 4 key questions answered</a>
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<p>This bodes ill for the future of President Hassan Rouhani and regional security. A weakened Rouhani will find it difficult to fend off his hard-line critics in Iran and keep the nuclear deal alive. </p>
<p>With every step away from diplomacy, the hard-liners have taken a step forward and appear to be now setting the political agenda in Iran. </p>
<h2>Rouhani’s riskiest gamble</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1718/Quick_Guides/IranNuclear">JCPOA was signed in 2015</a> between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany. </p>
<p>This was Rouhani’s greatest achievement and riskiest gamble. He faced the ire of hard-liners in Iran who continue to have a <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-hardline-mp-says-half-parliament-want-overthrow-iran-regime/29647755.html">formidable presence in the parliament</a>, as well as the security and judicial system. </p>
<p>They accused Rouhani of selling out Iranian sovereignty and betraying the ideals of the Islamic revolution by scaling back Iran’s nuclear program and subjecting it to an unprecedented international monitoring regime. </p>
<p>Rouhani nonetheless pushed through his agenda of finding a diplomatic solution to Iran’s isolation because he believed that years of sanctions and mismanagement had pushed the Iranian economy to the brink of collapse. </p>
<p>He staked his political fortunes on bringing Iran out of isolation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33521655">The JCPOA</a> was the compromise deal to assure the international community that Iran would not pursue a nuclear weapons program in return for sanctions relief to revive the Iranian economy.</p>
<p>But US President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/politics/trump-speech-iran-deal.html">never liked the deal</a>. He campaigned against it and often questioned Iran’s commitment to it, though the UN International Atomic Energy Agency <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iaea-report-says-iran-continues-to-comply-with-nuclear-deal/29974795.html">consistently reported</a> on Iran’s compliance with the terms of the agreement. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-donald-trump-is-backing-the-us-into-a-corner-on-iran-119327">Why Donald Trump is backing the US into a corner on Iran</a>
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<p>Despite much lobbying by European powers, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44044350/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-announces-us-withdrawal">Trump withdrew from the deal</a> in May 2018 and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/05/iran-launches-military-drill-response-return-us-sanctions">reimposed severe unilateral sanctions</a> on Iran, and anyone dealing with Iran.</p>
<h2>Losing control to the hard-liners</h2>
<p>Trump’s decision to tear up the nuclear deal was seen by the conservatives in Iran as a vindication of their feelings towards the United States. They lambasted Rouhani for putting his trust in the US. </p>
<p>In May 2019, the situation got even more tense after Trump announced that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/sends-patriot-missiles-war-ship-middle-east-deter-iran-190511053143462.html">US warships were sailing to the Persian Gulf</a> to counter potential Iranian hostility. No intelligence regarding a suspected Iranian threat was shared. </p>
<p>The escalation of tensions following the alleged <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/15/iran-us-divisions-deepen-over-gulf-of-oman-oil-tankers-attack">Iranian attack on two oil tankers</a> last month, and the downing of a US reconnaissance drone by the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47852262">Islamic Revolutionary Guards</a> has made it very hard to find a diplomatic solution. Drums of war are silencing voices of diplomacy.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1146517318509481984"}"></div></p>
<p>While Rouhani came to office with an olive branch, he realises that he has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-economy-rouhani-sanctions/iran-parliament-censures-rouhani-in-sign-pragmatists-losing-sway-idUSKCN1LD0DD">effectively lost the political contest</a> against his hard-line critics. He has another two years in office, but is at risk of losing the presidency if the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who yields ultimate power in Iran, <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/khamenei-blames-rouhani-zarif-for-nuclear-deal-denies-responsibility/29957982.html">is disillusioned with his performance</a>. </p>
<p>This realisation has seriously undermined Rouhani, who appears to have adopted the language and posture of the hard-liners in relation to the US. It is unclear if this can save him in office, or embolden his critics who seem to be gaining significant momentum.</p>
<p>In May, the Supreme Leader <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/the-appointment-of-new-irgc-commanders-shows-the-concerns-of-Iran-ruling-clerics/29949741.html">appointed a</a> battle-hardened General as the commander of the Basij paramilitary force, an arm of the Revolutionary Guards that suppresses domestic dissent.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-nuclear-deal-is-hanging-by-a-thread-so-will-islamic-republic-now-develop-a-bomb-117809">Iran nuclear deal is hanging by a thread – so will Islamic Republic now develop a bomb?</a>
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<p>This was a significant development for the hard-liners in case they seek to assert political control. Basij has been a <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/basij-the-oppressive-arm-of-the-iranian-regime-/28954794.html">ruthless security force</a> inside Iran and can provide the necessary street support for a potential coup against Rouhani.</p>
<p>Another notable military commander is General Qasem Soleimani, who has enjoyed a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-soleimani-newsmaker/revolutionary-guards-commander-flexes-political-muscle-idUSKCN1QM1BW">meteoric rise</a> in Iran due to his performance as commander of Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards’ international arm operating mostly in Iraq and Syria to defeat the Islamic State.</p>
<p>He is considered a war hero by the public and now has the confidence of the Supreme Leader. This is an ominous development for Rouhani.</p>
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<span class="caption">A woman carrying a picture of Qasem Soleimani during an anti-US demonstration in Tehran earlier this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA</span></span>
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<p>Breaking with the tenets of the nuclear deal was also clearly not Rouhani’s objective, as it would reverse his hard-won diplomatic gains and discredit his legacy. </p>
<p>Iran’s recent breaches on uranium enrichment and stockpiles were incremental steps to exert pressure on European leaders to adhere to their promises of sanctions relief. This strategy was predicated on the assumption that Europe has more to lose with the collapse of JCPOA than a rift with the United States. It can only be described as a desperate move, showing that Rouhani is fast running out of options.</p>
<p>The window of opportunity for a diplomatic solution is fast closing and the alternative scenario of the return of a combative government in Tehran is looking more and more unavoidable. This would shut the doors to diplomacy and increase the chance of confrontation with the West. </p>
<p>Trump accused Iran of not wanting to sit at the table. He may be fulfilling his own prophecy.</p>
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<p><em>An earlier version of this article implied General Qasem Soleimani was the leader of the Basij security force, when he is actually the commander of the Quds Force.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shahram Akbarzadeh receives funding from Australian Research Council</span></em></p>Iranian President Hassan Rouhani staked his political fortunes on bringing Iran out of isolation. Now, it appears he’s losing control to hard-liners in Iran.Shahram Akbarzadeh, Professor of Middle East & Central Asian Politics, Deputy Director (International), Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1194162019-06-26T12:16:31Z2019-06-26T12:16:31ZUS-Iran tensions: no route for de-escalation in sight<p>Washington and Tehran are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-donald-trump-is-backing-the-us-into-a-corner-on-iran-119327">locked</a> in a political, economic, and propagandist confrontation – and there is no apparent way out. </p>
<p>One route to de-escalation could be direct talks between the US and Iran, either on a bilateral basis or as part of multilateral discussions. </p>
<p>When US President Donald Trump <a href="https://time.com/5611845/donald-trump-iran-strike/">stepped back</a> from launching airstrikes inside Iran on June 20, he said he was willing to talk and included an offer of phone numbers to Iran’s leaders. But a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/iran-rouhani-calls-white-house-actions-mentally-retarded-190625080055923.html">war of words</a> followed after Trump imposed <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48732672">new sanctions on Iran</a>, including on its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, his administration – which withdrew from a 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and imposed comprehensive sanctions in November – has based the offer of talks on an effective surrender by the Islamic Republic of its nuclear programme, of its policy and operations in the Middle East, and of its political and economic autonomy.</p>
<p>In early June, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pompeo-says-u-s-ready-talk-iran-no-preconditions-n1013051">ready for “unconditional” discussions</a> with Iran. But he actually set <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/mike-pompeo-speech-12-demands-iran-180521151737787.html">12 points as prerequisites</a> for any talks: including Tehran giving up all uranium enrichment, for civil programmes, halting missile development, breaking ties with groups in the Middle East from Lebanon’s Hezbollah to Palestine’s Hamas and Islamic Jihad to Iraqi militias, ending its support of Yemen’s Houthi insurgency, and withdrawing its troops from Syria.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Khamenei is not keen on that offer. In May, before <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-48627014">the attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman</a> and the downing of a US drone, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190514-irans-khamenei-says-there-not-going-be-war-with-us">he said</a>: “Negotiating with the present American government is doubly poisonous … They are not decent humans, they don’t stand by anything.”</p>
<p>With Khamenei and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards striking firm poses declaring the Islamic Republic’s strength against US weakness, Iran’s “centrist” president, Hassan Rouhani, has had to follow suit, <a href="https://www.presstv.com/DetailFr/2019/06/01/597510/Iran-Rouhani-US-pressure-steadfastness-nation">proclaiming</a> in early June that Iran had “forced the enemies to retreat step by step”.</p>
<p>So has Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian lead negotiator in the 2015 nuclear agreement. He <a href="https://twitter.com/JZarif/status/1135591916660281344">tweeted</a> at the start of June about American sanctions: “This is Donald Trump’s ‘economic war’. And war and talks – with or without preconditions – don’t go together.”</p>
<h2>Rejecting mediation</h2>
<p>A second route is indirect talks, such as contacts via Oman in 2012 to set up negotiations between Iran and the 5+1 powers who brokered the 2015 Iran deal – the US, UK, France, Germany, China, and Russia.</p>
<p>In May, there was flutter about a reprisal of these talks, as Iran’s deputy foreign minister met the Omani Sultan and Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, set up a visit to Tehran after a Tokyo summit with Trump.</p>
<p>But on June 13, just before news about the attack on the two tankers in the Gulf of Oman broke, Khamenei slammed the door shut. When Abe said he was carrying a message from Trump, Khamenei <a href="http://english.khamenei.ir/news/6844/I-don-t-consider-Trump-worth-sending-a-message-to-we-won-t-negotiate">replied</a>: “I do not consider Trump as a person worth exchanging any message with and I have no answer for him, nor will I respond to him in the future.”</p>
<p>So what of the third route, bypassing the US and its hardliners through Iranian links with other countries?</p>
<p>Facing the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and Americans sanctions appearing to seek regime change, the European Union spent months developing a special purpose vehicle for non-dollar trade in Iranian oil and other commodities and goods. In early 2019, the EU launched a limited version of the mechanism, known as <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/instex-europe-sets-up-transactions-channel-with-iran/a-47303580">INSTEX</a>.</p>
<p>But Iran turned down the escape from economic isolation. Officials, undoubtedly guided by the supreme leader’s office, <a href="https://eaworldview.com/2019/02/iran-daily-tehran-turns-against-europes-vital-economic-link/">cited “humiliating conditions”</a>.</p>
<p>Those conditions? The EU’s concern over Iran’s continued missile development and launches, activity in the Middle East, and involvement in <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190109-eu-sanctions-iran-over-assassinations-peoples-mujahedeen-france-bomb-plot">alleged bomb and assassination plots in Europe</a>.</p>
<p>On June 10, three days before rejecting Japanese mediation, the Iranians did the same with German foreign minister, Heiko Maas. Even before Maas left Tehran, <a href="https://eaworldview.com/2019/06/iran-daily-tehran-rebuffs-germanys-mediation-criticizes-europe-as-well-as-us/">the foreign ministry pronounced</a>: “What the Europeans need to do and what they have done so far have failed to win our satisfaction.” </p>
<p>Khamenei had issued his verdict: he – and 75m Iranians – would endure a crippled economy rather than making any apparent concession over Tehran’s military and political approach.</p>
<h2>Hardliners to the left of me, jokers to the right</h2>
<p>De-escalation requires a willingness to soften a hardline position. At the highest levels of the Iran regime, there is no such desire.</p>
<p>In September 2013, Khamenei acceded to nuclear talks because Rouhani presented him with a dossier about how bad Iran’s economic crisis would become if discussions were not pursued. This time, Khamenei has blocked the path back to discussions, and Rouhani is effectively sidelined. In his place are revolutionary guards who appear to be willing to carry out “pinprick” operations – maybe an attack on tankers, definitely firing on a drone – to push against US sanctions and military capabilities.</p>
<p>But in Tehran, the hardline comes with consistency. In the Trump administration, it comes with unpredictability.</p>
<p>With Trump shifting between a tough-guy pose and his desire for a photo-op in Tehran, the US swings a fist but then leaves it dangling in mid-air.</p>
<p>With no route to de-escalation at the moment, the economic battle – and, as the administration was keen to point out in recent days, the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/22/politics/us-iran-cyberattacks-increase-department-homeland-security/index.html">cyber-battle</a> – continues. And so war, which comes not through design but through posturing and escalation, remains on the table.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Lucas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump stepped back from launching US airstrikes inside Iran, but the conflict is unabated and there appears to be no way out of confrontation for now.Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106932019-02-11T05:06:51Z2019-02-11T05:06:51ZForty years on from the Iranian Revolution, could the country be at risk of another one?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258151/original/file-20190211-174880-1r6pcj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The last four decades in Iran have been marked by internal tension due to its political system, which combines theocratic and republican elements.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Iran’s ruling clergy are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution, during which Shi'ite Islamists, led by religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini, toppled Mohammad Reza Shah’s secular monarchy. </p>
<p>The linchpin of the Islamic Republic’s political system is Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrine of <a href="http://www.logosjournal.com/amanat.pdf">Wilayat-i Faqih</a>, or guardianship of the jurist, which makes a Shia religious jurist the head of state. The jurist’s legitimacy to hold the most powerful position in the state is claimed to be based on divine sovereignty.</p>
<p>As its name suggests, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s current system combines theocratic and republican elements. The president and parliament are democratically elected, while the members of powerful institutions such as the Guardian Council and the judiciary are appointed by the Supreme Leader (Walī-yi Faqīh).</p>
<p>The Guardian Council oversees elections and the final approval of legislation. According to the <a href="https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/ir/ir001en.pdf">Constitution of the Islamic Republic</a>, all legislation, policies and programs must be consistent with the observance of Islamic principles.
The Guardian Council has a duty to monitor all legislative decisions and determine whether their implementation would cause a violation.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-iranian-revolution-100453">World politics explainer: the Iranian Revolution</a>
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<p>This unprecedented political system brought in four decades of internal conflict. The established Islamic Republic of Iran also ceased being a US ally and instead became an enemy. International sanctions, along with the clergy’s mismanagement and endemic corruption, have resulted in a dire economic situation. There is a strong fear the high unemployment and inflation rate will continue to rise.</p>
<p>Under these circumstances, there are now <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-2018-bring-revolution-iran-24104">doubts the Islamic Republic</a> can survive. And some wonder whether we may soon see another revolution. So, what is the situation in Iran 40 years after the Shah was overthrown and who is agitating for change?</p>
<h2>Decades of unrest</h2>
<p>After Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989, a more conservative Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, came to power and strengthened the theocracy.</p>
<p>The reformist movement emerged in the mid-1990s to counter the newly established conservative regime. They had little chance of gaining power through theocratic institutions, so they focused on the electoral side. They campaigned for women’s rights, democratic rule and a civil-military divide.</p>
<p>Reformists gained power twice: from 1997 to 2005 and from 2013 – with the election of the relatively moderate president, Hassan Rouhani – until now. In these years, reformists controlled electoral institutions such as the presidency and the parliament. </p>
<p>For decades, reformers have struggled to limit the power of theocratic institutions – while still broadly complying by the laws of the clergy, and the principles set in place by Khomeini – and expand the power of republican institutions. However, they were no match for the Khamenei-led resistance, and theocratic institutions are more powerful today than they were in the mid-1990s.</p>
<p>Iran has also continually had tense relations with the international community. In addition to eight years of war with Iraq, Iran has been under sanctions for almost all of the past four decades. These have been imposed by the US, the EU, and the United Nations over claims Iran breached its nuclear obligations.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-iran-nuclear-agreement-is-a-deal-worth-honouring-69132">Why the Iran nuclear agreement is a deal worth honouring</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Today, the Donald Trump-led US government is pursuing an extremely hostile approach to Iran. Crucially, the US has withdrawn from a nuclear deal negotiated with the Obama administration – under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program. The US has reapplied previous sanctions (which were lifted under the deal) and imposed new ones. Iranians are also the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/americas/travel-ban-trump-how-it-works.html">most affected</a> of the Muslim majority countries included in Trump’s travel ban.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1092144837120405506"}"></div></p>
<p>Reformists have made some progress towards easing economic hardship, loosening social control, and initiating a temporary easing of tensions with the outside community. But the parlous nature of the political structure empowers the theocrats to manipulate the system and stymie any reform effort that promises a path to democratisation.</p>
<h2>Reformists or pro-regime opposition</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-03/who-the-iran-protesters-are-and-why-they-are-angry/9301316">protests that swept Iran</a> between December 2017 and January 2018 showed that many Iranians don’t consider the reformists capable of bringing about meaningful change. Protestors <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/30/iran-protests-trump-tweets">expressed their anger</a> over increasing economic hardship, as well as Iran’s support and funding for foreign conflicts, namely the civil wars in Yemen and Syria. They also chanted slogans calling for an end to the rule of clerics.</p>
<p>Rampant corruption, the failure of Rouhani to fulfil his promises – such as boosting the economy, extending individual and political freedoms, ensuring equality for women and men, and easing access to the internet – and the return of sanctions have combined to shatter hope of reform. This has been expressed in global protests by the Iranian diaspora calling for a change to the government.</p>
<p>It seems unlikely the reformists will be able to maintain their positions in the country’s electoral institutions. The sad reality is that even if they have another chance, the result will only compound their failures.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-irans-protests-matter-this-time-89745">Why Iran's protests matter this time</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>These circumstances have led to another <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/node/1146531">stream of opposition</a> – one agitating for a toppling of the Islamic Republic and regime change – gaining currency. Most members of this group are in exile, including Iran’s ex-prince and son of the Shah overthrown by the revolution, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-19/iran-s-ex-prince-pahlavi-wants-a-democratic-revolution">Reza Pahlavi</a>. </p>
<p>But there is profound disagreement between the opposition groups in exile. Although they share a similar goal, they have consistently proven unable to agree on an overarching framework. The profound divisions among the groups has drained both their resources and intellectual capacity, which has rendered them incapable of contesting the country’s ruling clergy.</p>
<p>Those advocating for regime change have also been incapable of articulating a viable alternative to the Islamic Republic. All opposition groups overuse the abstract notion of “secular democracy” without clearly explaining what exactly they have in mind.</p>
<p>Pahlavi’s desire is reportedly not to put himself back on the throne, but to let the people decide what the political system would look like. He has said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s not the form that matters, it’s the content; I believe Iran must be a secular, parliamentary democracy. The final form has to be decided by the people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While this is a legitimate statement, figures like Pahlavi ought to offer viable alternatives that would help bring opposition groups together. Potential alternatives should also be structured to appeal to the masses, a considerable segment of whom have expressed disillusionment with the ideal of an Islamic state.</p>
<p>Opposition groups are absorbed in delegitimising the Islamic Republic, questioning the way the clergy run the country. In doing so, they forget the the people who have already expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the clergy.</p>
<p>The opposition needs to skilfully craft an alternative to the Islamic Republic and a comprehensive plan for the transition to democracy. Until an alternative political system is formulated and popularised, the opposition will remain impotent and unable to initiate a transformation in the country.</p>
<p>Of course, change is not impossible. A military confrontation with Israel or the US, the departure of 79-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei, or a spontaneous mass uprising could prove a game changer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naser Ghobadzadeh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Reformers have tried to modernise Iran for decades but have failed mainly due to the country’s powerful theocracy. And then there are those who want to overthrow the regime altogether.Naser Ghobadzadeh, Senior lecturer, National School of Arts, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031992018-09-25T16:11:16Z2018-09-25T16:11:16ZIf sanctions do not put a halt to Iran’s economy, workers will<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237703/original/file-20180924-85779-1fr3qkc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C60%2C1383%2C1101&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Internal strikes throughout the country might harm the economy at least as much as the announced sanctions (Tehran, 2017).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stella Morgana</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Iranian economy under pressure from international sanctions yet again. And, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/world/middleeast/iran-airlines-sanctions.html">British Airways and Air France ending their connecting flights</a>, the country might see an unprecedented wave of investors fleeing to more auspicious shores. As the economic situation deteriorates, Iranians are experiencing a severe crisis. Those with the lowest incomes are <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d0e17cac-94dc-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee64e">suffering the most</a>, and workers are raising their voices and claiming wages and better conditions.</p>
<p>Throughout recent months, a wave of labour protests has hit Iran. Between May and June and again at the end of July, <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/06/iran-truckers-strike-labor-action-demands-wage-increase.html">truck drivers went on strike</a>, taking to the streets and hindering traffic on major roads. Protesting low wages and lack of job security, they <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/north-africa-west-asia/jubin-afshar/iran-gripped-by-strikes-and-protests">called for higher salaries</a> and pensions, and demanded better working conditions.</p>
<p>Unpaid wages and insurance have been at the core of Haft Tapeh Sugar factory workers’ sit-ins and strikes, which began in January and repeatedly hit the headlines of the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) <a href="https://www.ilna.ir/%D8%A8%D8%AE%D8%B4-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%AF%D8%B1%DB%8C-9/663175-%D8%AA%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%B9-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%87%D9%81%D8%AA-%D8%AA%D9%BE%D9%87-%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%87-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF-%D9%85%D8%B0%D8%A7%DA%A9%D8%B1%D9%87-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D9%BE%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B6-%D8%A8%DB%8C-%D9%86%D8%AA%DB%8C%D8%AC%D9%87-%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AF">in July</a> and <a href="https://www.ilna.ir/%D8%A8%D8%AE%D8%B4-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%AF%D8%B1%DB%8C-9/652589-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%B9-%D9%87%D9%81%D8%AA-%D8%AA%D9%BE%D9%87-%D8%AF%D8%B3%D8%AA-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B6-%D8%B5%D9%86%D9%81%DB%8C-%D8%B2%D8%AF%D9%86%D8%AF">August</a>.</p>
<p>In May, 900 workers from Iran’s Heavy Equipment Production Company (HEPCO) <a href="https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/46686/Iran+hit+by+strike+wave">organised a collective action</a> over the same issues: <a href="https://www.ilnanews.com/fa/tiny/news-627700">layoffs and non-payment of wages</a>.</p>
<h2>Not everything is about politics and regime change</h2>
<p>When it comes to upheavals in Iran, Western media coverage in particular tends to automatically connect public and organised expressions of dissent to political grievances meant to bring about a regime change.</p>
<p>However, a closer look to strikers’ <a href="https://workers-iran.org/iran-a-must-see-speech-by-a-worker-representative-during-haft-tapeh-sugarcane-workers-strike-with-english-subtitles/">slogans and statements</a> point primarily to <a href="https://www.radiofarda.com/a/sixth-hour-workers-strike/29250986.html">economic demands</a>, such as factories to be returned to state supervision, as well as claims for labour rights, requests for workers’ independent representation and an end to temporary contracts. A wider social gap is putting president Hassan Rouhani’s government under pressure.</p>
<p>Misreading labour domestic strikes can lead to an incorrect interpretation of the current domestic situation. This permeates a context where US president Donald Trump displays ostentatious benevolence toward <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/947453152806297600">“the Iranian people”</a>.</p>
<p>Yet severe political measures have been carried out by the American administration, hitting ordinary Iranians first. In fact, after quitting the <a href="https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/">agreement signed in 2015</a> with the P5+1 countries, the European Union and Iran, the United States imposed a <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/jcpoa_winddown_faqs.pdf">new wave of sanctions</a> against the Islamic Republic. Iran’s economy <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/as-sanctions-hit-iran-s-on-the-verge-of-economic-breakdown">has been hit hard</a>, as the country’s currency, the rial, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/iran-economy/566708/">has fallen</a> to record lows.</p>
<h2>Complex roots of the Iranians’ outcry</h2>
<p>International coverage of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/iran-protest-mashaad-green-class-labor-economy/551690/">revolts that took place</a> between December 2017 and January 2018 seemed to have been unable to grasp the complex roots of the Iranians’ outcry and to understand them as the outcome of a process.</p>
<p>Labour demands have a deep bond with the post-revolutionary history of the Islamic Republic and the development of its political discourse. The latter has evolved ever since the 1979 revolution following the society’s transformation and has lately <a href="https://www.merip.org/mer/mer277/class-politics-post-revolutionary-iran-brief-introduction">shifted its focus</a> from the masses of <em>mostazafin</em> (that is, the oppressed) to the middle classes.</p>
<p><a href="https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/15229/A.+Bayat+-+Life+as+Politics.pdf?sequence=1">Workers’ protests are not new</a> to Iran. In 1979, the revolution would not have been able to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261134903_Reasons_to_Revolt_Iranian_Oil_Workers_in_the_1970s">paralyse the Shah’s state machine</a> without the working class. Once established, the Islamic Republic survived various <a href="http://theconversation.com/what-do-iranians-want-better-salaries-more-jobs-and-safe-working-conditions-76872">waves of uprisings</a>. Between 1991 and 1995, repeated mobilisations took place, from Tehran to Shiraz, passing by Tabriz, Mashad and Qazvin. Masses of demonstrators took to the streets calling out for food, jobs and housing, and protesting rising prices. Urban poor and squatters were at the core of the disputes. <a href="http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpAuxPages)/9C2BEFD0EE1C73B380256B5E004CE4C3/$file/bayat.pdf">Labour strikes increased sharply</a>, with 2,000 mobilisations reported only in the first half of 1991.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237704/original/file-20180924-85752-1bgt5if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237704/original/file-20180924-85752-1bgt5if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237704/original/file-20180924-85752-1bgt5if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237704/original/file-20180924-85752-1bgt5if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237704/original/file-20180924-85752-1bgt5if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237704/original/file-20180924-85752-1bgt5if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237704/original/file-20180924-85752-1bgt5if.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The increasing number of demonstrations in Iran’s streets have revealed deep social divisions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stella Morgana/Esfahan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Backlash of the cult of entrepreneurship</h2>
<p>Demonstrators have recently brought to the street a general frustration against worsening living standards, within a system of production and neo-liberal policies dating back to the 1990s.</p>
<p>President Hashemi Rafsanjani started the <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/iran-rafsanjani-ahmadinejad-khamenei-reform">process of economic liberalisation</a> during the “reconstruction” era after the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). From then on, the cult of entrepreneurship has taken hold. In this paradigm of economic opening and launch of the private sector, temp agencies have increased their role, while multiple labour reforms have weakened workers’ bargaining power.</p>
<p>In 2005 and 2006, bus drivers marched to demand higher salaries and safer work conditions and <a href="http://www.networkideas.org/feathm/mar2007/PDF/Mohammad_Maljoo.pdf">were repressed</a>. In June 2009, the re-election of conservative and populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered a new wave of unrest. While young activists called for a general strike, the bulk of the organised working class <a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2053157,00.html">did not react</a>. Instead of fair salaries and social justice, the <a href="https://books.google.it/books?id=hqw0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT15&lpg=PT15&dq=green+movement+slogan+civil+rights&source=bl&ots=NAINI8SlYT&sig=hrwmWCQFgL8LQ6KJGPJTdW6W5z4&hl=it&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjKga2TpcTdAhUrMewKHX4BCCwQ6AEwCHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=green%20movement%20slogan%20civil%20rights&f=false">Green Movement slogans</a> were calling for social liberties and civil rights. Other protests, smaller but organised, occurred between 2011 and 2016, when workers as well as teachers, drivers and nurses kept on raising their voices for their rights.</p>
<p>Today, the class discourse is overwhelmingly present in Iran’s streets again, giving voice to deep social divisions that result from political rhetoric focussed on the enlargement of a productive middle class that largely leaves behind labour needs.</p>
<p>As a new wave of sanctions is looming, new protests are occur. Yet this not mean that these events can carry a <a href="https://www.rte.ie/eile/brainstorm/2018/0108/931707-whats-behind-the-recent-protests-in-iran/">revolutionary potential</a>, due to a sharp social and political fragmentation, as well as <a href="https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/46686/Iran+hit+by+strike+wave">a weak labour political activism</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stella Morgana ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>As Iran struggles under another round of international sanctions, a widening social gap is putting President Hassan Rouhani’s government under pressure.Stella Morgana, PhD candidate, Iranian Studies, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1029672018-09-21T10:41:59Z2018-09-21T10:41:59ZThe US will have to accept second-class status in the Middle East<p>You may not have noticed it – the chair that wasn’t there. </p>
<p>The seven-year long Syrian civil war is ending with a government victory, <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/as-the-syrian-war-nears-its-end-a-tense-new-struggle-is-materialising-1.770121">aided by Russia and Iran</a>. Talks to end to the war are accelerating. </p>
<p><a href="http://time.com/5389823/putin-erdogan-rouhani-meet-syria/">Who</a> is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/world/middleeast/russia-iran-and-turkey-meet-for-syria-talks-excluding-us.html">at the table</a> in those talks? Russia, Turkey and Iran. Noticeably, not the United States.</p>
<p>The missing U.S. was starkly obvious from recent photos of the leaders of Iran, Turkey and Syria negotiating the next steps. </p>
<p>Yet despite the <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/08/its-long-past-time-rethink-us-military-posture-gulf/139940/?oref=d1-in-article?oref=d1-related-article">major</a> <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/01/how-should-pentagon-reshape-its-mideast-posture-four-indicators-watch/145317/?oref=d1-related-article">military</a> <a href="https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/08/toward-smaller-smarter-force-posture-middle-east/150817/">presence</a> of the U.S. in the region and a legacy of deep involvement in the Middle East, the U.S. is not among the faces of those who are determining Syria’s fate. </p>
<p>As a scholar and practitioner of foreign affairs, I believe that nowhere is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-world-is-dawning-and-the-us-will-no-longer-lead-it-98362">erosion</a> of U.S. global power more evident than in the upheavals in the Middle East. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.jordantimes.com/opinion/rami-g-khouri/no-mystery-about-arab-disarray">power shifts</a> are not temporary. The old order, in which the U.S. was the most influential force in the region, <a href="https://agenceglobal.com/2017/11/28/vladimir-putin-and-voltaire-walk-into-a-bar/">cannot be rebuilt</a>, and the U.S. is going to have to adjust to this diminished status.</p>
<h2>The region remembers</h2>
<p>The decline of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/robert-gates-syria-red-line-obama-2016-1/">U.S. as the regional balancer</a>, some argue, is the result of President Barack Obama’s decision not to enforce his red line in Syria after President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons in 2013. </p>
<p>Others say it is President Donald <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ff2cbeba-5863-11e8-b8b2-d6ceb45fa9d0">Trump’s fault for taking sides</a> in some of the region’s central conflicts.</p>
<p>Both are wrong. </p>
<p>Obama’s leverage in Syria was always weak unless he was willing to deploy U.S. ground forces. </p>
<p>A one-off U.S. missile strike on Syria in 2013, after Assad attacked his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/06/president-obama-and-the-red-line-on-syrias-chemical-weapons/">citizens with chemical weapons</a> would have had no more effect on the outcome of the war than the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/big-price-to-pay-inside-trumps-decision-to-bomb-syria/2018/04/14/752bdd9a-3ff9-11e8-8d53-eba0ed2371cc_story.html">Trump administration’s strike</a> after a similar incident in 2017. </p>
<p>And Trump’s policies simply accelerate the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-world-is-dawning-and-the-us-will-no-longer-lead-it-98362">rebalancing already well under way</a>.</p>
<p>It’s time for realism. Power has shifted in part as a direct result of U.S. policies and actions that for at least 50 years supported autocrats and undermined democratic efforts in the Middle East. Those actions are <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-trump-administration-casualty-democracy-and-civil-rights-in-the-middle-east-100366">long remembered in the region</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S was not alone <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/u-s-policy-toward-a-turbulent-middle-east/">in supporting autocrats</a>. The United Kingdom and France joined the U.S. in supporting strongmen in the region for decades and fiercely opposed anti-colonial nationalists like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/14/past.education1">Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser</a>. The U.S. and U.K. joined to overthrow the democratic, reformist government of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/cia-admits-role-1953-iranian-coup">Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953</a>. The region remembers how the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cia-assisted-coup-overthrows-government-of-iran">CIA helped overthrow him</a> and put in place Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was heavily <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/1979/03/16/goodbye-to-americas-shah/">dependent on the U.S.</a> as leader of the country.</p>
<h2>The best-laid plans</h2>
<p><a href="https://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/75060">The invasion</a> of Iraq in 2003 was facilitated by U.S. planning for a regional military role that had been underway for some time. That newly assumed role, intended to restore order or overthrow regimes, led to military actions that had negative consequences for U.S. standing in the region. </p>
<p>As a foreign policy scholar, I visited the Tampa, Florida, headquarters of the Joint Rapid Deployment Task Force in the early 1980s for an unclassified briefing. I learned about <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2005/P6751.pdf">the planned network</a> of bases, landing and overflight rights, storage facilities and military exercises that would make U.S. intervention in the region possible. </p>
<p>Through these plans, Spain, Libya, Egypt and countries in the Gulf region would allow U.S. fighters and bombers to fly to the heart of the Middle East. They would provide storage locations for American military equipment, fuel for American operations and joint exercises that would enable them to operate with U.S. forces.</p>
<p>Using this network, the U.S. military was able to eject <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/17/world/meast/saddam-hussein-fast-facts/index.html">Saddam Hussein from Kuwait</a> in 1991. This intervention included the first ever U.S. military deployment in the region. The network also paved the way for the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10669920701616443">U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003</a>, which overthrew Saddam’s regime, unraveling the regional balance of power. This intervention and the presence of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia provided a propaganda godsend to al-Qaida, the Islamic terrorist organization first led by Osama bin Laden. </p>
<p>The 2003 invasion, regime change and disastrous occupation <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/03/20/top-10-lessons-of-the-iraq-war-2/">opened a Pandora’s box</a> of troubles, destroying U.S. credibility and any capability it had to stuff the troubles back into the box. </p>
<p>The subsequent chaos from <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2018-08-13/new-arab-order">Iraq to Syria to Lebanon</a> had many parents, including national, religious and ethnic forces repressed by authoritarian leaders. </p>
<p>But the massive strategic blunder of <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iraninsight/saudi-arabia-and-iran-may-be-headed-toward-war">invading Iraq and</a> the declaration of a “Global War on Terror,” gave Iran and al-Qaida huge incentives to expand operations, rebalancing power in the region. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237334/original/file-20180920-129853-3a4sgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237334/original/file-20180920-129853-3a4sgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237334/original/file-20180920-129853-3a4sgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237334/original/file-20180920-129853-3a4sgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237334/original/file-20180920-129853-3a4sgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1204&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237334/original/file-20180920-129853-3a4sgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1204&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237334/original/file-20180920-129853-3a4sgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1204&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The U.S. removal of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi led to greater chaos in the Arab world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Abdel Magid Al Fergany</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Removing Moammar Gadhafi in Libya spread the chaos further. No amount of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/04/obamas-worst-mistake-libya/478461/">reconstruction strategy and funding</a> after he left could prevent it. The parallel effort to bring democracy to the Middle East revealed the ineptitude and ignorance of U.S. policy. The region remembers.</p>
<p>Trump administration policy has further distanced the U.S. from a leading role. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement has not changed Iranian policies or actions; it has only reinforced the extremists. </p></li>
<li><p>Proposing a U.S.-Israel-Saudi Arabia-Gulf states alliance to confront Iran exacerbates the Arab-Persian confrontation and elevates Saudi Arabia and Israel as regional powers. </p></li>
<li><p>Picking fights with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has alienated the Turks. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Trump’s policies are an “accelerant,” hastening the decline of U.S. credibility across the Middle East and stimulating further rebalancing. </p>
<h2>Who’s in charge?</h2>
<p>The old regional order is <a href="https://theiranproject.com/blog/2018/09/16/the-iran-saudi-arab-conflict-and-the-path-to-peace/">dying fast</a>. The rising powers are Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Russia. </p>
<p>Only the Saudis and Israelis are close to the U.S. and it seems they, not Trump, are driving U.S. policy. Iran is not contained. Its influence in the region was clearly <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iraninsight/saudi-arabia-and-iran-may-be-headed-toward-war">enhanced</a> by the removal of Saddam Hussein. </p>
<p>Iran’s extension of political and military power across Syria to Lebanon and <a href="https://www.cfr.org/interview/iran-supports-hamas-hamas-no-iranian-puppet">Hamas</a>, partly a defensive <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trumps-iran-strategy-regime-change-on-the-cheap.html?utm_source=undefined&utm_medium=undefined&utm_campaign=feed-part">response</a> to the U.S., has <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2018-02-13/iran-among-ruins">made it a player</a>.</p>
<p>Turkey, supposedly a U.S. ally, has clearly moved away, taking an independent stance on Syria, <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2018/08/27/in-familiar-dance-turkey-warms-to-russia-as-us-ties-unravel/">building</a> friendly relations with Russia, and <a href="http://www.gmfus.org/publications/turkey-looks-china-security-cooperation-alternatives">exploring</a> stronger security ties with China. </p>
<p>Russia has long been a player in Syria. Despite the overall decline of Russian power since the USSR disappeared, Putin plays a weak hand well, <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-12-14/russia-s-influence-middle-east-growing">expanding</a> Russia’s influence more broadly in the region.</p>
<h2>US continued interest</h2>
<p>In my view, the U.S. will not roll back these changes, though it still has a stake in the region. </p>
<p>Terror attacks are a threat to the U.S. and others. The use of force to eliminate terrorist organizations by the U.S. <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/01/30/why-trumps-policies-will-increase-terrorism-and-why-trump-might-benefit-as-a-result/">has increased</a>, rather than diminished this threat. An uninterrupted flow of Middle Eastern oil continues to be an important goal, and it is a shared interest of producers and consumers around the globe. Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons is critical, which is why others support the Iran nuclear agreement. </p>
<p>Trump’s confrontational strategy is a counterproductive approach to promoting these interests. The only way back to the table, I believe, is for the U.S. to step back to a more neutral position, shrink its military presence, engage all the parties – including Iran – and commit to multilateral approaches.</p>
<p>Peace will not come soon to the Middle East. U.S. influence demands a dramatic change in attitude and approach. Power has shifted and other parties now have the biggest stake and role in the outcome.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gordon Adams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US was once the dominant force in the Middle East. That old order has disappeared. Now the new powers are Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Russia – and the US needs a new policy for the region.Gordon Adams, Professor Emeritus, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/991552018-07-03T15:11:16Z2018-07-03T15:11:16ZIran’s Grand Bazaar: once a hotbed of revolution, now a conservative power base<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225699/original/file-20180702-116143-1ic135n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tehran's Grand Bazaar: a city within a city. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ninara/41906451204/sizes/l">Ninara/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Too often, news about Iran is tainted by the politics of the day, particularly in the US. Recent protests by the bazaar merchants of Tehran were a case in point. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-26/thousands-protest-in-iran-over-failing-economy/9909184">Major news outlets</a> in the US and elsewhere were quick to imply that Iran may be on a verge of another major rupture. </p>
<p>The bazaar is typically cited as a barometer for the socio-economic and political situation in Iran. When the bazaar merchants strike, as they repeatedly did in the build up to the revolution of 1979, there must be another revolution around the corner. </p>
<p>Yet, such one-sided historical analogies are flawed. In contemporary Tehran, the bazaar has ceased to play the central business and political role that it assumed in the build up to the 1979 revolution which overthrew the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. </p>
<h2>The revolutionary bazaar</h2>
<p>The bazaar played a major symbolic role in the revolution because it was a hub for the opposition, whose power base was the traditional lower-middle class. Back then, it played a major role in the day-to-day affairs of Tehran’s population. The bazaar was a city within the city, home to a population brimming with political and socio-economic grievances against the Shah. Under the beautifully arched ceilings first erected in the 17th century, a civil society infrastructure emerged geared to the revolutionary momentum that delivered the Islamic Republic under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. </p>
<p>In the labyrintine matrix that makes the Grand Bazaar of Tehran such a fascinating urban space, the revolutionaries were able to keep their organisational autonomy in the face of intrusions by the Shah’s security forces. At the height of the revolution, the bazaaris gave out free drinks and food to the demonstrators and helped them hide from the monarch’s dreaded secret service. </p>
<p>After the revolution, the Grand Bazaar became a major institutional focal point in the chain of “Islamic” sites that galvanised the power of the newly formed Islamic Republic. Ironically, as the Middle East scholar, Arang Keshavarzian, rightly argued in his excellent <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bazaar_and_State_in_Iran.html?id=_NKL8-6B9OYC&redir_esc=y">book on the topic</a>, this alliance with the state transformed the bazaar into an economic unit, with waning political centrality. Whereas in 1979, the bazaar was a hub for revolutionary agitation, today it is complementary to the state.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f3RP_01rjsw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Today, Tehran is a modern, decentralised, megalopolis with 15m inhabitants. The bazaar, with its traditional trades, is flanked by sparkling shopping malls where affluent Tehranis spend their time in chic, air-conditioned boutiques offering a wide range of consumer goods and designer items. </p>
<h2>A conservative power base</h2>
<p>The bazaar continues to be seen as one of the many pillars of the Iranian state. But now, despite its history of opposition to the state, it is seen as an institutional hub for conservative politics in Iran. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225697/original/file-20180702-116120-1y1455o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225697/original/file-20180702-116120-1y1455o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225697/original/file-20180702-116120-1y1455o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225697/original/file-20180702-116120-1y1455o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225697/original/file-20180702-116120-1y1455o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225697/original/file-20180702-116120-1y1455o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225697/original/file-20180702-116120-1y1455o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shops shut in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar during a protest on June 25.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">STR/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In light of this, the recent discontent within the bazaar can be explained by two factors, both of them largely driven by the economic situation in Iran.</p>
<p>In the last six months, exacerbated by the economic warfare that the Trump administration is waging against Iran, the Rial, the national currency, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/iran-stop-downward-spiral-currency-180628063235075.html">has lost</a> almost half of its value vis-a-vis the US dollar. As a result, inflation is rampant, imports are costly and the exchange rate remains volatile. The one-day strike of the bazaaris on June 25 was about these <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/strike-tehran-grand-bazaar-rial-devaluation-180625180010879.html">very specific and legitimate economic</a> concerns. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-withdrawal-from-the-iran-nuclear-deal-will-affect-irans-economy-96476">How the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal will affect Iran's economy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At the same time, there is increasing frustration with the economic performance of the administration of President Hassan Rouhani. He has been targeted by part of a similar conservative groundswell that delivered the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 by deposing the reformist camp around his predecessor, Mohammed Khatami.</p>
<p>Iran’s pragmatists and reformists have born the brunt of antagonistic US foreign policies which empowered the more conservative forces in Iranian politics. This was evident in the 2002 “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004021075/the-axis-of-evil-speech.html">axis of evil</a>” speech by President George W. Bush which paired Iran with US enemies such as North Korea and Iraq even at a time when Khatami had made several overtures to the US. This speech, and the subsequent introduction of ever more draconian sanctions against Iran, had a similar effect as the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-donald-trumps-nuclear-deal-withdrawal-will-hurt-irans-dissenters-and-activists-96364">breach of the Iran nuclear agreement</a> by the Trump administration. It caused the conservatives to both gain in popularity and allowed them to move against reformist elements.</p>
<p>In a similar way, the recent strike of the bazaaris can be seen as a jibe against Rouhani, and an act of support for a conservative, future president. </p>
<p>Once again, Iranians are articulating very specific demands related to the economy. But this is a part of the reform process in the country and not a revolutionary movement. The strike of the bazaaris is the latest manifestation of the political prowess of an immensely potent civil society in Iran. And it is exactly because of this ability to organise and articulate their specific demands that Iranians have repeatedly managed to garner concessions from successive governments in their country – in many ways against all odds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99155/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arshin Adib-Moghaddam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar are part of a long reform movement, not a new revolution.Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/963642018-05-15T15:19:39Z2018-05-15T15:19:39ZHow Donald Trump’s nuclear deal withdrawal will hurt Iran’s dissenters and activists<p>Now the Trump administration has <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-backs-out-of-iran-nuclear-deal-now-what-96317">withdrawn from the Iranian nuclear deal</a>, the world is yet again bracing for an all-out confrontation between Washington and Tehran. But while Donald Trump’s decision inevitably has serious implications for the security balance of the Middle East, it will also hit Iranian society hard – and in particular, it will hurt Iranians protesting against their government.</p>
<p>More than any other time in the last four decades, Iran is seeing an uptick in protests over <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-a-new-kind-of-protest-movement-is-taking-hold-89589">all</a> <a href="https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2016/05/gold-mine-workers-flogged-for-protest/">manner</a> of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-iran-uses-a-compulsory-hijab-law-to-control-its-citizens-and-why-they-are-protesting-91439">issues</a> as its dominant political tendencies clash out in the open.</p>
<p>Since the 1997 presidential election, Iran’s political scene has been dominated by three main tendencies. At one extreme are totalitarians backing the religious-political establishment; at the other are homegrown advocates of regime change. And in the middle are the so-called reformists, who have advocated for change while steering clear of challenging the regime per se. For the last two decades, reformists have managed to all but monopolise mainstream anti-government struggles while marginalising the advocates of regime change, whom it labelled as destructive and delusional. </p>
<p>The reformists hit their peak with the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html">disputed 2009 election</a> and the massive protests that followed it, during which they successfully rallied much of the opposition to their cause. In spite of public uproar at the fraudulent election, the reformists easily smeared more radical protesters whom they couldn’t co-opt as warmongers, traitors and fanatics.</p>
<p>While the protests failed to transform Iranian politics, they still looked like something of a moral victory for the reformists. But as it turned out, 2009 was the point at which reformism began to turn away from democratic liberalism and towards an ultra-nationalist, anti-Western, and semi-fascist populism. In other words, it was the point where reformism began to be absorbed into the ruling discourse of totalitarianism. And as the next election in 2013 proved, even as the reformists have taken the reins of power, their once-bold agenda has begun to fade.</p>
<h2>Falling short</h2>
<p>First elected president in 2013 and then re-elected in 2017, reformist <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22886729">Hassan Rouhani</a> has totally failed to deliver on any of his major campaign promises. Most gallingly, the economic boom he promised would follow the nuclear deal never came to pass. </p>
<p>Even as post-deal sanctions relief released billions of dollars to the government, Iranians became poorer, workers and government employees went unpaid, and the currency lost value. The Iranian public has long known that public money has a habit of ending up in the elite’s pockets, but today, the government doesn’t even bother denying it.</p>
<p>Besides corruption, Iranians are furious that public money is going to fund foreign wars. In a public speech in July 2017, Rouhani <a href="http://fa.euronews.com/2017/07/11/hassan-rouhani-iran-prepared-weapon-for-iraq">admitted</a> that “despite our most difficult economic situation, we have provided Iraq and Syria with all the weapons and other supplies they need”. A day later, the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development <a href="http://iran-hrm.com/index.php/2017/11/05/iran-plagued-poverty-drought/">released a report</a> showing that 33% of the population were living in extreme poverty. And at around the same time, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qn1MysQzP8">video</a> went viral showing a Hezbollah leader explaining that “Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, come from the Islamic Republic of Iran. As long as Iran has money, we have money”.</p>
<p>These policies drastically eroded the regime’s popular support – and unsurprisingly, the ensuing protests are of a size and potency not seen since the 1979 revolution. The discourse of regime change has resurged, with protesters taking to the streets and chanting “we will take our Iran back”. In response, the reformists’ rhetoric turned harsh, with <a href="http://iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32337:a-look-at-the-real-stories-behind-iran-s-protests&catid=4:iran-general&Itemid=109">ominous warnings</a> about Iran “becoming the next Syria”. But it didn’t work, and as they lost many of their supporters, the reformists joined with some of Iran’s most extreme factions to call for a crackdown on the protests. This puts them on the side of forces they have fought against for decades.</p>
<h2>A gift from Washington</h2>
<p>All this has been exacerbated by the American withdrawal from the deal, which has sharpened the regime’s old propaganda tools just when it needs them the most. Until Trump announced his decision, the government’s years of scaremongering about a possible US invasion had backfired, met with popular <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-farmers-protests-isfahan/29165769.html">slogans</a> such as “They say the US is the enemy, but our enemy is right here”. But now, Trump has provided this politically bankrupt elite with a foreign scapegoat for its every domestic failure.</p>
<p>The US’s unilateral withdrawal is also a boost to Iran’s image abroad, allowing the regime to take up its favourite pose as the victim of a tyrant, ensuring that many outsiders who understand little about Iran’s domestic politics will come to regard one of the world’s most outlaw regimes as a reliable supporter of international law.</p>
<p>The Iranian government has exploited this misperception before. Many Western leftists and liberals are so disgusted by the US government and Western “imperialism” that they end up supporting and admiring brutal dictatorships and regional imperialists whom the US considers beyond the pale. At home and abroad, the Iran government’s cultural, political and academic advocates <a href="http://iranfocus.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32337:a-look-at-the-real-stories-behind-iran-s-protests&catid=4:iran-general&Itemid=109">smear dissenters</a> as proxy agents of a US-led Western regime change project.</p>
<p>This all leaves the Iranian opposition with precious few allies abroad. In their efforts to keep the deal alive, the US’s erstwhile partners will have to compromise with Tehran – and high up the list of likely concessions is for the EU countries in particular to overlook the government’s human rights violations even more than they already do.</p>
<p>All the while, the hostile relationship between Iran and the US looks more and more warlike. A similar situation arose in the hotheaded 1980s; it led to the bloody suppression of Iranian dissidents, and saw full-on theocracy take root. Now as then the mere spectre of war will help the Tehran government keep much of Iran’s civil society in line, and it sets the stage for a brutal crackdown on any opposition.</p>
<p>So far, many Iranians angry with the regime seem undeterred. In the days after Trump withdrew from the deal, <a href="https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2017/03/teachers-hold-rallies-across-iran-for-labor-and-education-rights/">teachers protested in seven cities</a> for free education and an end to discrimination. But while Iran is now hearing some of the loudest calls for regime change since 1979, recent events will surely muffle them. And so long as the rest of the world’s views on Iran are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-the-american-right-hate-iran-so-much-96304">so intensely polarised</a>, Iran’s activists will struggle to make themselves heard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omid Shams has been working as a writer and human rights activist since 2002.</span></em></p>Just as Iran’s centre ground was collapsing under political pressure, Donald Trump offered the hardliners a gift.Omid Shams, PhD Candidate, School of Law, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/914392018-02-08T14:51:08Z2018-02-08T14:51:08ZHow Iran uses a compulsory hijab law to control its citizens – and why they are protesting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205348/original/file-20180207-74501-75n9iw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C1422%2C783&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 'girl from Enghelab Street', recorded holding her hijab aloft in protest in December 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=721DE13YNCU&t=13s">The National via YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Protests <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/world/middleeast/head-scarf-protests-iran-women.html?smid=fb-share">against Iran’s</a> mandatory hijab law – which requires all women to wear it in public – have sprung up across Iran in the first few weeks of 2018. Women, acting individually, stood on utility boxes in public places, taking off their headscarves and holding them up as flags. Some men <a href="https://twitter.com/aidaghajar/status/958301165061591040/photo/1">also took part</a> in the protests. </p>
<p>The government’s reaction so far has been to arrest <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/02/tehran-hijab-protest-iranian-police-arrest-29-women">29 people</a> connected to the campaign against the hijab.</p>
<p>But a <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/05/middleeast/iran-hijab-law-report-intl/index.html">newly released report</a> by the Iranian government shows that 49% of the population are against the country’s compulsory hijab law, although the real number is likely to be higher. </p>
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<p>The hijab has an important place in the power dynamic between society and the ruling Iranian regime. During the revolution in 1978-79, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the hijab became a symbol of resistance and protest against the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Shah. The Pahlavi regime of the Shah and his predecessor had attempted to modernise the country, but its policies clashed with the religious values of a large part of the population. </p>
<p>Publicly wearing a hijab became a symbol of protest and solidarity against the monarchy, regardless of how religious a woman was. But wearing a veil was not compulsory for protesters, neither was making it so a demand driving the revolution. </p>
<p>Within a few years of the revolution, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iran-Iraq-War">Iran-Iraq war</a> was used as an excuse to clamp down on domestic opposition forces and to introduce strict domestic laws. In 1985, it became mandatory for women to wear the hijab with a law that forced all women in Iran, regardless of their religious beliefs, to dress in accordance with Islamic teachings. The hijab became a tool for implementing the government’s strict religious ideology. </p>
<h2>A symbol of oppression</h2>
<p>The new law marked an ideological way of governing that continues today. The compulsory hijab law has been used to exclude women from various areas of public life, either by explicitly banning women from <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/06/30/banned-stadiums-being-woman-iran">certain public spaces</a> such as some sports stadiums, or by adding <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11875128/Irans-women-problem-All-of-the-things-Iranian-women-arent-allowed.html">restrictions</a> on their education and workplace etiquette. More generally, it is also used to exclude anyone who disagrees with the ideology of the regime, who are branded as having “bad-hijab”. Not adhering to hijab continues to be seen as a hallmark of opposition to the government. </p>
<p>The law is also used to justify the regime’s increasing involvement in citizens’ private lives. From an early age, girls are forced to wear headscarves in school and public places. Teenagers and young people in Iran are routinely stopped by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2014/jun/19/iran-morality-police-patrol">“morality police”</a> responsible primarily for policing people’s appearances and adherence to wearing the hijab. </p>
<p>For women it is the way they wear their headscarves and the length of their overcoats. Men are prohibited from wearing shorts, having certain haircuts that could be seen as Western, and wearing tops with “Western” patterns or writings.
In recent years, it has become common practice for the police to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-42459544">raid private parties</a>, arresting both girls and boys on the basis of not adhering to the hijab law. Punishments range from fines to two months in jail.</p>
<h2>Going public</h2>
<p>Such violations of citizens’ private lives add to a lack of happiness, satisfaction, and hope in Iranian society. This is something the government <a href="http://otaghasnafeiran.ir/asnafnews/1396/29044/">has acknowledged</a> as one of the many social crises facing the nation. </p>
<p>The protests against the hijab followed widespread demonstrations in late 2017 that shook <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/01/news/economy/iran-economy-protests/index.html">over 80 cities in Iran</a>. Many of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/persian/iran-features-42592637">social analyses</a> of these recent protests, which were in large part fuelled by economic hardships, point to a strong mood of hopelessness. </p>
<p>The compulsory hijab law contributes to this mood, which is pushing opposition to the regime into the private sphere of people’s lives. It is this hidden opposition that fuels the scattered, yet strong public displays of unrest in Iran against the oppressive forces of the regime.</p>
<p>As the anniversary of the 1979 revolution approaches on February 11, some women are boldly bringing these protests back into the public arena. By protesting against the mandatory hijab law, Iranians are protesting against the very ideology of the regime. </p>
<p>The hijab has once again become a symbol, this time of the ideology and power of a regime over its people. By protesting this notion, Iranians are drawing a boundary for the government: individuals have the right to their body and their appearance and this is not a matter for the governing regime to enforce. </p>
<p>What Iranian society is most in need of is hope – not only as a driving force for active participation of citizens, but also as a unifying force bringing together different factions of the society. The protest against the hijab is symbolic. But it is also a protest with a clear demand, and with the potential to bring together Iranians, regardless of gender or religious beliefs. It could be just what Iranian society needs to restore hope for the future, and more importantly, for change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moujan Mirdamadi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Protests against mandatory hijabs have a clear goal, and if successful, would be a victory for Iranian civil society.Moujan Mirdamadi, PhD Candidate, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/897452018-01-08T21:37:17Z2018-01-08T21:37:17ZWhy Iran’s protests matter this time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201230/original/file-20180108-83571-31hfeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">University students attend a protest inside Tehran University as anti-riot Iranian police prevent them from joining other protesters.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A series of urban uprisings in Iran that began on Dec. 28 in its second-largest city <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2018/0105/In-Iran-s-surprise-uprising-of-the-poor-dents-to-revolution-s-legitimacy">shocked the country’s Islamic regime</a>, as well as much of the world. </p>
<p>Although the Mashhad protests were spearheaded by conservative opponents of President Hassan Rouhani to discredit his economic policies, the organizers lost control of the crowd. Protesters <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/protests-threaten-irans-ascendant-role-in-the-middle-east/2018/01/04/86246e7e-994f-457b-a85b-f1eb76b71998_story.html?utm_term=.5346051e732d">angrily chanted slogans</a> – such as “Leave Syria alone, think about us” and “Death to Hezbollah” – that were aimed at not only Rouhani but the entire Islamic regime. </p>
<p>In the days that followed, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-rallies-guards/iran-guards-say-quell-unrest-fomented-by-foreign-enemies-idUSKBN1EW085">protests spread</a> to 80 cities, leading to at least 22 deaths and over 1,000 arrests. On Jan. 8, Rouhani, who won a second term last May, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-08/rouhani-challenges-iran-s-hardliners-with-call-for-more-freedoms">said they signaled</a> Iranians want not only a stronger economy but also more freedom. </p>
<p>While the government says it now has the situation under control, that doesn’t eliminate the significance of the largest protests since 2009, when <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html">millions came out to oppose</a> the outcome of that year’s presidential election. The government forcefully suppressed that uprising, and two candidates who disputed the results remain under house arrest. </p>
<p>Why have so many Iranians again taken to the streets and will these protests have a larger impact than those eight years ago? As a close observer of Iran, I believe there are several important differences between the protests today and in 2009 that can help us answer both questions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201240/original/file-20180108-83571-1jv1j8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201240/original/file-20180108-83571-1jv1j8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201240/original/file-20180108-83571-1jv1j8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201240/original/file-20180108-83571-1jv1j8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201240/original/file-20180108-83571-1jv1j8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201240/original/file-20180108-83571-1jv1j8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201240/original/file-20180108-83571-1jv1j8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iran President Hassan Rouhani says the protests show Iranians are crying out for both economic and political change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iranian Presidency Office via AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s behind the uprising</h2>
<p>Not surprisingly, the conservative faction of the Islamic regime <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/02/nine-dead-iran-protesters-storm-police-station-fresh-unrest/">was quick to blame</a> Iran’s adversaries, namely the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia. In contrast, reformists <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/irans-government-warns-protesters-they-will-pay-the-price-for-mass-unrest/2017/12/31/1d4abd52-edb1-11e7-956e-baea358f9725_story.html?utm_term=.47edd657fc6a">say that the protests</a> are about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/world/middleeast/scattered-protests-erupt-in-iran-over-economic-woes.html">economic grievances</a> such as unemployment, inequality and corruption. </p>
<p>They do have a point. While the overall economy is growing again, and many indicators <a href="https://financialtribune.com/articles/economy-domestic-economy/74009/imf-forecasts-sustained-growth-for-iran-s-economy">have turned positive</a> in the past two years, the gains haven’t been shared by all Iranians.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/publication/iran-economic-outlook-october-2017">economy grew</a> 13.4 percent in 2016 after oil and financial sanctions were lifted as part of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33521655">nuclear agreement</a> with the West, which increased the country’s oil and gas production.</p>
<p>The non-oil sector, however, expanded just 3.3 percent – a clear sign the <a href="http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=13930504000667">economy’s recovery</a> has been slow in visibly improving people’s living standards. Real incomes of many segments of the economy remain weak, and the housing and construction sector remains in recession. </p>
<p>Unemployment is still high, at 12 percent, particularly among young university graduates. But it is much higher in small towns and <a href="http://www.sid.ir/En/Journal/ViewPaper.aspx?ID=304096">peripheral regions</a> of the country, where many of the protests occurred, driven by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/world/middleeast/scattered-protests-erupt-in-iran-over-economic-woes.html">concerns over inequality and poverty</a>.</p>
<p>Under Iran’s Constitution the supreme leader has broad powers, and even Rouhani has a limited ability to influence key policies, including those concerning the economy. Some key policies are entirely off limits, such as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-09/iran-spends-billions-to-prop-up-assad">Iran’s involvement</a> in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. These campaigns, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/protests-put-spotlight-irans-vast-shadowy-syria-war-52156143">which are costing Iran billions of dollars</a> every year, seem to be driving at least some of the protesters’ anger.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201239/original/file-20180108-83581-km0gd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201239/original/file-20180108-83581-km0gd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201239/original/file-20180108-83581-km0gd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201239/original/file-20180108-83581-km0gd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201239/original/file-20180108-83581-km0gd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201239/original/file-20180108-83581-km0gd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201239/original/file-20180108-83581-km0gd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iranian worshipers chant slogans during a rally against anti-government protestors in Tehran, Iran, on Jan. 5.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Key differences</h2>
<p>There are three key differences between today’s uprisings and those in 2009. </p>
<p>In 2009, the demands were political. The reformist faction of the ruling regime, which disputed the results of the presidential election, was the main actor in the protests. Current protests do not have a visible political leader and appear to be directed at the entire regime, including reformists. This is best demonstrated by one of the slogans frequently chanted by protesters, which roughly translates as, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt-Eft0Y3hM">It is over for all of you</a>.”</p>
<p>Another difference is that the 2009 protests were centered around the capital Tehran and other major cities. While the recent demonstrations involve fewer actual protesters, they are spread over a much larger area of the country, including many small cities that suffer from underdevelopment and low incomes. </p>
<p>These primarily young protesters, <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/meb/MEB89.pdf">including unemployed university graduates</a> and low-income workers, are also outraged by the frequent reports of corruption and unfair accumulation of wealth among some government officials. Competing factions of the ruling elite have frequently <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/40a7a75c-2ffb-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a">exposed each others’ corruption</a>, revelations that have alienated the marginalized segments of the population that are struggling with poverty and unemployment. Economic issues <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/iran-protests-green-movement_us_5a4e4caae4b0b0e5a7ab865c">are far more important</a> today than they were for the primarily middle-class protesters of 2009. </p>
<p>Finally, the U.S. response to the current uprisings has also been markedly different. </p>
<p>The Obama administration <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2018/01/response-iranian-protests-now/">reacted with caution</a> to the 2009 uprisings and refrained from openly cheering on the protesters, motivated by a fear that overt support would provoke a harsher crackdown. </p>
<p>In contrast, President Donald Trump and his State Department have actively supported the protesters, and the U.S. is trying to mobilize an international condemnation of the Iranian government’s response. This initiative, however, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/world/middleeast/un-iran-protests-debate.html">faces strong resistance</a> from China and Russia in the United Nations. </p>
<p>Concern about a stronger reaction from the Trump administration might explain the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/iran-security-forces-show-restraint/4191801.html">cautious and measured approach</a> of Iran’s security forces in confronting the current protesters. The response <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/06/23/iran-violent-crackdown-protesters-widens">was more violent</a> and brutal in 2009.</p>
<h2>What might change</h2>
<p>The protestors’ focus on economic rather than political issues enables some moderate members of the regime to meaningfully address their grievances rather than being forced to keep silent or issue outright condemnations, as they did in 2009.</p>
<p>While condemning the acts of violence by some protesters, many of Iran’s political leaders, <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/01/iran-khamenei-reaction-protests-shamkhani-kowsari.html">including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei</a>, have expressed sympathy for their economic concerns. </p>
<p>They have also led to some changes in fiscal budget and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/56b6eba0-4178-11e7-82b6-896b95f30f58">economic reform priorities</a>. Planned increases in prices of fuel and bread, for example, have been suspended. </p>
<p>While it’s encouraging that the government is reacting to protester concerns at all, stalling important economic reforms is not the right way to do it. These steps will surely be welcomed by lower-income Iranians, ensuring they’re politically popular, yet they may lead to more hardship down the road by worsening the budget deficit and potentially fueling inflation. </p>
<p>Instead of keeping prices of essential items artificially low, which leads to considerable waste and inefficiency in the economy, it would be more effective to offer targeted subsidies to the poor while doing more to fight corruption and political nepotism, a primary cause of rising income and wealth disparities in Iran.</p>
<h2>What won’t</h2>
<p>Will the recent unrest serve as a wake-up call for the political elite that more needs to be done?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, an inefficient populist response is probably as far as the country’s supreme leader will be willing to go – at least for now. Protesters’ more political demands, such as tackling corruption, limiting Khamenei’s powers or reducing Iran’s role in regional conflicts, are unlikely to be addressed anytime soon. </p>
<p>Iran’s political system carefully screens candidates for public office and thus remains closed to ordinary citizens, leaving Iranians with few options for influencing government policy besides the streets. And neither political faction, reformist or conservative, has yet offered any practical solution for how to change that. </p>
<p>For most Iranians, however, corruption, poverty and economic inequality can not be addressed without serious reforms. And that suggests that while the most recent uprising may be winding down, similar uprisings are likely in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89745/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nader Habibi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Although the unrest that shocked Iran’s ruling elite appears to be over, there are several reasons to think this won’t be the last time disaffected citizens take to the streets.Nader Habibi, Henry J. Leir Professor of Practice in Economics of the Middle East, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/896042018-01-05T15:07:08Z2018-01-05T15:07:08ZIran’s reformists have sided with the hardliners – and doomed their cause<p>For a few days at the start of 2018, nationwide protests hit the streets of several Iranian cities, blindsiding the government and briefly drawing the world’s attention. The government sponsored counter-protests in support of the status quo, but anti-government protests continued. It all signals that the arrangement of Iranian politics has radically changed – and in particular that the mainstream political project known as <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2013/05/23/the-legacy-of-reform-in-iran-sixteen-years-later/">reformism</a> is no longer the decisive force it was.</p>
<p>Until now, the only visible protests on the streets of Iran since 2013 revolved around economic issues. They have mostly been organised by Iranians lower down the social ladder; the bus drivers’ union, teachers, and those who lost their savings to fraud and embezzlement by top officials or financial institutions affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard.</p>
<p>The largest demonstrations since the the 2009 Green Movement came in November 2016 and were held by workers <a href="https://www.radiozamaneh.com/297387">against the government’s bill</a> to reform labour laws. In May 2017, hundreds who lost their deposits to Caspian financial institutions protested in front of the Iranian parliament wearing white shrouds – <a href="https://humanrightsiniran.com/1396/42064/">implying they were ready to die</a> for their cause. Union leaders, meanwhile, have made enough political trouble to become the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/6147/2017/en/">largest group of political prisoners</a> during Rouhani’s presidency. In January 2015, <a href="https://www.iranhumanrights.org/2016/05/gold-mine-workers-flogged-for-protest/">17 gold miners</a> from Agh Darreh were arrested and lashed on orders of the judiciary for protesting the firing of 326 miners.</p>
<p>The signals of discontent these protests sent were completely ignored by the government and the pro-government elite, who forgot that Rouhani’s first campaign revolved around the idea that economic hardship could be ended through the nuclear negotiations. But even though he was re-elected president in 2017, he has ultimately never lived up to his initial promise. </p>
<h2>State of denial</h2>
<p>He offered a last slap in the face for Iran’s lower middle and working classes with his 2018 budget bill. With workers in state-owned factories and pensioners facing <a href="https://en.radiozamaneh.com/articles/iranian-workers-pensioners-protest-months-of-delayed-wages/">months of delayed wages</a> and the victims of recent earthquakes still sleeping in tents during western Iran’s deadly winter, the bill <a href="http://www.dw.com/fa-ir/%D8%B3%D9%87%D9%85-%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B0%D9%87%D8%A8%DB%8C-%D8%BA%DB%8C%D8%B1%D9%BE%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AE%DA%AF%D9%88-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%AC%D9%87-%D9%BE%DB%8C%D8%B4%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AF%DB%8C-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84-%DB%B9%DB%B7/a-41812179">allocated billions of dollars</a> to numerous religious institutions owned by high-ranking clerics, mostly focused on missionary activities abroad. </p>
<p>In one case, the government channelled <a href="http://www.magiran.com/npview.asp?ID=3684196">IRR280 billion</a> (about US$7.8m) to a religious institution owned by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a radical cleric who was allegedly behind <a href="https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%82%D8%AA%D9%84%E2%80%8C%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C_%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%81%D9%84%DB%8C_%DA%A9%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86">murders committed by Islamist fanatics</a> in Kerman. This institution has been receiving annual allocations since the second term of the last reformist president, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3027382.stm">Mohammad Khatami</a>.</p>
<p>Ayatollah Khomeini called the 1979 Islamic Revolution a “revolution of the barefooted”, a powerful image that helped the regime establish its hegemony and eradicate leftists from Iran’s official political spectrum. But three decades later, pro-government reformists too are using the epithet “barefooted masses” in quite a different way: to denigrate and scorn anyone who protests against the established order.</p>
<p>In total denial about their economic and political failures, the majority of reformists tried at first to blame the most recent protests on their conservative rivals. This was not true. From the beginning, the most recent protests were aimed not just at economic problems, but at the very foundations of the Islamic Regime and its religious leaders. </p>
<p>A week before the main wave of the current protests, <a href="http://bit.ly/2lT2imm">pensioners</a> in the pro-Rouhani city of Isfahan gathered in front of the office of the governorate chanting “pensioners’ wages are under the mullahs’ cloak” and “revolution, our mistake”. Then came the protests in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest and most religious city; in less than a day, the protests flared up and spread to 14 cities across the country. On the sixth day, at least 21 people were killed on the streets. </p>
<p>The reformists’ response was all too predictable. </p>
<h2>Decline and decay</h2>
<p>Mohajerani, a former minister of culture and a pro-government reformist living in exile, has called the protests a rootless movement, <a href="https://twitter.com/MohajeraniSayed/status/946652772052754432">attributed them to Israel</a>, and reproached the media for covering them. Reformist journalist Ebrahim Nabavi, meanwhile, <a href="https://twitter.com/ebrahimnabavi/status/946348055392960512">mocked the protesters</a> as “beetroot sellers and cherry pickers”.</p>
<p>Once a democratic and civil movement, reformism in Iran has now been totally absorbed into the hardliners’ authoritarianism. Confronted with an apparent third force in Iran’s bipolar political spectrum, they chose to become one with their former adversaries on the hardline religious front. Once outraged when former president <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23538717">Mahmoud Ahmadinejad</a> called the Green Movement protesters “dust and dirt”, they are borrowing the same rhetoric to describe the new movement – right down to the shop-worn cliche of tying them to the hostile US.</p>
<p>In the last several elections, reformists successfully mobilised dissident middle and upper middle-class Iranians. This they did mainly through fearmongering; the fear of hardliners and of war got many, even among the most radical opposition of the regime, to the ballot box. </p>
<p>But the truth is that since Khatami’s second term, Iranian reformism has been constantly backing away from its own principled demands to the point that it is now almost unrecognisable. In a same way, the apparatus of the Islamic Republic of Iran has now lost any legitimacy as a “revolution of the barefooted”. The regime, as professor of political science <a href="http://zeitoons.com/42531">Fatemeh Sadeghi</a> puts it, “is no longer a system, but a pure reign without any justification”.</p>
<p>The diversity of today’s protesters looks set to become a pattern for the reconstruction of the opposition, whose prominent figures and leaders have been systematically <a href="http://www.iranhrdc.org/english/publications/reports/3152-no-safe-haven-iran-s-global-assassination-campaign.html">assassinated</a> over the last four decades. For the first time in the history of post-revolution Iran, an opposition is at the verge of forming a real and functional coalition of all the country’s secular forces, from socialists to liberals and all the factions in between. As the reformists’ agenda shrivels into cynicism, that opposition’s time may just be coming.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omid Shams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With a hollowed-out agenda and a cynical attitude to corruption, Iran’s reformist forces have squandered their people’s trust.Omid Shams, PhD Candidate, School of Law, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/856372017-10-17T23:52:04Z2017-10-17T23:52:04ZThree ways Trump’s nuclear strategy misunderstands the mood in Iran<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190528/original/file-20171017-22262-6x0k3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People walk around the old main bazaar of Tehran, in Iran, Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Vahid Salemi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. President Donald Trump has refused to tell Congress that the 2015 nuclear deal the Obama administration reached with Iran and five other world powers still serves U.S. national interests. This refusal, or decertification, went against top officials in his own government and the International Atomic Energy Agency.</p>
<p>Nobody should be surprised. Trump has attacked the Iran deal for years without offering a realistic alternative. His <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/10/13/remarks-president-trump-iran-strategy">Oct. 13 speech on Iran</a> was long on recriminations, but <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/trumps-speech-iran-warmed-over-rejectionism-22721">short on factual analysis and practical recommendations</a>. This disconnect has kept experts and pundits guessing about what Trump’s decertification is meant to achieve. </p>
<p>There are three common interpretations. Each makes different assumptions about how Iran will react. All rest more on wishful thinking than a solid understanding of politics in Iran. </p>
<p>A key figure in Iranian politics is Hassan Rouhani, who was elected president in 2013. He won by promising that skillful diplomacy could improve Iran’s economy without sacrificing key aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. </p>
<p>The Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, where <a href="http://www.cissm.umd.edu">I am the director,</a> has worked with partners in Tehran and Toronto on nine surveys of Iranian public opinion before and after Rouhani’s recent reelection. Data from these surveys clearly suggest that <a href="http://www.cissm.umd.edu/publications/ramifications-rouhanis-re-election">each set of assumptions underlying interpretation of Trump’s strategy is wrong</a>. </p>
<h2>#1: Have your cake and eat it, too</h2>
<p>In the most benign interpretation, responsible members of the Trump team are letting the president play to his domestic political base by denouncing the deal, but not allowing him to withdraw or reimpose sanctions that would violate it. </p>
<p>This interpretation depicts decertification as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/10/12/iran-policy-shouldnt-be-adjusted-merely-to-soothe-an-unhinged-president/?utm_term=.4204bf0a5930">“legal placebo”</a> – a harmless, if ineffectual, way to make a petulant president feel better. It assumes that Iran will honor its nuclear obligations so long as the United States does not reimpose nuclear sanctions, thus preserving the benefits of a deal that Trump’s secretary of defense testified <a href="https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/17-10-03-political-and-security-situation-in-afghanistan">does serve U.S. interests</a>.</p>
<p>Do Iranians really expect the economic benefits of the deal to outweigh the costs incurred by adhering to an agreement that is continually being undercut by the United States? They might – but that hope is fading fast.</p>
<p>In June 2017, 64 percent of respondents to our survey said that their economy was bad and 50 percent thought it was getting worse. Seven in 10 said that the deal had not improved living conditions of Iranians at all. </p>
<p>Two-thirds still support the nuclear deal. But, U.S. actions are eroding optimism that the deal will eventually make life better. That has dropped to 59 percent, down from 66 percent a year earlier.</p>
<p>Iranian confidence that the United States will uphold its end of the bargain has already dropped precipitously, from 45 percent shortly after the deal was signed to 24 percent in June 2017. Confidence in the other parties to the agreement – Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia – is higher at 53 percent. But 71 percent of Iranians do not think the Europeans are moving as rapidly as they could to engage economically with Iran, mostly due to U.S. obstructionism and pressure.</p>
<p>A clear majority, 55 percent, say that if the United States takes measures against Iran that violate the nuclear deal, Iran should retaliate by restarting aspects of its nuclear program. Only 41 percent want to abide by the agreement and try to resolve the problem diplomatically. </p>
<p>Trashing the Iran deal without tearing it up, in other words, is not a harmless outlet for Trump’s animosity. The more he makes threats and sows uncertainty, the more likely Iran’s leaders are to decide that the gains are not worth the grief. </p>
<h2>#2: Hardball bargaining strategy</h2>
<p>The second interpretation takes at face value Trump’s claim that decertification is meant to increase U.S. bargaining leverage and get more out of the nuclear deal. </p>
<p>Secretary of State Rex Tillerson implied that allied support for tougher sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile tests might be required to keep the United States <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/15/politics/rex-tillerson-iran-nuclear-agreement-cnntv/index.html">in the nuclear deal</a>. The administration is also supporting legislation <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/files/documents/171013_INARA_Amendment_Fact_Sheet.pdf">co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Bob Corker and Tom Cotton</a> that would automatically reimpose sanctions if Iran does not obey demands that <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/reports/Solving-the-Iranian-Nuclear-Puzzle-The-Joint-Comprehensive-Plan-of-Action/2015/08/Appendix-A-Summary-of-the-Key-%C2%ADComponents-of-the-JCPOA">go well beyond the terms of the nuclear deal itself</a>.</p>
<p>The Iranian public is strongly opposed to the kinds of additional restrictions that Trump wants Congress to impose. Seventy percent said that Iran should not agree to end enrichment under any circumstances, while 62 percent said categorically that Iran should not extend the duration of the special nuclear limits it accepted. </p>
<p>When asked whether Iran should curtail certain nonnuclear activities in order to get all U.S. sanctions lifted, 63 percent opposed reducing ballistic missile tests. Fifty-nine percent opposed ending aid to Syrian President Assad.</p>
<p>Iranians would be even more firmly opposed to these policy changes if they got nothing new in return. Thus, threatening to reimpose nuclear sanctions is counterproductive if the objective is to get more from Iran.</p>
<h2>#3: Killing the deal to provoke regime change</h2>
<p>A third interpretation suggests that Trump does not really want to prolong, or to improve, the nuclear deal. Instead, he wants to end it, preferably without being blamed for the deal’s demise, and help the people of Iran get a government that is peace-loving and democratic. If so, he would be following some version of a strategy proposed by John Bolton, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/node/450890/print">a leading neoconservative from the George W. Bush administration</a>.</p>
<p>Trump’s speech denounced Iran’s government as a fanatical dictatorship that violently suppresses its own people, supports terrorism and causes conflict throughout the Middle East. He also alleged that this “rogue regime” had been on the verge of total collapse before the nuclear deal lifted sanctions and provided a huge financial boost. </p>
<p>From this perspective, the main effect of the nuclear deal has been to prolong the power of Iran’s supreme leader and his “corrupt personal terror force and militia.” Trump’s pledge to terminate the nuclear deal if Congress and U.S. allies cannot gain Iranian acquiescence to unacceptable demands would demonstrate “total solidarity with the Iranian regime’s longest-suffering vicitims: its own people.”</p>
<p>Our surveys show that Trump misunderstands what the Iranian people want. The vast majority list economic problems, particularly unemployment, as their greatest concern, not political issues, like corruption or human rights. Pre-election data showed that younger Iranians preferred Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Tehran’s conservative mayor who eventually dropped out of the race, to Rouhani, who is more moderate politically but has less impressive economic achievements.</p>
<p>Iranians see U.S. sanctions as making their life worse, not better. When asked in December 2016 what happened to the economic benefits Iran was supposed to get from the nuclear deal, 51 percent said they never materialized. Few blamed their own government. Only 21 percent said the economic gains from the deal went to Iranians with special connections, while 15 percent thought they went to Iran’s military and foreign allies. And, when asked in June 2017 about the effect of sanctions imposed because of Iran’s alleged human rights violations, only 8 percent thought they improved human rights in Iran. Thirty-six percent thought they hurt them, and 52 percent said they had no effect. </p>
<p>The Iranian people want the United States to fulfill the economic promises it made in the nuclear deal, not to foment internal unrest and radical political change. When asked about the meaning of Rouhani’s reelection, only about a third said it showed that most Iranians wanted religion to play a lesser role in policymaking. Less than a quarter saw it as evidence that the Iranian public disapproved of the ideals of the Islamic revolution. In other words, by reelecting Rouhani, Iranians showed support for continuity and moderation, not fundamental changes to their political system.</p>
<p>Trump seems to think that he gains a strategic advantage by keeping everybody else guessing. That might be true if he had a sound strategy that could achieve his objective so long as his opponents could not anticipate his next move and counteract it. With Trump’s decision to decertify the Iran deal, though, the evidence suggests that whatever strategy he has will likely be self-defeating.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nancy Gallagher receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. </span></em></p>Surveys of Iranian public opinion from the University of Maryland suggests that Trump’s strategy on the nuclear deal – no matter how you interpret it – is based on wishful thinking.Nancy Gallagher, Director at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782852017-05-30T06:47:15Z2017-05-30T06:47:15ZIran’s startups promise paradise for the country’s unemployed youth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170957/original/file-20170525-23251-h3i69y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will the development of tech industry change the economic and social life Iranian youth? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/blondinrikard/14070921549/in/photolist-nrp9KF-46uZse-5kTkQE-o1b281-3nbnzX-nXhxZs-nZ9K5y-7pgLSW-7tLGam-o3e97T-JpH1b-nJMTjo-qufuUV-cfauLU-o8ctt7-49gq9Q-CBq9ox-kb3bB-7fESzm-87ivDu-qPDEGx-cjuMB5-9ZZRS1-7jFCeP-civDwb-5vnYQt-7eE3ys-nRrXN1-5PXNug-6zi17k-vhZd2q-Ae72g4-7N2wut-xZmPUj-a9rus-Sjgujk-xRhA9T-P3qd32-N7sKET-AG83DQ-MZN9V5-NftdRD-N9FoqF-PeS94N-yo5YZa-PeGvC4-MZwrNK-PfmcHW-N6jCWf-Pg3QV6">Blondinrikard Fröberg/Flick</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Iran’s self-proclaimed Silicon Valley stands on the road to mount Damavand, the tallest mountain in the country. <a href="http://en.techpark.ir/modules.php?module=articles&do=article&artname=Iranian-Silicon-Valley">Set up in 2005</a>, its name is ambitious: <a href="http://en.techpark.ir/">Pardis</a>, a “paradise” for technology. </p>
<p>Pardis is where Tehran just hosted the 6th International Innovation and Technology Exhibition <a href="https://financialtribune.com/articles/economy-sci-tech/64899/tehran-tech-expo-open-may-23">(INOTEX2017</a>) <a href="http://en.mehrnews.com/photo/125554/6th-INOTEX-opens-in-Tehran">which opened on May 23</a>.</p>
<p>More than a year after <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35317159">sanctions</a> imposed on the country by the West for its nuclear program were lifted, technology and innovation may well be the key to Iran’s economic recovery.</p>
<h2>Resetting the economy</h2>
<p>On July 14 2015, Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers (the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany) signed the <a href="https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/">historic nuclear agreement</a> that led to the lifting of sanctions. </p>
<p>A day after the so-called “implementation day” of the deal – January 17 2016 – President Hassan Rouhani, who recently <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/05/20/522529/Iran-presidential-election-early-results-first-round">secured a second</a> term <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-rouhani-idUSKCN0UV052">announced</a> his number one objective was to cut the Iranian economy’s “<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-rouhani-idUSKCN0UV052">umbilical cord</a>” to oil revenue.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170847/original/file-20170524-31362-kkbtdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170847/original/file-20170524-31362-kkbtdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170847/original/file-20170524-31362-kkbtdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170847/original/file-20170524-31362-kkbtdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170847/original/file-20170524-31362-kkbtdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170847/original/file-20170524-31362-kkbtdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170847/original/file-20170524-31362-kkbtdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pardis Technology Park, the self-proclaimed ‘Silicon Valley’ of Iran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardis_Technology_Park#/media/File:Pardis_Technology_Park.jpg">Rmzadeh/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The president’s main challenge 16 months later is the nation’s high <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/iran/unemployment-rate">unemployment rate</a>. It stands at 12.7% overall but is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b6994c78-36f3-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e">27% for youth</a> and more than 44% among women.</p>
<p>Reducing unemployment means boosting the economic agenda. Rouhani’s pledge to look beyond oil as <a href="https://resourcegovernance.org/our-work/country/iran">the main source</a> of government income is the first step to diversifying the economy and giving impetus to job creation in the country, especially among young educated Iranians. </p>
<p>In fact, during his 2017 presidential campaign, Rouhani pledged to create <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/05/12/521568/Iran-Presidential-Election-Rouhani-MirSalim-HashemiTaba-Raeisi">900,000 new jobs</a> a year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170842/original/file-20170524-31362-10jr6ot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170842/original/file-20170524-31362-10jr6ot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170842/original/file-20170524-31362-10jr6ot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170842/original/file-20170524-31362-10jr6ot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170842/original/file-20170524-31362-10jr6ot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170842/original/file-20170524-31362-10jr6ot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170842/original/file-20170524-31362-10jr6ot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Inotex 2017 fair in Tehran where many local start-ups get a chance to network.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.inotex.com/">Inotex</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Highlights and lowlights</h2>
<p>Iran is a nuanced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/31/amazon-iranian-style-digikala-other-startups-aparat-hamijoo-takhfifan">start-up incubator</a>, with a range of companies such as Takhfifahn, the local version of Groupon; Digikala, the Iranian version of Amazon; ZarinPal, the Paypal twin in Iran; and Expedia’s Iranian model Zoraq. </p>
<p>Local hi-tech firms and entrepreneurs, specialised in software creation or online app services, such as Tap30 (the Persian Uber), could become the connection between the government’s openness to innovation and tangible results in terms of jobs for the youth.</p>
<p>But this rosy picture overlooks several obstacles. Even though sanctions have been removed, Iran’s economy has yet to deal with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2015/nov/02/iran-economy-faces-structural-problems-after-sanctions-removed">structural problems</a>. </p>
<p>Rouhani has promised <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/iran-rouhani-second-term-economic-agenda-developmental-plan.html">to reform</a> the management of oil export revenues, so its proceeds can be used for long-term investments. But how he intends to do this is not yet clear. </p>
<p>Despite the president’s rhetoric, program <a href="https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/09/iran-rouhani-internet-3g-4g-supreme-leader-ali-khamenei/">for improving internet infrastructure</a> and insistence on expanding 3G and 4G services (together with <a href="http://fortune.com/irans-startup-spring/">broadband connections for homes</a>), start-ups <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/13/news/iran-tech-industry/">face connectivity</a> issues, mainly due to access restrictions and internet filters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170954/original/file-20170525-23260-1ei4in9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170954/original/file-20170525-23260-1ei4in9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170954/original/file-20170525-23260-1ei4in9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170954/original/file-20170525-23260-1ei4in9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170954/original/file-20170525-23260-1ei4in9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170954/original/file-20170525-23260-1ei4in9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170954/original/file-20170525-23260-1ei4in9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Advertisements for iPhones and 4G in Tehran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yuenchiyan/7380208196/in/photolist-nXhxZs-nZ9K5y-7pgLSW-7tLGam-o3e97T-JpH1b-nJMTjo-qufuUV-cfauLU-o8ctt7-49gq9Q-CBq9ox-kb3bB-7fESzm-87ivDu-qPDEGx-cjuMB5-9ZZRS1-7jFCeP-civDwb-5vnYQt-7eE3ys-nRrXN1-5PXNug-6zi17k-vhZd2q-Ae72g4-7N2wut-xZmPUj-a9rus-Sjgujk-xRhA9T-P3qd32-N7sKET-AG83DQ-MZN9V5-NftdRD-N9FoqF-PeS94N-yo5YZa-PeGvC4-MZwrNK-PfmcHW-N6jCWf-Pg3QV6-NZBKot-xXRiqp-NYiaqw-NVW4RL-whewNR">Yuen Yan/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And even though the Iranian communication ministry’s 2015 budget was its largest ever (well over US$80 million), the overall amount <a href="https://financialtribune.com/articles/sci-tech/55397/cuts-and-extensions-in-irans-ict-201718-budget">may be cut</a> by 16.5% this year.</p>
<p>What’s more, the country’s ultraconservatives fear too much internet freedom. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei fosters the idea of enlarging the local knowledge-based industry (and support for Iranian high-tech companies) because it chimes with his idea of the so-called “<a href="http://en.citc.ir/index.jsp?siteid=8&fkeyid=&siteid=8&pageid=1039">resistance economy</a>” (a term that emerged as a response to the Western sanctions <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/02/decoding-resistance-economy-iran.html">with the objective to strengthen</a> the Iranian economy).</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.smallmedia.org.uk/sites/default/files/u8/IIIP_OCT15.pdf">free internet</a> with connections to global social media is seen by hardliners as a threat to the moral values of the Islamic republic, in a country where <a href="http://mis.ito.gov.ir/web/guest/news/-/view/%D8%B1%D8%B4%D8%AF-%D9%87%D9%81%D8%AF%D9%87-%D9%88-%D9%86%DB%8C%D9%85--%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%AA%D8%B1%D9%86%D8%AA-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%25D">about 60% of the population uses the internet</a>.</p>
<p>Currently, about <a href="https://djavadsalehi.com/2016/10/30/new-data-on-internet-use-in-iran/">57.7% of Iranian families</a> have a laptop or tablet, although there’s a significant difference between cities (64.8%) and rural areas (36.1%). </p>
<p>The fear of the ultraconservatives about losing control of the people may well be justified. During last February parliamentary elections, for instance, Aparat, the Iranian version of Youtube, <a href="https://smallmedia.org.uk/media/projects/files/IranVotes_2016.pdf">featured a video</a> showing the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/17/iranian-media-banned-from-mentioning-mohammad-khatami">who has been prohibited</a> from speaking in public since 2009 because of his support for the leaders of the <a href="http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/green-movement">Green Movement</a>.</p>
<p>In it, Khatami asked Iranians to vote for reformist candidates. The authorities tried to stop the circulation of the video but failed to do so because the video <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/01/how-women-the-green-movement-and-an-app-shaped-irans-elections/?utm_term=.580159dc7a68">was already viral</a>.</p>
<h2>Breaking more barriers</h2>
<p>Before the lifting of international sanctions, Iran’s hi-tech industry was strongly undermined by the lack of access to advanced technology. Many companies <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/06/iran-nuclear-deal-these-industries-could-get-a-boost.html">could not buy necessary components</a> for their work and exports of Iranian products were prohibited.</p>
<p>But, as <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/iran-tech-it-sector-post-sanctions-relief-development.html">underlined by researcher Mahmoud Pargoo</a>, the sanctions also meant that Iranians started to purchase an increasing number of domestic products – from software to electronics.</p>
<p>Stopping relying exclusively on oil revenues and opening up to innovation and technology will require accepting changes in civil liberties and transformations across the society, trusting local entrepreneurship, and breaking the legal barriers on civil rights and freedoms, internet access and filters. Iranian <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/11/iran-silicon-valley-161130094759722.html">start-ups</a> would benefit from these changes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170870/original/file-20170524-31362-1lwku9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170870/original/file-20170524-31362-1lwku9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170870/original/file-20170524-31362-1lwku9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170870/original/file-20170524-31362-1lwku9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170870/original/file-20170524-31362-1lwku9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170870/original/file-20170524-31362-1lwku9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170870/original/file-20170524-31362-1lwku9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iranian conservatives fear that the youth enjoy too much freedom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stella Morgana</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2013, Rouhani <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/iran-president-hassan-rouhani-progressive-views">told an Iranian magazine</a> that “in the age of digital revolution, one cannot live or govern in a quarantine”. Although the country has taken a few steps forward, Iranians are still waiting for a real, free digital revolution.</p>
<p>But a cautious approach is needed because there are a number of consequences from fostering and embracing a technology industry, within the framework of Rouhani’s neoliberal economic policies. The labour market may be affected in terms of more short-term contracts, precarious work conditions, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/silicon-valley-has-an-empathy-vacuum">and also overall impact on the other sectors</a>, potentially affecting working class identities. </p>
<p>Another dilemma may be the management of tech-related activities and their <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-middle-east-studies/article/rise-of-the-subcontractor-state-politics-of-pseudoprivatization-in-the-islamic-republic-of-iran/0C8E2194D6CF27B6031399BADABD12DF">privatisation</a>. Would this be done at the expense of Iran’s public sector companies, as intensively happened in the past 15 years, together with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/04/23/irans-political-economy-under-and-after-the-sanctions/">semi-public entities</a>? </p>
<p>Young Iranians seem to be ready for a domestic technological upheaval. But are local policymakers prepared to allow the resulting process of social transformation?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stella Morgana does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tehran is fostering a start-up industry as a possible motor to solve Iran’s unemployment crisis.Stella Morgana, PhD candidate, Iranian Studies, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780512017-05-22T14:13:51Z2017-05-22T14:13:51ZRouhani’s commanding election victory might just help him change Iran<p>Around 70% of Iranians who were eligible to vote participated in the country’s presidential election and re-elected the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, to another four-year term. Rouhani, who was supported by Iran’s moderates and reformists, won <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/20/iran-hassan-rouhani-set-for-landslide-in-huge-victory-for-reformists">around 57%</a> of the vote; his main rival, the more hardline Ebrahim Raisi, won only 38.5%. </p>
<p>Reformist office-holders and the Iranian electorate alike have all sorts of priorities for the next four years, but based on the slogans Rouhani’s supporters used during the election, three big ones stand out: improving political freedom, fighting ingrained corruption, and freeing three prominent dissidents who have been under house arrest since 2009: <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/article/iran-s-shame-detention-mousavi-karroubi-and-rahnavard">Mir Hossein Mousavi</a>, <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/article/iran-s-shame-detention-mousavi-karroubi-and-rahnavard">Zahra Rahnavard</a> and <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/article/iran-s-shame-detention-mousavi-karroubi-and-rahnavard">Mehdi Karroubi</a>. </p>
<p>In every city Rouhani visited during his campaign, his supporters asked him to see these prisoners released. When confronted on the issue during a campaign stop in Tabriz, he responded that to get certain things done, a president needs more than 51% of the vote for a mandate – nodding to the share of the vote he won at the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22916174">2013 election</a> to imply that a more commanding win would empower him to finally sort the issue out. He ultimately won 5m more votes this time around, and his supporters are duly waiting to see if he will use his boosted political capital as promised.</p>
<p>There are plenty of obstacles. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and the head of the judicial system, Ayatollah Shadeq Larijani, support the house arrest along with most hardliners in the country. As far as they’re concerned, house arrest is a lenient punishment for these dissidents, and a <a href="https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1393/10/13/607859/%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%B1-%D9%81%D9%82%D9%87%D8%A7-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%87-%D8%AD%DA%A9%D9%85-%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%86%D9%87">list of powerful ayatollahs</a> have already demanded their execution. Whether Rouhani’s strengthened mandate will give him enough clout to change the situation remains to be seen.</p>
<p>The same goes for the thorny problem of political freedom more generally. Just a few days before the election, Rouhani publicly <a href="http://www.dw.com/fa-ir/%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF%D9%87%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B4%D9%86%D8%A8%D9%87-%DB%B1%DB%B8-%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%B4%D8%AA/a-38747530">railed against</a> the hardliners’ plans to restrict people’s freedoms further and exclude women from the public sphere. But for all he campaigned as a liberator, Rouhani will know all too well how hard any attempt to open up new freedoms will be.</p>
<p>After all, little progress was made during Rouhani’s first term, during which hardliners held enough key positions to <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/iran">limit any improvement</a> in political freedom or the general human rights situation. Amnesty International’s last annual <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/">country report</a> highlighted that “the authorities heavily suppressed the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and religious belief, arresting and imprisoning peaceful critics and others after grossly unfair trials before revolutionary courts”.</p>
<p>So for all that those extra 5m votes might boost Rouhani’s confidence and legitimacy, they also come with high expectations that he’ll be able to make progress that’s so far eluded him – and in circumstances that haven’t fundamentally changed.</p>
<h2>Caught in the middle</h2>
<p>The fight against corruption, however, might be a rather different story. Iran is routinely ranked as <a href="https://www.transparency.org/country/IRN">one of the world’s most corrupt countries</a>; Iranians themselves are understandably fed up, and fortunately for them, this is a problem that Rouhani and his administration do have some power to tackle. The government directly manages powerful institutions such as <a href="http://www.cbi.ir/default_en.aspx">the Central Bank</a>, <a href="http://www.irica.gov.ir/Portal/Home/Default.aspx?CategoryID=68bde3d2-c2d5-411f-meaning-2b50ce202c04">Customs Administration</a> and <a href="http://en.mop.ir/Portal/Home/">the Ministry of Petroleum</a>, meaning it can easily monitor all money transfers and contracts inside Iran. </p>
<p>But other powerful institutions will have little trouble escaping scrutiny. The Revolutionary Guards and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting have huge budgets and are independent of the elected administration, instead being mostly under the control of Ayatollah Khamenei himself. Municipal authorities are also both well-funded and largely independent of central government, which cannot directly monitor them without a mandate from parliament – so far, not forthcoming.</p>
<p>On all fronts, Rouhani faces a demanding balancing act: to preserve moderate and reformist voters’ trust in him while simultaneously winning over Khamenei and the hardliners. He will have to be honest with the Iranian people and directly explain to them why he cannot commit to some of his campaign promises, some of which will inevitably fail to come true. And thanks to Iran’s very particular power structure, all big changes in the country need Khamenei’s consent to stand a chance. </p>
<p>This sort of intricate, high-stakes triangulation will not be easy. But as Rouhani proved with the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33521655">2015 nuclear deal</a>, he is probably as capable a political negotiator as the Iranian people could hope for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Meysam Tayebipour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Between an electorate hungry for change and a powerful hardline elite, Hassan Rouhani has his work cut out for him.Dr Meysam Tayebipour, PhD Candidate, Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/774082017-05-19T05:29:55Z2017-05-19T05:29:55ZHassan Rouhani’s economic legacy may be his key to winning a second term<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169914/original/file-20170518-12237-13m4ji2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Presidential_candidate,_Hassan_Rouhani_press_conference_11.jpg">Mohammad Ali Marizad/Tasnim News Agency/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39821565">Today’s presidential election</a> in Iran had turned into a vote of confidence for President Hassan Rouhani’s four years in office. Iran’s economic recovery and reintegration into the global economy have become key electoral topics.</p>
<p>Rouhani’s government was marked by several achievements on both the domestic and international levels.</p>
<p>The nuclear deal with the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33521655">international community</a> was historic for the country. In return for giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium and putting its nuclear facilities under strict international inspection, Iran was promised <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35342439">the removal of sanctions</a> that had crippled <a href="https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2013/01/19/western-economic-sanctions-and-irans-survival-strategy/">the national economy</a>. </p>
<p>The promise of Iran’s reintegration into the global economy, however, has only been partly fulfilled.</p>
<h2>Still isolated</h2>
<p>Even though the UN Security Council voted in January 2016 to lift economic sanctions, in March 2017, the Republican-dominated US <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-sanctions-idUSKBN16U2VI">Congress slapped new sanctions</a> on the country. These were in response to ballistic tests conducted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).</p>
<p>While European states have not followed the US lead in imposing new sanctions, the benefits of the UN sanctions removal have been <a href="http://www.mepc.org/us-economic-sanctions-against-iran-undermined-external-factors">undermined</a>.</p>
<p>Iran’s financial sector continues to be isolated as major international banks stay clear of the country, partly out of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f56463dc-28fe-11e7-bc4b-5528796fe35c">fear of penalties</a> on their US operations. This has proven a major barrier to developing economic ties and attracting much need international investment in Iran’s infrastructure.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding these limitations, the country has increased its oil and gas exports, from an average of 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2015 <a href="http://parstoday.com/en/news/iran-i49150-iran_oil_exports_near_record_3_million_bpd">to 2.8 million bpd in 2017</a>. These exports are primarily going to three Asian markets: China, Japan and South Korea. </p>
<p>Oil revenue allowed the Rouhani government to bring inflation down to single digits; the inflation rate stood at 7.5% in 2016 <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ru/originals/2017/03/iran-rouhani-first-term-economic-management-goals.html#ixzz4gpZWwg8T">compared to 40% in 2013</a>. But the benefits of this increased income for the state has not trickled down to ordinary citizens. </p>
<p>Unemployment and housing affordability continue to be major issues affecting Iranian citizens, especially the youth. According to official data, national unemployment stood at <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/overview">12.7% in 2016</a>, which is a three-year high (3.3 million people out of total population of 79 million). Of this, <a href="http://www.payvand.com/news/17/apr/1099.html">approximately 30% are young people</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Resistance economy’ and populist promises</h2>
<p>Partially fulfilled promises made in 2013 by Rouhani, who is considered a reformist and a moderate on the domestic level, have fuelled the campaign of his competitors. </p>
<p>Conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi now presents a real challenge as another hardliner contender, Mohammad Ghalibaf <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39923803">withdrew in his candidacy</a> on Monday May 15.</p>
<p>These candidates have been accusing Rouhani of <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-election-iran-analysis-idUKKBN1342LY">compromising too much with Western powers for no benefits</a>. This charge was consistently repeated during live debates on <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20170429-iran-presidential-election-candidates-first-tv-debate-rouhani-jobs-ghalibaf">national television</a>.</p>
<p>Both candidates have been endorsed by the <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2017/04/iran-elections-principlists-ghalibaf-raisi-jamna-consensus.amp.html">Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces</a>, a conservative electoral coalition formed in late 2016 to consolidate the voter base and avoid fragmentation of the conservative vote which, in the 2013 election, allowed Rouhani to win with a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22916174">slim majority (51%)</a>.</p>
<p>The conservatives’ message is tried and tested. They make a virtue of Iran’s economic isolation by celebrating the so-called “resistance economy” and proclaim pseudo-egalitarian slogans.</p>
<p>Ebrahim Raisi’s support is also based on his possible qualification <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/irans-likely-next-supreme-leader-is-no-friend-of-the-west/2016/09/26/eb3becc0-79fb-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html?utm_term=.f553c65e41ba">as the next Supreme Leader of Iran</a>, the successor of <a href="http://english.khamenei.ir">Ayatollah Khamenei</a>.</p>
<p>He has been the custodian of the wealthy Waqf endowment in Khorasan, and has promised Iranian citizens a monthly handout of around US$40 – to be funded by Iran’s oil revenue. Waqf is the institutionalised of alms-giving, a pillar of Islam, designed to provide welfare support to the poor and the needy. The Waqf in Khorasan also happens to be a major land and property holder. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168966/original/file-20170511-32620-1tp6nqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168966/original/file-20170511-32620-1tp6nqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168966/original/file-20170511-32620-1tp6nqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168966/original/file-20170511-32620-1tp6nqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168966/original/file-20170511-32620-1tp6nqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168966/original/file-20170511-32620-1tp6nqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168966/original/file-20170511-32620-1tp6nqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ebrahim Raisi tours for his presidential election campaign in Birjand, South Khorasan Province.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%BE%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%87:Ebrahim_Raisi_at_Birjand_for_2017_presidential_election_advertising_03.jpg">Tasnim News Agency/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The gesture echoes the promises of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic, who proclaimed that all Iranian citizens would <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/02/ayatollah-unkept-promises-20142375945717752.html">share in their nation’s oil wealth</a> following the 1979 revolution, which transformed the country from a monarchy to the Islamic Republic of Iran.</p>
<p>Former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) instituted a monthly hand-out of US$12, and, in my view, Rouhani has found it politically expedient to maintain the payments.</p>
<h2>The Supreme Leader’s candidate</h2>
<p>But despite his strong campaign, the chances of Raisi actually defeating Rouhani remain low. A recent poll put Rouhani’s support at 26%, while when Raisi and Ghalibaf ran separately, they garnerred <a href="http://ippogroup.com/poll/">12% and 9% of the vote, respectively</a>. </p>
<p>Even their combined support base did not seem enough to unseat Rouhani, although <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/world/middleeast/iran-ebrahim-raisi-president-election.html?_r=0">Raisi’s fortunes now appear to be on the rise</a>.</p>
<p>Raisi claims to represent the ideals of the Islamic revolution and to have the support of the Supreme Leader, which is difficult to verify. In the Iranian system of government, the Supreme Leader is the head of state and has the ultimate say. But Raisi’s endorsement is not documented anywhere.</p>
<p>For all the noise that conservatives make about Rouhani’s failure to live up to his promises, he still enjoys Khameinei’s approval (he <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/rouhani-becomes-president-iran-khameneis-approval-state-tv-f6C10837974">backed Rouhani in the 2013 elections</a>). </p>
<p>The Supreme Leader is very much aware of the damage that Ahmadinejad’s presidency inflicted on Iran’s economy, ultimately putting the survival of the regime in jeopardy. And there’s little indication today that he would prefer a return to isolationist policies. </p>
<h2>Iranians are no fools</h2>
<p>In the run-up to the election, Professor Sadegh Zibakalam of Tehran University told <a href="http://www.isna.ir/news/96020401984/%D8%B2%DB%8C%D8%A8%D8%A7%DA%A9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%85-%D8%AF%DB%8C%DA%AF%D8%B1-%DA%AF%D9%88%D9%84-%D9%BE%D9%88%D9%BE%D9%88%D9%84%DB%8C%D8%B3%D9%85-%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D9%86%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%86%D8%AF">ISNA news agency</a> that Iranian voters won’t be fooled by populist and baseless promises. People will ask how you are going to create jobs, he claimed. And how will you raise funds to offer handouts? </p>
<p>Zibakalam’s confidence in voter aptitude may be misplaced. But his analysis points to an important feature of the presidential campaign: the conservative camp has no economic plan and tries to compensate by grandiose sloganeering.</p>
<p>Rouhani’s return to office would give him a much-needed opportunity to follow through his agenda of reintegrating Iran into the global economy. His 2014 <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/world/rouhani-projects-a-friendly-image-in-davos-while-his-opponents-stir-at-home">appearance at Davos</a> and 2016 tour of Europe <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/world/europe/iran-hassan-rouhani-france.html?_r=0">reconnected him to world leaders</a> and projected a different image of Iran. It was an image of a country that was much more open to the world. </p>
<p>His initiatives have also been welcomed as well <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-iran-rouhani-idUSKBN16Y25E">in Russia</a> and <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Politics/3Z6YdihscdtxVkXuccFGxN/Iran-China-agree-600-billion-trade-deal-after-sanctions.html">China</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the displeasure of the Trump administration, if he returns to office Rouhani will have enough international and domestic support to keep the momentum for economic reform and growth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shahram Akbarzadeh receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is the interim president of the Australian Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies. </span></em></p>Iran’s economic recovery and reintegration into the global economy have become key electoral topics.Shahram Akbarzadeh, Professor of Middle East & Central Asian Politics, Deputy Director (International), Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/776702017-05-19T00:15:55Z2017-05-19T00:15:55ZMeet Ebrahim Raisi, the cleric who challenged incumbent Rouhani for president of Iran<p>Iranian presidential candidate <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118072271215621679">Ebrahim Raisi is an important newcomer</a> to electoral politics. </p>
<p>Last year, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed Raisi custodian of the shrine of Imam Reza and chairman of the foundation that manages its extensive complex. This is no minor post. The foundation nets the regime <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/irans-supreme-leader-key-appointment-ebrahim-raeisi-mashhad-foundation">billions of dollars</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170014/original/file-20170518-12263-19uxkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170014/original/file-20170518-12263-19uxkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170014/original/file-20170518-12263-19uxkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170014/original/file-20170518-12263-19uxkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170014/original/file-20170518-12263-19uxkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170014/original/file-20170518-12263-19uxkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170014/original/file-20170518-12263-19uxkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170014/original/file-20170518-12263-19uxkj7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The shrine of Imam Ali Reza in Mashhad, Iran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8016164">Iahsan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Before this year, Raisi had never campaigned for public office or debated in the national political spotlight. His inexperience has shown. In the three live nationally televised debates, he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/29/the-ayatollahs-favorite-didnt-do-so-well-fridays-iranian-presidential-debate/?utm_term=.6efd1f7589e5">lacked charisma,</a> sticking closely to his talking points.</p>
<p>While highly visible with the ability to influence public opinion and steer some aspects of national and foreign policy, the Iranian president’s power is limited. The majority of power, including that over foreign policy, national security and media, <a href="http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/supreme-leader">rests with the supreme leader</a>. </p>
<p>Given the little he has to gain from the uncertain venture, why would Raisi decide to join a crowded field to run against the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-rouhani-sees-support-slip-in-poll-1485320462">relatively popular</a> incumbent Hassan Rouhani? </p>
<h2>Why run?</h2>
<p>One answer is that with his wealth and connection to the supreme leader, Raisi thinks he has a good chance of winning. </p>
<p>The news of the exit and endorsement of his major right wing rival <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-qalibaf-20170515-story.html">Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf</a> on Sunday certainly supports this theory. For the first time since early in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s founding in 1979, the conservative side of the political spectrum has cast its lot <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/iran-ghalibaf-tehran-mayor-third-bid-president-office.html">behind a single candidate</a>. </p>
<p>Still, observers are keen to point out that history is not on Raisi’s side. Every president since the office was created has served <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/will-hassan-rouhani-be-irans-first-single-term-president">two terms</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"864853709108518913"}"></div></p>
<p>Another explanation has little to do with the presidency. There have long been whispers of illness surrounding the supreme leader, who is 77 years old. To avoid chaos and even loss of power, the regime’s ruling clerics will need to swiftly name Khamenei’s successor when he inevitably dies. Raisi is rumored to be on the short list. Hence, Raisi’s candidacy may be a tactic designed to build the confidence of key regime insiders and boost his name recognition around the country to better position him for that <a href="https://en.iramcenter.org/current-issues-en/opinion/presidential-elections-iran-stake/">coveted role</a>. </p>
<p>It is noteworthy that Raisi entered the race as an independent, despite the fact that his hard-line views neatly align with the country’s conservative Principlist Party. Running without an affiliation is a wise move for someone looking to be the next leader, as both the Constitution and political norms require the supreme leader to be above pedestrian politics and unencumbered by factional allegiance. </p>
<h2>Is Raisi a ‘historical criminal’?</h2>
<p>As a historian of <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/605094">Iranian politics and media</a>, I’d contend that this election is important not just for its impact in the future of Iran, but for what it says, and does not say, about its post-revolutionary past. </p>
<p>There are a number of unanswered questions about Raisi’s past. One relates to his role on a four-man “death committee” that oversaw the execution of more than 2,000 men and women in 1988. Last summer, the estate of the late Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, one of the leaders of the Iranian revolution, <a href="https://iranwire.com/en/features/1940">released a chilling audio recording</a> of the committee’s deliberations and their response to Montazeri’s plea for leniency for the prisoners.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/12/an-opponent-of-political-violence-was-once-set-to-lead-iran-one-last-quarrel-changed-it-all/?utm_term=.f73112fcb75f">recording</a>, Montazeri can be heard condemning Raisi and the other members of the panel as “<a href="https://iranwire.com/en/features/3983">historical criminals</a>.” </p>
<p>Montezari died in December 2009. Once designated successor of the first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, his funeral was a major inflection point in the politics of the post revolutionary state. It inspired the <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1221/Iran-opposition-energized-by-Montazeri-funeral-in-Qom-say-eyewitnesses/(page)/2">consolidation of the Green Movement</a>, the most powerful government opposition movement to arise since the toppling of the monarchy in 1979. </p>
<p>The mass executions of 1988 were no doubt a violation of international standards of human rights. </p>
<p>If elected, might Raisi’s past come back to haunt him? Given that another member of the death committee, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anne-applebaum-irans-stripes-havent-changed/2013/10/16/f3704948-3685-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html?utm_term=.7c384f94a60f">Mostafa Pourmohammadi</a>, is currently serving as Rouhani’s justice minister, domestic consequences are unlikely. </p>
<p>How it will play out on an international stage is less clear. One thing is sure: Raisi will play a part in the shaping of a post-Khamenei Iran.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily L. Blout does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President is not the most important leadership role in Iran. The election is not completely democratic. That said, there’s a pretty competitive contest happening.Emily L. Blout, Faculty Fellow, Internet Governance Lab, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/770692017-05-15T13:54:51Z2017-05-15T13:54:51ZIranian voters want economic justice – but the candidates don’t measure up<p>The campaign for the 2017 election in Iran, which takes place on May 19, has now moved into its final phase. The incumbent president, Hassan Rouhani, faces an assortment of competitors. These include one of his vice-presidents, <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/iran-first-vp-eshagh-jahangiri-debate-ghalibaf-rouhani.html">Eshaq Jahangiri</a>, the mayor of Tehran, <a href="http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/413271/Qalibaf-Government-marginalize-people">Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf</a>, and <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/03/conservative-ebrahim-raisi-stokes-fear-over-iran-presidential-election.html">Ebrahim Raisi</a>, head of Astan Qods Razavi, the country’s richest foundation. Raisi is considered a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and was thought of as Rouhani’s main challenger – until his somewhat <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/29/the-ayatollahs-favorite-didnt-do-so-well-fridays-iranian-presidential-debate/?utm_term=.1639fd58f345">lacklustre performance</a> in the campaign’s live televised presidential debates in April.</p>
<p>Political pundits are often quick to dismiss the Islamic Republic’s electoral system as scripted and predictable, with the final decision in the hands of the supreme leader. Yet every presidential election since 1997 has defied such expectations. The assumption that the supreme leader “anoints” or implicitly makes his preference clear does not always hold. Candidates with this <a href="http://backchannel.al-monitor.com/index.php/2013/05/5234/who-is-saeed-jalili/">supposed blessing</a> have lost more than once. </p>
<p>In 1997, the establishment candidate and preference of the supreme leader was <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tehran/inside/elections.html">Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri</a>, who lost to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9705/24/iran.elex/">Mohammed Khatami</a>. In 2005, he was <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/hi/originals/2017/04/iran-khamenei-raisi-preferred-candidate-jalili-2013.html">probably in favour</a> of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf or Ali Larijani, but instead the voters went for a largely unknown conservative, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And in 2013, Hassan Rouhani <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22916174">defeated</a> the candidate <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/06/iran-supreme-leader-presidential-elections-favors-jalili.html">ideologically closest to Khamenei</a>, Saeed Jalili. </p>
<p>Ahmadinejad mounted a brief bid to enter this year’s contest, but was ultimately disqualified by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/20/iran-disqualifies-ahmadinejad-from-bid-to-regain-presidency">Guardian Council</a>. The rejection was not a surprise. Besides his dismal record on <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/05/25/the-incredible-shrinking-ahmadinejad/">foreign</a> and <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/fr/originals/2013/09/ahmadinejad-leaves-rouhani-economic-problems.html">economic</a> policies, he proved to be a deeply divisive president and managed to alienate most fellow conservatives. </p>
<p>But as a master populist, he attracted many voters driven less by ideology than by a craving for a bigger share of the state’s resources – and a deep antipathy towards the elite that has been running the country for nearly four decades. </p>
<p>Iranian election campaigns are short and intense, and the small pool of candidates need to work hard to differentiate and distinguish themselves. Their best chances to do that are in the three <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/video/news/2017/05/iran-presidential-hopefuls-face-off-election-debate-170506101006273.html">live TV debates</a>. </p>
<p>In the first of these, the top contenders Rouhani and Raisi were somewhat hesitant and Jahangiri and Qalibaf more forceful. But by the third debate the personal attacks and allegations of corruption, fraud, and abuse of institutional resources were abundant between all four of them. Rouhani in particular had choice words for his conservative competitors and their backers within the political and military elite. </p>
<p>While the whole spectacle was perhaps a bit unseemly by Iranian standards, this level of public animosity between some of the most influential politicians of the country <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-election-debate-idUSKBN1881SI">was also revealing</a>. It showed that everyone is well aware of the scale of corruption in Iran. By publicly questioning each other’s records, they implicitly admitted that the problem is structural, deeply enmeshed in the institutions of the state that they control – and that their track record on finding a solution has not been impressive.</p>
<p>While the economy was the main topic of the debates, other issues, such as <a href="https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/">the 2015 nuclear agreement</a>, were discussed. This agreement was the most important foreign policy issue of the previous administration (and their greatest achievement). In the debates the government came under fire for giving away too much in the negotiations or not realising the potential of the sanctions relief that is part of the result. </p>
<p>Yet more importantly all the candidates, regardless of ideological position, acknowledged that the agreement is now “the law of the land” and a deal that will last. The internal Iranian political consensus that helped produce the agreement holds – unlike the situation in the United States.</p>
<p>Another issue at the debates was the subject of citizens’ rights. These are part of the Iranian constitution, but are often ignored or violated by various state institutions. There are disagreements on how much power the state would have to relinquish in order for citizens and their voluntary organisations (civil society) to be able to exercise their rights. In short, the very institutions and political forces in charge are the ones who need to change in order for theoretical rights to become practice.</p>
<h2>Back to basics</h2>
<p>Each of the three separately themed debates eventually returned to the issues of the economy, inequality and corruption. Rouhani won the 2013 election mainly by promising to solve the nuclear deadlock precisely so the sanctions could be lifted. But though the historic nuclear deal was ultimately sealed in 2015, the subsequent economic recovery has been slower than expected and the problems of the average Iranian have not eased. This feeds into a decade-long frustration at the state’s inability or unwillingness to tackle inequality seriously. Unfortunately the remedies suggested by the candidates of this year’s presidential election are either superficial or unimaginative. </p>
<p>Both Qalibaf and Raisi have tried to borrow from Ahmadinejad’s economic populism. Qalibaf repeatedly contrasted the country’s wealthy elites, who he branded “the 4%”, against the disenfranchised 96%. But while he was glad to demonise the top tier, he failed to identify its members – primarily because he is part of this very elite.</p>
<p>Raisi, on the other hand, recycled the idea of increasing subsidies to alleviate poverty, as was done for food and fuel during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. But that programme became a millstone around Iran’s neck for decades to come. Subsidies were kept in place after the war to avoid social unrest, and over the years became so bloated that they threatened to consume the whole state budget. Ahmadinejad’s administration tried to implement <a href="http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/subsidies-conundrum">a programme of reforms</a> to restrict the subsidies and the number of recipients, but its approach was a half measure and not the required success.</p>
<p>Regardless of their place on the political spectrum, all the candidates subscribe to a kind of liberal, trickle down market economics, starting from the premise that economic growth will (eventually) benefit all Iranians. </p>
<p>While that’s true as far as it goes – growth will help tackle unemployment and poverty – none of the candidates seem able to articulate a programme to remedy the structure and perpetuation of social inequality. Yet again, Iran seems stuck with a political elite that cannot imagine what an equitable society would look like – much less how to make it a reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>As part of the non-profit research network European Iran Research Group I have received funding from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden), British Council (UK), Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Germany)</span></em></p>The election TV debates have shown the candidates to be out of touch.Rouzbeh Parsi, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.