Tensions between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and more conservative authorities over the country’s future under the nuclear agreement are turning increasingly bitter, punctuated by public exchanges and growing signs of an anti-American backlash, including arrests.
Rouhani is insisting that the nuclear deal signed in July not only will create the basis for an end to Iran’s prolonged economic isolation, but could be the start of new relations with the US under certain conditions. Yet even his cautious statement of optimism has provoked a stormy reaction.
The tensions, which political analysts foresee lasting into next year at least, are in some ways an expected outcome of the nuclear agreement, which rolls back Iran’s atomic program in exchange for a broad lifting of sanctions. Many hardliners opposed the accord as a submission to foreign powers, especially the US. With the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, endorsing the agreement, they turned their criticism directly on Rouhani and his aides.
The losing side’s reaction has been harsh, as seen in a series of arrests of Iranian journalists and at least one Iranian-American accused of collaborating with Western powers or worse. Even some prominent conservatives who mistrust the US but see practical benefits in having a better relationship with it have been criticized.
The reaction has been stoked in some ways by Khamenei, who while endorsing the accord has also warned of what he calls a US desire to infiltrate Iran’s culture, economics and politics.
“Khamenei is pre-empting any possible attempt to improve the official image of the US, which would threaten his and the regime’s identity,” said Cliff Kupchan, an Iran specialist and chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy in Washington, in an advisory to clients e-mailed last week.
Kupchan said in the advisory that, at least for the next several months, he expected that “the surge in arrests, anti-US rhetoric and possible new discrimination against US consumer goods will hurt Iran’s investment climate.”
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the powerful paramilitary force that has thrived under the era of Western nuclear sanctions by amassing a wide range of businesses and stakes in industry, is seen as particularly threatened by the agreement.
The advent of more imports and foreign competition, expected after many sanctions end, could jeopardize the corps’ economic power and influence.
“There are a lot of entities that have a vested interest in the status quo,” said Farhad Alavi, managing partner of the Akrivis Law Group in Washington, which specializes in trade sanctions law and has received many client inquiries about doing business in Iran once the nuclear agreement takes effect.
Gary Sick, a Middle East scholar at Columbia University who was the White House’s principal Iran aide during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and US hostage crisis that led to severed diplomatic relations, said he was not surprised by the heightened tensions.
The Revolutionary Guards and other conservative elements that control the media, judiciary and the police, he said, “are really terrified that this agreement between the United States and Iran is a precursor to a breakdown in the old revolutionary leadership.”
Many of the figures who were in positions of power three decades ago, Sick said, are still around today, and they embrace anti-Americanism as a fundamental tenet.
“This has become their dominant ideology they live by, and it’s been very generous to them,” he said. “Let’s face it. The Revolutionary Guard has a huge financial portfolio.”
The political standoff created by the nuclear agreement, Sick said, “is really very nasty.”
A major test of political will is expected in the February parliamentary elections, when supporters of Rouhani’s approach will have an opportunity to express their preferences at the ballot box.
Rouhani is regarded as a shrewd politician who knows his boundaries in the Iranian system. At the same time, perhaps sensing a showdown, he has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the other side as the elections loom.
Additional reporting by AP
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