Rouhani's First One Hundred Days

Atlantic Council SOUTH ASIA CENTER IRAN TASK FORCE BY YASMIN ALEM AND BARBARA SLAVIN Rouhani’s First One Hundred Days: Cautious Domestic Reforms and Nuclear Breakthrough NOVEMBER 2013 After eight turbulent years during which conservatives monopolized Iranian politics, the election of centrist Atlantic Council Iran Task Force cleric Hassan Rouhani on June 14, 2013, marked a new, The Iran Task Force, launched in 2010 and chaired yet in some ways familiar chapter in post-revolutionary by Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, performs a Iranian politics. It was new in the sense that his comprehensive analysis of Iran’s internal political sweeping victory demonstrated unprecedented popular landscape, as well as its role in the region and the desire for change and elite recognition of the need for world, to answer the question of whether there are a less confrontational foreign policy. But Rouhani’s elements within the country and region that can presidency is also familiar because the team he has build the basis for an improved relationship with assembled is drawn from the old guard of the Islamic the West and how these elements, if they exist, Republic, which enabled the regime to survive following could be utilized by US policymakers. the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. The Iran Task Force is a project of the Atlantic The serious economic and international challenges Council’s South Asia Center, and is supported of today have an air of déjà vu for many of these generously by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. technocrats. The majority served under President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who spearheaded the war-ravaged country’s reconstruction from 1989 to 1997.1 The United States can facilitate Rouhani’s efforts Rafsanjani’s successor, Mohammad Khatami, whose by implementing the historic nuclear agreement thwarted Many efforts of tothese repair figures Iran’s went relations on to withwork the for reached on November 24. This agreement validates West while increasing personal liberties present a the new president’s approach and eases the pressure cautionary tale for the Rouhani administration. Most of sanctions on the Iranian economy in return for Khatami appointees were sidelined by his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who drew on a group of the agreement fails, the best opportunity for progress religious conservatives and military and security onstringent, everything verifiable from thecurbs nuclear on Iran’s issue nuclear to economic program. and If service veterans known as principlists for upholding social reforms in at least a decade may be lost. the principles of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. If there is one phrase that characterizes Rouhani’s 1 For a biography of President Rouhani’s cabinet members and top advisers, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2013/08/130804_l51_rouhani_ cabinet_ministers.shtml (in Persian). worldview and style of governance, as exemplified by his first one hundred days in power, it is “anything Yasmin Alem is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. She is the author of Duality by Design: the Iranian Electoral System. Barbara Slavin is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, a journalist, and author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (St. Martin’s Press, 2007). but Ahmadinejad.” The new president’s softer tone and Germany (P5+1). Khamenei was quick to praise 2 with the world the historic agreement reached in Geneva November 245 and the Iranian media has portrayed the deal and call for “constructive interaction” is in stark contrast with his firebrand predecessor’s inflammatory rhetoric. Only two months after taking low-levelas an affirmation enrichment of Iran’s of uranium nuclear but rights. cannot Under increase the administration,office in 2005, Ahmadinejad by contrast, calledhas steered Israel clear “a tumor” of itsfirst stockpile. six-month Iran phase pledged of the to accord, stop enriching Iran will uranium continue that should be “wiped off the map.” The Rouhani to 20 percent U-235—close to weapons grade— and the established lexicon of the Islamic Republic. Instead, to blend down and oxidize the approximately 200 Rouhanireferring and to the his Jewish team have state referred as the “Zionist to the country regime,” kilograms of 20 percent uranium it has amassed over the past two years. Iran will also freeze most work at all. The government also cancelled an annual anti- a heavy water reactor called Arak that if completed, Israelas “Israel” conference. or relied A onTwitter context account to avoid run naming by President it at could yield plutonium, another potential bomb fuel. It will also provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with unprecedented daily access to congratulatoryRouhani’s office Rosh and theHashanah official messagesTwitter account to the Jewishof enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow. In return, people.Foreign3 MinisterIn the economic Mohammad domain, Javad Rouhani Zarif extended has restored the Iranians will receive about $7 billion in sanctions monitoring and planning agencies dismantled by relief, largely on their own oil earnings which have Ahmadinejad and has brought more transparency and been frozen abroad. Iran will be able to continue to stability to the Iranian economy. He has not followed export oil at current reduced levels to Asian clients, Ahmadinejad in making frequent provincial trips, resume trade in petrochemicals, automobiles, and which were seen as wasteful populist gestures that did precious metals, and gain improved access to imported not lead to successful long-term government projects. food and medicine. The United States, European Union, Rouhani also established a better understanding with and UN Security Council also pledge not to pass new the parliament and avoided mass purges of personnel nuclear-related sanctions against Iran over the next in government agencies. to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that will Breakthrough on Nuclear Issue six months. During this time, Iran, and the P5+1 are Although the balance of power in the executive has low-level uranium enrichment under stringent curbs, shifted toward the center, all other nodes of power andverifiably remove cap all the nuclear-related Iranian nuclear sanctions. program, permit are still under principlist control. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has honored the tradition of that is more inclusive, pragmatic, and cautious than providing the new president with his support and thatRouhani’s of his firstpredecessors. one hundred But daysRouhani’s augur fate a presidency ultimately blessing, but he has also criticized some of Rouhani’s hinges on his ability to salvage Iran’s economy, which foreign policy ventures, particularly his initial efforts depends on surmounting domestic and international to break the taboo of direct high-level US-Iranian obstacles to implementing the Geneva agreement and contact by speaking on the phone with President concluding a comprehensive accord that peacefully resolves the nuclear crisis. If these efforts succeed, the same time, Khamenei has protected the Rouhani Rouhani could become the most successful president Barack Obama at the United Nations in September. At in the history of the Islamic Republic. 4 in renewed nuclear negotiations with the team against hardline criticism and called for “heroic Rouhani’s First Acts flexibility” five permanent members of the UN Security Council presented a well-balanced list of nominees to the Washington Rouhani’s first test was assembling a cabinet. He Post, September 19, 2013, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013- Iranian parliament on the day of his inauguration. 2 Hassan Rouhani, “Why Iran Seeks Constructive Engagement,” 09-19/opinions/42214900_1_violence-world-leaders-hassan-rouhani. Excluding extremists from both principlist and reformist camps, the president clearly demonstrated Haaretz, September 7, 2013, http://www. 3 Barack Ravid, “Are Rohani’s Rosh Hashanah Blessings a Diplomatic haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/.premium-1.545503 his desire to move beyond the divisive politics that Signal?” Diplomania (blog), ; “Iran Foreign http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23990717. Minister Zarif Tweets Happy Jewish New Year,” BBC, September 6, 2013, Nuclear Talks,” http://www.leader.ir/langs/fa/index. 5 “The Supreme Leader’s Response to the President’s Letter About the IranWire, September 18, 2013, . php?p=contentShow&id=11312 (in Persian). 4 Reza HaghighatNejad, “What Does Khamenei Mean by ‘Heroic Flexibility?’” http://iranwire.com/en/projects/2687 2 ATLANTIC COUNCIL paralyzed his predecessors. Having served twenty In his second major institutional shake up, Rouhani years in the parliament and over twenty-three years transferred responsibility for Iran’s nuclear in Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), negotiations from the SNSC to the Foreign Ministry.7 In including sixteen as its head, Rouhani understands a recent memoir, the new president described the SNSC the importance of negotiating and building alliances as useful for consensus building, but too cumbersome with a wide array of factions and institutions. for sensitive multilateral negotiations. He noted that Thus, he offered concessions to the conservative ruling establishment with his choices for ministers and pessimistic views on foreign relations, the nuclear of interior, culture, defense, and justice. But he teamduring had past to negotiationscoordinate every “due singleto domestic step with pressures senior made no compromises on key appointments6

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