The election of the new Iranian President, the principlist Ibrahim Raisi on June 18th, 2021, has occurred in a crucial moment in which Iran and the West were engaged in ongoing technical negotiations aimed at reviving the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Iran’s new President is trusted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all State matters. It is widely predicted that the incoming Raisi administration will not be at odds with other institutions within Iran’s ruling system since principlists will control all the three branches of power. That means there will be less internal political bickering, allowing Raisi to focus on tackling pressing issues instead. Furthermore, the support of the Ayatollah Khamenei to the new Iranian President gives him the possibility to realize, without obstacles, precise foreign policy objectives, due to the fact that the latters are usually decided by consensus at the Supreme National Security Council, where five of its ten members are represented by the President and his Cabinet members and almost all decisions taken by this decision-making body must be approved by Khamenei. In view of that, while the Raisi administration will choose its own tactics, it will operate within the goals, priorities and redlines set by the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s highest security decision-making body.
The Ayatollah Khamenei and the Iranian President share the same suspicious of the West’s intentions but Raisi is trying to support the nuclear negotiations to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action.
The Iranian President knows well that sanctions need to be lifted to enable Iran to achieve economic growth. Primarily, he will look for solutions inside, rather than outside, the country. In view of that, he will need to fight corruption and mismanagement, and utilise internal capacities, much more than the outgoing Rouhani administration did, and work to reactivate Iran’s domestic capabilities to the maximum. Raisi is expected to be guided by a combination of realism and pragmatism; in view of that, its government is characterized by a more assertive and uncompromising approach in Iran’s foreign policy. Surely, getting the sanctions lifted will be the priority of the Raisi administration, but simultaneously, it is widely believed that the Iranian President will seek to defeat the sanctions first, and that means making the sanctions ineffective will be a more important priority than getting them lifted. Thus, improving relations with Iran’s neighbours and promoting non-oil exports will be at the forefront of Raisi’s agenda.
A demonstration of the Iranian President’s intentions is the first press conference after his election victory, in which he said: “Our foreign policy will not be limited to the nuclear deal. We will have interaction with the world”.
Raisi will seek to get the Vienna talks moving forward and, simultaneously, control tensions with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional arch rival. He will try to create a balance in Iran’s relations with its neighbours and world powers at the same time.
Another relevant declaration of the new Iranian President’s foreign policy is the one in which he asserted that he would not meet Biden even if the opportunity arose and that Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its backing of the allies in the Middle East were nonnegotiable, because Iran considers its missile programme and its influence in the Middle East as two pillars of the strategy of deterrence. The new Iranian government has not the intention to repeat the same mistake of Rouhani administration, who pinned a lot of hope on the nuclear deal, but then he was humiliated by unilateral withdrawal of the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump from the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action in 2018. This decision damaged the diplomatic relations between United States and Iran, harming the economy of latter and discrediting Rouhani.
The Raisi administration would explore opportunities for trade with the entire globe, not just the West; it is believed to be a big supporter of a 25-year framework agreement with China. The deal was signed in March 2021 and aims to chart the course of Iranian-Chinese relations for the next quarter of the 21st century. The agreement includes Chinese investments in sectors such as energy, petrochemicals and infrastructure as well as maritime projects to promote Iran’s role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Raisi’s government will seek to improve Iran’s relations with Eurasia in general, China and Russia in particular. Raisi, like Khamenei, believes that the answer to Iran’s economic problems does not primarily lie in the removal of sanctions but in expanding the policy of “resistance economy”, a strategy aimed at reducing Iran’s vulnerability to external sanctions. This policy is one of economic protectionism. It seeks to boost domestic production, achieve relative self-sufficiency, increase exports and curtail imports in order to achieve economic growth. Raisi administration will look to export added-value commodities such as gasoline, engine oil, tar and other by-oil products that are on high demand difficult to sanction rather than crude oil. He repeatedly pointed to Iran’s 15 neighbours and their market of 500 million people, with which Iran should promote trade and of which Iran currently only has a tiny share (economic diplomacy).
The U.S. sanctions that Trump reimposed on trade with Iran forced governments and companies from Europe to Asia to end their economic engagement with Tehran, with a particularly severe impact on Iran’s oil exports. The resulting domestic economic tailspin has heightened social and political tensions within Iran. But rather than moderating the regime’s behaviour, the heightened pressure from Washington seems to have strengthened the hand of hardliners in Tehran, who emerged as the big winners from parliamentary elections in February 2020. Weakening Iran economically and preventing its prosperity and economic development has been a key goal of both Republican and Democratic administrations. Their calculation is that a weak country has to make concessions and finally follow the America’s line. The JCPOA is the only win-win agreement in the bitter 42-year history of relations between Iran and the United States that could have shortened the wall of mistrust between the two foes. The Vienna talks are a test of America’s will to see whether Biden will remain loyal to his election campaign promises of re-joining the JCPOA and lifting the sanctions against Iran. If Washington agrees to lifting the sanctions, then Iran would likely return into full compliance with the deal. Without the lifting of sanctions, the JCPOA is going to die a permanent death. Almost a year have passed and the United States has not re-joined the JCPOA and has not lifted the sanctions. This has strengthened the suspicion in Tehran that Biden’s goal is to create consensus against Iran and that the White House is not in a hurry to lift the sanctions. The fact that Iran insists that the United States rejoin the JCPOA and lift the sanctions means the Islamic Republic prefers to be part of the global economy. It also means that Iran has no intention or political will to weaponise its nuclear programme.
What happens next will largely depend on the Biden administration – lifting sanctions will help cool tensions and get Iran back to the JCPOA fully. But U.S. failure to remove the sanctions is likely to prompt Iranian leaders to reconsider their strategic direction. The deterioration in U.S.-Iran relations takes place against the backdrop of a battle for regional influence between Iran and Saudi Arabia, including proxy wars in Yemen and Syria, as well as strategic competition in Lebanon and more recently in Iraq. Both countries have recently acknowledged they have been engaged in exploratory talks to ratchet down tensions. In the meantime, the Iranian population is increasingly caught between the pressure of U.S. sanctions and the repression of an authoritarian regime in Tehran that remains intent on projecting its power and influence across the region.
The deterioration of the relations between United States and Iran began in the 2018 when Trump decided to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and then the latter reimposed the sanctions to cripple Iran’s economy. These events have led to an escalation of tension between the two States, in which both have proven their military strengthen and capacities. Without any doubt, Iran’s military power is dwarfed by that of the United States, Israel and other regional allies of the Americans but Iranian has proven itself to be incredible sophisticated in asymmetric warfare, in particular in the cyberattacks. However, the most dramatic act and the highest point of the tension involving the two States was reached with the assassination of the general Soleimani in January 2020 in Baghdad. It was committed by the former President of the United States Donald Trump and has brought many critics by some international allies of the United States but was welcomed by Israel and Saudi Arabia, who had attempted in several occasions to kill Soleimani.
Soleimani was one the main figures of all Middle East and his dead was a relevant mistake of the Americans, increasing the rivalry with Iran. He was the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the leader of the Quds Force, the foreign army of the aforementioned military corp. He had a key role in the fight in Syria and Iraq and in the spread of Iranian influence in all the Middle East, but he also helped armed groups defeat ISIS. As for what concerned this latter great contribution, an academic of the University of Tehran says that “if it wasn’t for people like him, this region would have seen black flags flying across the region, a thought shared by almost all the people in that geographic area. Under Soleimani’s leadership, the Quds Force vastly expanded its capabilities, becoming a significant influence in intelligence, financial, and political spheres beyond Iran’s borders. The increasing power of Soleimani was the reason of his death, because the countries hostile to Iran, among which Israel and Saudi Arabia, were concerned about its leadership beyond the Iran’s border. However, the authors of his death were not the abovementioned States but the Americans, as result of an escalation of tensions triggered by the unilateral withdrawal of United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action.
Recently, in the occasion of the second anniversary of the Soleimani’s death, the Iranian President Raisi has claimed the formation of a fair court to sentence and punish the former President of the United States Donald Trump, former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and other American officials involved in the murder. Raisi has also called on the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council to issue resolutions against United States and Israel – which is accused of having backed the strike against Soleimani – in order to condemn them and discourage similar attacks in the future. This last request by Raisi is impracticable due to fact that the United States and its allies who have a seat at the Security Council will put a veto on a similar decision. What the Iranian President can do now to re-establish a strong position on the International stage is to secure the nuclear deal, negotiate a break with Saudi Arabia in Yemen and stop the uranium enrichment development.
Iran has always insisted, during the negotiations, that the United States re-join the JCPOA and lift the sanctions, because the Islamic Republic prefers to be part of the global economy and to be a relevant player in the international stage. In light of this, it is clear that Iran has no intention or political will to weaponise its nuclear programme and to be an hostile State in the site of the international community. So, what happens next will largely depend on the Biden administration. Denying Iran of the benefits of the JCPOA would prompt Iranian strategists to conclude that Iran will be under sanctions under any circumstances. It is not a good decision putting Iran in the corner to force him to attempt the demands with no clear benefits for its economy or society.
Iran’s Raisi says Trump must face justice for Soleimani killing, available at:
What Comes Next in the Standoff Between the U.S. and Iran? available at: https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/insights/28013/tense-u-s-iran-relations-have-put-the-middle-east-on-the-brink
A Plan B for Iran, available at:
Who was Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s IRGC’s Quds Force leader? available at:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/3/who-was-qassem-soleimani-irans-irgcs-quds-force-leader
https://themedialine.org/top-stories/israel-and-iran-remain-locked-in-a-shadow-war
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
