A report on recent developments in the Middle East and the Muslim world

he Iranian Nuclear Deal of Spring 2015: TProspects

- Introduction - The Islamic Republic and Deal Making - Decision Making in the Islamic Republic - Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Brief Overview - 2003: The Advent of Crisis - The Nuclear Presidential Campaign - The 2013 – 2015 Round of Negotiations: Not a 2003 Redux - The View in Iranian Political Circles: From Support to Rejection - Conclusion

Shaban 1436 18 June 2015 © KFCRIS, 2015

ISSN: 1658-6972 Issue No. 18 - 24/03/2015 L.D. No: 1436/2868

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June, 2015 www.kfcris.com 4 General Survey of Sites Related to Iran’s Nuclear Activities

Source: Reuters. http://blogs.reuters.com/data-dive/201325/11//mapping-irans-nuclear-facilities/

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Type Number Location Notes The Yazd region: Yellow cake production Sites • Saghand (1000 tons of low grade (Mills): uranium ore- 50 tones/yr), • Gachin (21tons/yr production Uranium Mining regions 2 Southern region (near Bandar Abbas capacity) on the gulf go Oman): • Ardakan (Yazd Province) (50tons/ • Gachin Mine (21 tons/yr) yr production capacity) In and around : • Gorgan, • Jabr Iban Hagan, IAEA has raised serious concerns Research Facility 6 • Parching (military site) and suspicions regarding activities • Ramsar, at Parching facility. • Mo-Allem Kalayeh (suspected Site), • Bonab (nuclear research) • Plutonium from spent fuel can be Arak (Khondab): used for nuclear weapons. Heavy-Water Facility 1 • Heavy water production Plant and • Not subject to IAEA safeguards or reactor site inspection Bushehr. nuclear power Plant on the Light Water Reactor 1 In operation since 2011. northern part of the Arabian gulf coast • Lakshar Abad: Cover pilot plant • Isfahan Uranium conversion facility. until 2003 when Iran moved some Nuclear technology center; equipment and natural uranium to uranium conversion facility; fuel Karaj. IAEA has raised concerns Uranium Processing Site 4 manufacturing plant bout the true purpose of this site. • Darkhoun (near border with ) • Karaj: Agricultural and Medical • Lakshar Abad Center, but believed to hold • Ramandeh (Karaj) nuclear waste and laser enrichment equipment* • 2014 IAEA report confirms Nantaz produces low enriched Nantaz Fuel Enrichment facility uranium. Has the potential to (since 2007)- produce higher levels. Uranium Enrichment Site 2 • Initial plans of fordo was to Fordow () produce 20% enriched Uranium but 2014 IAEA reports indicated enrichments levels of 5%

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Introduction

On April 3, 2015, the Iranian and 5+1 across the Iranian political spectrum, with the delegations emerged from exhausting negotiations notable exception of the Supreme Leader Ali in Lausanne, Switzerland, to announce the Khamenei, as a major breakthrough, the Lausanne preamble of the first major agreement on the Declaration and the emerging final agreement are Iranian nuclear program since the now-defunct better understood through the prism of a broader Tehran Declaration issued by Brazil, Turkey, and historical perspective on the Islamic Republic’s Iran in 2010. If finalized and put into practice after attitude at times when it was compelled to scale June 30, the agreement potentially signals the end back its aims and activities for compelling of the diplomatic confrontation between Iran and reasons. By looking back at select elements of the West on the former’s atomic program, which Iran’s major negotiations with the outside world has been ongoing since 2003, when an undeclared and at the pattern of decision making in key Iranian nuclear installation was uncovered by incidents, it is possible to discern features and international monitors at Natanz. traits that, in turn, enable us to look ahead to what The Lausanne Declaration paves the way for the future might have in stock for the Iranian a compromise settlement that will enable the nuclear program and its effects on Iran’s ties with Islamic Republic to maintain a fully-fledged but the West and the surrounding region. This article bare-bones nuclear program in operation for the will cast a glance at Iran’s past deal making from near future. It will also place, according to the the acceptance of UN Resolution 598 in 1988, details presented by the US State Department, which ended the war with Iraq, to the nuclear significant limitations on the extent to which agreements of the past decade, with a view to Iran can develop its nuclear program toward providing context and rationale for the decision military capabilities. Openly lauded by figures making that led to the Lausanne Declaration. • • • The Islamic Republic and Deal Making

For most of the three and a half decades of war years trying to conquer Iraq. It locked itself its existence, the Islamic Republic has had to into a diplomatic effort to secure international wade through a troubled and an often crisis- recognition of the fact that the conflict had been ridden relationship with the outside world. The started by the invasion of Saddam’s army. By outbreak of the war against Iraq in September emphasizing this fact, the Islamic Republic 1980 pitted an already isolated Iranian state signaled that righteousness and its own moral system, which was still coming to terms with the vision and interpretation were key features of its US embassy hostage crisis, against Baathist Iraq, attitude and behavior toward the outside world, a regime aspiring to assert itself as the harbinger particularly the West. At the same time, Iran’s of a new “Qadisiya,” the battle in which the war effort was supported in no small measure Arab conquerors of Iran defeated the Persian by the successful indoctrination of thousands empire’s army in AD 636. spent most of the of ordinary citizens, who volunteered for often

June, 2015 7 suicidal offensives with the blessing given to the in June 1988 and subsequently published by operations by Khomeini, the Supreme the veteran state figure Hashemi Rafsanjani in Leader and the formal commander in chief of 2006, Khomeini listed manifest shortcomings in the army. the supplies of the armed forces, including the The use of Western-supplied chemical inability to secure advanced weaponry such as weapons by the Iraqis – evidence that formally nuclear warheads, and worsening morale among neutral states such as France, West Germany, and the armed forces as reasons for the acceptance Italy were aiding the Iraqi war effort in a way that of UN Resolution 598 which stopped the war was far more extensive than the at best piecemeal without heeding Iran’s demand that responsibility assistance they provided to Iran, imbued a strong for starting the conflict be attributed to Iraq. sense of injustice in all the generations of zealot Iran’s leadership had therefore successfully supporters of Khomeini who flocked to the war persuaded Khomeini that the continuation of front during those years. The surviving elements the conflict would have put the stability and of the younger generation formed the bedrock existence of the political system under strain, a of the political elite in the decades to come. As danger whose prevention Khomeini would later, noted in 2012 by the current president, Hassan in January 1989, decree to be more crucial than Rowhani, in a lengthy monograph covering the basic Islamic obligations such as fasting during nuclear negotiations of 2003–2005, the UN’s Ramadan or performing the Hajj. attitude toward Iran in the 1980s left the Islamic By accepting Resolution 598, Iran had Republic’s upper leadership with a permanent moved from an intrinsically ideological position lack of trust in the organisation’s ability to act to one grounded in the necessity of preserving impartially or to Iran’s benefit, and significantly the state system and ensuring its viability by inhibited its ability to play a positive role in putting an end to an exhausting and stalemated ending the nuclear crisis in the 2000s. conflict. These traits are visible in what was By 1987, Iran was still rebuffing the numerous arguably the most difficult and testing speech initiatives led by a set of international mediators of Khomeini’s long political career, the one in ranging from the UN Secretary General at that which he publicly announced that although the time, Javier Perez de Cuellar, to Middle Eastern, acceptance of UN Resolution 598 was akin to European, and Asian figures that sought to bring drinking a chalice of poison, he was endorsing about a ceasefire between the sides. It also it in direct terms and thus it could not be subject steadfastly kept in use time-honored slogans to further discussion. such as “War, War until Victory” and the “The Khomeini’s speech also underscored another Road to Jerusalem passes through and key characteristic of the Islamic Republic’s Karbala.” However, the increased American acceptance of onerous conditions for achieving presence in the Gulf area, which culminated a diplomatic agreement with the international with the downing of an Iran Air civilian Airbus community: the need for the supreme political flying between Bandar Abbas and Dubai in July and religious authority to throw his full weight 1988, and the increasing American attacks on behind any major undertaking with outside Iranian vessels and offshore installations in the parties. Only then could an agreement be Gulf compelled the Iranian leadership to replace considered final and binding. Even though ideological convictions, which favored the it has yet to sign a formal peace treaty with continuation of the conflict, with raisons d’état. Iraq, Iran has never violated the essence and In a secret letter sent to the Iranian political elite requirements of UN Resolution 598, as doing

June, 2015 www.kfcris.com 8 so would effectively have meant the violation a circumstance that was conducive to the of Khomeini’s own decisions in this regard. agreement’s breakdown and the resumption Crucially, the provisional Tehran Agreement of of uranium enrichment activities by Iran in 2003, signed between Iran and the EU3 (France, the summer of 2005. An outright approval by Germany, and the United Kingdom), was bereft Khamenei of the current nuclear negotiating of an endorsement by the current Ayatollah drive, initiated in September 2013, is, as Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, comparable discussed below, similarly elusive. However, it to Khomeini’s acceptance of Resolution 598, is necessary to secure the deal. • • • Decision Making in the Islamic Republic

As a complex and densely structured state, and frost and others in which they thawed and, the Islamic Republic retains a multilayered sometimes, there was a yearning for détente. decision-making system. Despite the general Since the constitutional revision of 1989, the tendency in media and policy circles alike to Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) is paint the Iranian state system as one in which entrusted with providing the Supreme Leader the Supreme Leader has an iron grip over the with advice on the handling of the most rest of the polity, there is considerable evidence pressing issues, both domestic and international, to suggest that political decisions, even at the concerning national security. This has placed highest levels, are reached through a process of the SNSC at the forefront of responding to bargaining and jostling by a variety of factions domestic challenges, such as the food riots of and groups, who seek to obtain the alignment the 1990s and the student unrest of 1999–2003, of the Leader with their specific point of view. and key foreign policy matters, such as the level While it is true that the Supreme Leader – of intervention in the Iraq-Kuwait war of 1991 Khomeini in the 1980s, Khamenei since 1989 and the Islamic Republic’s attitude toward the – is called upon to make the final decisions on invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and pressing matters of state and imparts a final and 2003, respectively. binding judgment on such decisions, the process For most of the post-Khomeini period, figures of rendering such a judgment is a complex one. with backgrounds in the military-security sphere It features the input of a variety of state bodies headed the SNSC. Hassan Rowhani, who headed and individuals and can therefore take years to it between 1999 and 2005, served as an understudy bear fruit?. of Hashemi Rafsanjani, the de facto Commander This broad framework explains the relatively in Chief of the army during the end of the conflict dynamic attitude taken by the Leader on issues against Iraq. Ali Larijani, who also underwent a such as the conduct of the conflict against Iraq, stint with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps relations with neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, (IRGC) during the 1980s and maintained close and relations with the United States, all of links with the Guard’s leadership, succeeded which have witnessed moments of rigidity him. Prior to the current secretary general, Ali

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Shamkhani, the Navy and Defence Minister their respective tenures in the summer of 2005 under Khatami, , a relative “civilian,” – to a later phase, in which he seemed more a long-standing, high-level member of the amenable to a deal with the EU’s foreign policy Foreign Ministry, headed the SNSC. According coordinator, . Larijani’s sudden to the constitution, the Supreme Leader usually resignation, which occurred in September considers an informal approval and the president 2007 (he was rumored to have been prevented makes the nomination for secretary general of by President Ahmadinejad from attending the the SNSC. The former also nominates one or UN General Assembly in New York, where he more personal representatives who sit on the was expected to sign an initial agreement with council itself. Solana), transferred control over the nuclear file The tenures of the various secretary-generals to the president and his close associate, Saeed of the SNSC have coincided with very different Jalili, who presided over a drastic increase in the attitudes by Khamenei and other state figures number of centrifuges operated by Iran, now in regarding the approach to take on the nuclear the thousands, and in the level of enrichment, issue. Rowhani, a relative moderate who which reached 19.5%. Jalili’s uncompromising portrays himself as a believer in “ta’”, or attitude in the several rounds of talks held during “co-existence” with the West, assembled a team his tenure was aptly summarized and criticized consisting of the most competent diplomats and by a fellow presidential candidate and key negotiators present within the SNSC and other Khamenei advisor, Ali Akbar Velayati. During entities, such as the oil and foreign ministers. He a televised presidential debate, Velayati noted secured a partial Western climb-down between the that Jalili had mistaken the negotiations with the end of 2003 and 2004, when tentative agreements 5+1 for “philosophy classes” and was taking the were made in Paris and Tehran to interrupt opportunity to impart “moral lessons,” rather Iran’s emerging uranium enrichment drive. The than engaging in diplomacy. The proximity of tremors caused by ’s Velayati to Khamenei throughout the decades – shock victory in the 2005 presidential elections Velayati was Khamenei’s firm favorite for prime led to the emergence of Ali Larijani, who held a minister throughout the 1980s and remained a dimmer view of the West and went from an initial close advisor on foreign policy following the phase, in which he pressed for the resumption end of his 16-year tenure as foreign minister of uranium enrichment activities at Natanz in 1997 – reveals the diversity of different, and Esfahan – which had been decided on by contrasting views within the restricted circles of Rowhani and Khatami in the dying moments of advisors and state bodies after 2007. • • •

June, 2015 www.kfcris.com 10 Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Brief Overview

In order to situate the Lausanne Declaration Several considerations prevailed in the decision within Iranian politics, it is necessary to present a to proceed with plans originally drawn up under succinct overview of the Iranian nuclear program the shah. At the helm of an ambitious plan of in the post-revolutionary era (1979–present). national reconstruction, dubbed “Sazandegi,” Started during the final decade of the shah’s Rafsanjani and his close collaborators were rule, the Iranian nuclear program was initially keen on signature research projects that would spurned by the revolutionaries, who were, enhance the scientific standing of the country during the final stages of the ancien régime and deliver tangible progress. In addition, the and in the immediate aftermath of its collapse latter part of the eighties had witnessed chronic on February 11, 1979, concerned with the electricity shortages across the country, and the termination of many of the projects initiated idea of providing a lasting solution to the issue by the old political order. In his elaborate struck a chord in a weary society. monograph analysis of the Iranian nuclear Rowhani, who became the head of the newly program, the current president Hassan Rowhani, founded SNSC in 1989 and was a close aide of who led the nuclear negotiations between 2003 Rafsanjani since the early 1980s, schematically and 2005, recalls that he first came to terms lists the reasons why reliance on nuclear energy with the nuclear program during a visit to returned to prominence as follows: Neauphle-le-Château, the hamlet outside Paris where Khomeini resided during the latter stages 1) The lengthy “shelf life” of this type of energy of his exile, by a delegation of Iranian students and negligible pollution compared to energy studying for technical degrees in European produced via fossil fuels universities. These students wrote off the shah’s 2) The predictions of a severe decrease in nuclear program as a “great treason” because it national oil resources within the following engendered an enforced reliance on the West. decades In particular, they pressed for the country’s 3) The widespread use of nuclear energy by sole reactor, then being built by West German “advanced” countries around the world firms in Bushehr, to be converted to an ordinary 4) The eagerness to embark on the autarkic electricity-producing plant. challenge caused by the unwillingness Mothballed for several years, as governments of Western countries to supply reactor of different persuasions pondered the technology to Iran reestablishment of the nuclear program but were 5) The blow to national prestige as a consequence ultimately hindered by ideological opposition of the considerable expense hitherto accrued and the exigencies of the conflict against Iraq for Bushehr, if it were to be left incomplete (of particular concern given that most of the 6) The desire to move beyond hitherto strong sites surveyed for nuclear installations by economic and energetic reliance on fossil foreign contractors prior to 1979 were situated fuels within range of Iraqi warplanes), the nuclear Having returned into political favor by the program restarted in earnest during Hashemi early 1990s, nuclear energy began to emerge Rafsanjani’s presidency, which began in 1989. as a practical concern for the Rafsanjani

June, 2015 11 cabinet. The first issue to be tackled concerned plant, the new Russian contractors insisted completion of the construction of the Bushehr on rebuilding the reactor from scratch, given reactor, left unfinished at the outset of the their lack of knowledge of the original German revolution by its West German contractors. engineering methods and structures. The The Iranian government was particularly keen Iranian side opposed this proposal. on securing German, or Western European, Parallel to the resumption of construction technical support for completing Bushehr, but at Bushehr, the Iranian government pursued efforts in this regard were unsuccessful due to other aspects of the nuclear program. Pilot the protracted frost in political relations between schemes for uranium enrichment were put Iran and Europe. After ruling out Chinese into place, although the number of centrifuges involvement following the realisation that in operation remained very small during the the People’s Republic’s own atomic prowess 2000s. The consideration that Bushehr would was inadequate to fulfill Iranian demands, the eventually need to be fed, at least initially, 30 Rafsanjani government reluctantly signed a tons of uranium enriched at 3.5% per year led deal in 1994 with Russia for the completion to plans being made for the construction of of Bushehr. However, the deal ran into a key the Natanz enrichment plant outside Esfahan, difficulty that delayed the start of full operations which was itself a location for the production at Bushehr to this day. Upon inspecting the of LEU (Low-Enrichment Uranium) • • •

2003: The Advent of Crisis

The burgeoning Iranian nuclear program Natanz by foreign parties. was thrown into disarray in 2003, when an From the spring of 2003, the issue of uranium exiled opposition group, likely acting on enrichment became the cardinal element of the basis of intelligence provided by the contention between Iran and the West. For over a intelligence agencies of countries opposed to decade, the continuous diplomatic confrontation, the Islamic Republic such as Israel, announced based on Iranian insistence on the right to enrich the existence of Natanz prior to its official uranium domestically at percentages deemed disclosure by the Tehran government. Rowhani unsuitable for military use (up to 19.5%) and blamed the diplomatic crisis that developed Western pressure for a complete suspension of as a consequence on the ill-informed decision uranium enrichment by Iran, took the forefront. making of the Atomic Energy Organization of The Iranian position can be summarized as Iran (AEOI), which at that time nominated and being based on two premises. The first concerns supervised Iran’s representative at the UN’s the political-ideological direction taken by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Islamic Republic’s leadership in the 1990s at the in Vienna. According to Rowhani, a lack of outset of the resumption of the nuclear program, understanding of the AEOI’s procedure for which was trumpeted by Ayatollah Khamenei disclosing new plants led to the exposure of downward as a move toward scientific and

June, 2015 www.kfcris.com 12 energetic self-reliance and progress. Khamenei Iran eventually acquiesced to the accord. By moved swiftly to assume an intransigent midday on the day of the nuclear negotiations, posture on uranium enrichment also because Western insistence on Iran’s full approval of the of apprehensions about the reliability of the Additional Protocol to the NPT, which mandated supply of such crucial raw fuels from outside intrusive and extensive inspections of Iranian parties, which had been impeded by financial nuclear installations, had led to a stalemate. losses and inefficiency since 1979. During a 20-minute recess, Rowhani contacted Nevertheless, by November 2003, the the Supreme Leader’s office and asked for the IAEA issued a strongly worded resolution that Leader himself to express judgment on the charged Iran with “breach of the obligation proceedings and on Rowhani’s plan to agree to to comply” with agency regulations and, a limited suspension of the uranium enrichment indirectly, with contravention of the Non- component of the Iranian nuclear program. Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran had Rowhani claims that his request was motivated renewed its membership, after the initial 25- by the pressing concern that a breakdown in talks year “probation” period, on a permanent basis in would lead to an aggressive reaction by the West the mid-nineties. According to IAEA rules, Iran and possibly – given the current hubris of the Bush was therefore on the verge of being reported administration after the initial victory in Iraq – to the UN Security Council, with possible the bombing of Iranian nuclear plants. Having sanctions looming. By the end of 2003, the received no reply – which he construed to be nuclear program thus leaped from a pioneering tantamount to acceptance – Rowhani proceeded developmental project to the central element with the Tehran Agreement compromise and of a sudden political confrontation between the subsequent Paris Agreement, both of Iran and the West, whose mutual relations which, however, crucially lacked the clear and had enjoyed a period of relative stability and unequivocal backing of Ayatollah Khamenei and prosperity under the Khatami presidency. At a were centered on “voluntary suspension” by Iran stroke, the nuclear program became an issue of its uranium enrichment activities, then at an that intersected with the realms of several embryonic stage, without a firm commitment to state bodies: the Supreme National Security a more durable interruption. This circumstance Council, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and enabled Iran to swiftly extricate itself from the the national Atomic Energy Organization. It arrangement and to resume uranium enrichment therefore required a new approach and way by the summer of 2005. of thinking at the organizational level. The The referral of the Iranian nuclear dossier to SNSC eventually became the focal point and the UN Security Council in 2006 marked the linchpin of the new Iranian diplomatic effort, start of a diplomatic wilderness for Iran that was and it brought together experts from several to last for seven years without a breakthrough government agencies in the effort to stave off comparable to the Tehran and Paris deals of further sanctions on the Islamic Republic. 2003–2004. The Iranian leadership effectively The high point of the negotiations was retreated to an overall stance reminiscent of reached on October 21, 2003, when an their position in the middle period of the Iran- unprecedented mission to Tehran by the foreign Iraq war years, one in which self-righteousness ministers of Great Britain, France, and Germany and confidence in holding the moral high ground resulted in the Tehran Agreement. Rowhani’s overrode consideration of the high economic memoirs provide a useful glimpse into how and political costs of marching ahead with

June, 2015 13 the nuclear program. After repeatedly making administration would enter negotiations: reference to a fatwa released by Ayatollah a well-developed and extensive uranium Khamenei banning the production of nuclear enrichment program that would enable Iran to weaponry, both the Ahmadinejad presidential negotiate on its qualitative aspects, such as the administration and the SNSC rebuffed level of enrichment and the number and type growing international isolation and effectively of centrifuges used, but that would nonetheless delivered the platform on which the Rowhani secure its survival. • • • The Nuclear Presidential Campaign

By the spring of 2013, the Iranian economy centrifuges” was a noble and important gain, this was reeling from its unprecedented international had to go hand in hand with the national economy isolation and from the considerable aftershocks and industry also “spinning forward.” He pledged of Iran’s progressive expulsion from major to be the state figure who could finally reach a international bodies such as the SWIFT banking resolution on the endemic nuclear crisis. Such network, which triggered, inter alia, the repeated remarks were contrasted by Jalili, who defended collapse of the value of the national currency his record and clashed with Rowhani on a variety in the open-rate exchange market. This led to of fronts, not least over contending and opposing the nuclear issue entering a new phase: that of interpretations of the memoirs of the former IAEA a central and perhaps the most important single Mohammad El-Baradei, which were read out to a issue in an Iranian presidential election. While bemused TV audience. Memories of Rowhani’s allegations over misappropriation of state funds, ability to strike a deal, albeit temporary, with the corruption, graft, and assorted economic ailments West found traction in public opinion and were had dominated the campaigns of 2005 and 2009, a major factor in his unexpected, narrow victory and, further back, Khatami’s pledges for a more in the first round. Rowhani was crucially assisted open society and political order had taken center by the general weariness from the effects of the stage in 1997 and 2001, the nuclear program sanctions, which had become a broad umbrella became a cardinal element of the campaign of through which a wide gamut of economic ailments, 2013. For the first time ever, a sitting head of from the lack of basic medicines to a markedly the SNSC, Jalili, a former one, Rowhani, and weakened national currency and inflation, were a leading influence in the Islamic Republic’s explained, and with reference to which, blame foreign policy across the decades, Velayati, were was apportioned. Despite the at times exaggerated contesting the presidential post as direct rivals. emphasis on sanctions as the root cause of all The nuclear issue entered the public gaze economic malaise, this accentuation also enabled prominently as Rowhani, who was breaking eight figures seen as capable of breaking the stranglehold years of relative political seclusion, campaigned of sanctions on the Iranian economy and society through slogans that reminded the public and the to rapidly gain approval, both at the societal level political elite alike that while the “spinning of and at that of the political elite.

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The 2013 – 2015 Round of Negotiations: Not a 2003 Redux

Since entering office, Rowhani has continued the 2013 UN General Assembly in New York his strategy of making the nuclear program the with a historical first direct meeting between linchpin of his administration’s activities. After Zarif and his US counterpart, John Kerry, Iran appointing one of his most trusted nuclear was in a markedly different starting position adjutants of the 2003–2005 negotiations, Javad than it had been in the 2003–2005 sequence. Zarif, the foreign minister, he also quietly While a decade earlier it had been the potential made use of a prerogative adopted by his two of an Iranian uranium enrichment program predecessors, Khatami and Ahmadinejad, to that was being debated and, from the West’s reassign the nuclear file from the SNSC to the perspective, was to be prevented, Zarif’s initial foreign ministry. encounter with Kerry in 2013 took place in a Despite his markedly different attitude with situation in which the domestic enrichment of respect to foreign policy, Rowhani remained uranium by Iran had been a fait accompli since anchored to the broader guidelines of the Iranian the spring of 2006, when Ahmadinejad unveiled nuclear program. He succeeded in retaining the first canisters of domestically produced Khamenei’s support throughout the ensuing enriched uranium to much fanfare at a special rounds of negotiations by remaining steadfastly event in Mashhad. As Zarif noted in late April opposed to any relapse into “voluntary suspension” 2015 during a TV interview in New York, Iran of any element of Iran’s nuclear program or even has accumulated enough nuclear material for the the closure of the installations that had been construction of “eight atomic bombs” in the past progressively added to the program during the decade, but it has elected not to construct them. Ahmadinejad administration. Rather, he sought Instead of seeking to safeguard the prospect to assuage the Western side to the negotiations of a domestic enrichment program, Iran was by reconfiguring and redressing installations, therefore now in a position to forego part of the enrichment percentages, and controversial domestic uranium enrichment while ensuring elements such as plutonium production at the a minimal level of continued operation that Arak heavy water reactor. In the 2013–2015 round would both vindicate the sacrifices – human, of negotiations, Rowhani was driven by a line of political, and economic – of the previous decade thought he had laid out on previous occasions, and provide the Supreme Leader with moral such as a speech to members of the Cultural vindication of the line taken after 2005. The Revolution Council in November 2004, when he intermediate Geneva Accord of November 2013 admitted that most of the parameters chosen by was heralded by Iran as the first time the Western the Islamic Republic in its then-fledgling nuclear side had accepted the principle of domestic program, including the threshold level for uranium enrichment of uranium by Iran. Notwithstanding enrichment, were “political” ones that could be the differing interpretation by the US Secretary redressed as necessary. of State John Kerry, this line held sway within As Iran entered the current round of the Iranian government and became the card negotiations, which started on the sidelines of with which the skepticism of the conservative

June, 2015 15 ranks and Khamenei himself could be allayed. in the ongoing, deepening crisis between Iran Besides the markedly different status of and the West. uranium enrichment in the two negotiating rounds of 2003–2005 and 2013–2015, another The Lausanne Deal: End in Sight? differentiating factor between the two rounds The recently achieved Lausanne preliminary was the position of the United States, which agreement of March comes as a corollary to moved from being a belligerent external factor decades-long diplomatic processes. While the to a party fully involved in the process and details are yet to be made public and Iran has willing to suspend its estrangement with Iran in strenuously denied the accuracy of the “fact sheet” order to achieve a nuclear outcome. The United released by the US State Department on April 2, States therefore fulfilled one of Rowhani’s most promising to publish its own, it appears that Iran pressing needs, namely, that of achieving a deal has sought to consolidate its key hard-fought right that could not be dismissed as “freelancing” to uranium enrichment – capped, according to by any of the permanent members of the UN the US document, at 3.67%, a level that would Security Council, as had been the case for the encompass most, but not all, of the civilian Tehran Agreement of 2010 between Turkey, nuclear activity planned for the coming decades Iran, and Brazil for the shipment to Turkey of – with concessions on the scale and modalities of 1,200 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) by the IAEA inspections, which will continue to be Iran in exchange for a tenth of that amount to intrusive and extensive. The latter aspect of the be provided in the form of uranium suitable for accords, however, overshadows the achievement feeding the Tehran Medical Reactor. The deal, of a lasting Western acceptance of domestic while marking the first time Iran relinquished enrichment or the suspension of sanctions, control over its stocks of LEU, almost instantly developments that carry significant psychological failed to gain any traction within the 5+1 and weight in a society otherwise wracked by the effectively became little more than a sideshow effects, real or perceived, of the sanctions. • • • The View in Iranian Political Circles: From Support to Rejection

Since the start of the new round of and have publicly approved of the Lausanne negotiations in 2013, the Iranian political scene Declaration, the conservatives are divided, with has split between the supporters of Rowhani’s a key segment of the right-wing camp, which is negotiations and his detractors. Although clustered around the Majlis speaker Ali Larijani, international media usually portray these having tacitly endorsed the deal. Less senior camps as moderate-reformist and conservative- elements of the IRGC have criticised the deal, hawkish, respectively, there is considerable but the top brass, including the commander in intermixing in the factional ranks. While most chief, Mohammad Ali Jafari, have endorsed reformist groups are supportive of the president the agreement and thrown their weight behind

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Rowhani, a factor that belies the widely perceived influence in domestic Iranian politics. role of the IRGC as a force that has profiteered Despite being numerically limited and not in from the sanctions and accrued considerable control of any major state bodies, the opponents wealth as a consequence of its ability to skirt of the nuclear arrangement in the making will normal importation channels and engage in retain momentum until Khamenei provides its own direct international trade during the a clear-cut assent to the final agreement sanctions years through avenues and resources comparable to the one given by Khomeini to the out of the reach of the merchant classes. acceptance of Resolution 598 and enforceable The backers of the president base their after his demise. After observing the reaction of support on his successful defence of Iran’s the rest of the political and military scene, which domestic enrichment program, the support he was overtly optimistic and congratulatory of the has received since 2013 from Khamenei, and achievements of the nuclear team in Lausanne, his track record as a pragmatic but firm loyalist for more than a week following the Lausanne of the Islamic Republic who is not overly Declaration, Khamenei provided his first formal “tainted” through association with the leaders public reaction that was well in tune with his of the Green Movement. His detractors, on character disposition. He stated on April 9 that the other hand, are mostly entrenched among he did not partake in the rejoicing of much of the most ideologically hard-line traditionalist society because, as he explained in justification conservatives, whose initiative is based on an of his “neither in favor nor against the Lausanne ingrained attitude regarding the “perfidious” Declaration” stance, the actual deal had not yet nature of the United States and United been struck and any celebrations were therefore Kingdom, which in their view are unable and “premature.” While pouring cold water on the unwilling to seal a deal that would reflect and joyous exuberance of even several of his close respect Iranian demands. Their figurehead is allies, such as Jafari and the chief of staff of the the editor of the Kayhan newspaper, Hossein armed forces, Hassan Firouzabadi, Khamenei Shariatmadari, who has steadfastly opposed was exhibiting his vintage attitude: a neutral, the deal. This group has also found a media reversible posture that would enable him to outlet in Ramz-e Obour, a monthly run by a move toward endorsing the deal or reneging clerical association thought to be close to the on it after its final contours became clear. The controversial Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, and in Supreme Leader was therefore pursuing his the Fars News Agency, linked to parts of the preferred strategy of equipping himself with IRGC leadership, which has written off the enough maneuvering space to counter any deal as a way for the United States to reexert possible scenario in the following months. • • •

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Conclusion

At the time of this writing, the chances of fundamental difference that merits emphasizing a durable, multiyear settlement on the Iranian is the substantial Iranian success in retaining nuclear dossier appear higher than ever. More a skeletal but complete nuclear cycle after the than a month after the Lausanne accord, agreement comes into force, a detail that will its detractors have not yet acquired enough feature as a crucial moral victory for a state momentum to secure a backlash against it at the system that still intensely feels the need for a highest echelons of the state. The remarkable signature technological achievement. inter-factional alignment of support has seen Obstacles, remain, however, on the path to a determined opposition to the deal confined to full accord. The continuous delays in the release the ranks of a vocal but ultimately institutionally of the Iranian version of the fact sheet suggest and numerically limited minority. that Iran has yet to find suitable arrangements for Khamenei’s cautious and guarded support the pressing issue of the schedule through which has enabled the Rowhani administration to sanctions will be removed. The United States press ahead with talks to define the final dicta has made references to the staggered removal of the deal. Were it to reach a favorable outcome of the sanctions, whereas Iran has repeatedly by the June deadline, the deal would be a stipulated their immediate cancellation as watershed moment in the Islamic Republic’s a necessary precondition for the deal. Also history. In much the same way in which the remaining in the balance is Iran’s relationship acceptance of UN Resolution 598 ushered in with the IAEA, which has been fraught with an era of political stability and economic and tension, misunderstandings, and contentious social reconstruction, the nuclear deal could assessments since the end of the tenure of see Iran belatedly join the globalized economic Mohammad El-Baradei, who held a milder community, expand areas of commerce severely view of Iran’s ambitions, and the start of that stymied by the existing sanctions regime, such of his successor, Yukiya Amano, who appears to as its burgeoning IT and telecommunications have assumed from the outset a tougher line on sector, and in this way engender loyalty and supposed Iranian transgressions of the NPT. appreciation among the younger strata of These technical wranglings aside, what society for the Islamic Republic’s ageing elite. remains to be seen is the extent to which Therefore, the rationale that prompted the Khamenei and other senior political figures can Islamic Republic’s leadership to move toward a overcome their natural propensity to suspect and nuclear agreement is not exceedingly dissimilar mistrust the West, particularly the United States, to the one that led to the cessation of the Iran- and cement a long-standing and durable deal. Iraq conflict: the rise in importance and priority Crucial in this regard will be the next couple of the necessity of preserving the state system of years, when personnel changes at both the and rebuilding the economy over the ideological Iranian and American governmental levels are motivations to continue the war until one of the to be expected. This period will show whether more lofty goals, such as the “liberation” of the recent remarkable rapprochement between Najaf and Karbala or the overthrow of Saddam Tehran and Washington was primarily due to the Hussein, had been achieved. However, a unique personal chemistry between John Kerry

June, 2015 www.kfcris.com 18 and Javad Zarif or whether the wall of thick ice of the Houthis in Yemen, also enables it to in the diplomacy between the two nations has pursue these strategies independently, without cracked in a way that is impervious to a change in jeopardizing the impeding benefits, particularly administration in the White House, congressional on the economic side, that it will accrue from the opposition, or the reemergence of a more right- implementation of the final agreement. wing government in Tehran. The regional These considerations should not detract, scenario, with most leading Middle Eastern however, from the scope and level of the decision nations averse to the unfolding deal and locked undertaken by the Iranian leadership, which has in indirect struggles with the Islamic Republic, the potential of ushering in a whole new era in particularly in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, also the Islamic Republic marked effectively by bodes unfavorably for a settlement of the latent the signature legacy of the Khamenei epoch: anxieties concerning the Iranian nuclear program the development of a nuclear program that can that have been building up since 2005. Iran’s eventually withstand a barrage of adversity successful detachment of the nuclear issue from to make of Iran, notwithstanding the Israeli other pressing matters that affect its relationship nuclear weapons, the first declared – and at least with the West, such as its steadfast support for grudgingly internationally recognised – nuclear Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria or its backing power in the Middle East. • • •

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June, 2015 www.kfcris.com 20

King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)

Founded in 1983 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the mission of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies is to be a beacon for humanity as envisioned by the late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz. The Center aims to accomplish this through conducting research and studies that stimu- late cultural and scientific activities for the service of mankind, enrich cultural and intellectual life in Saudi Arabia, and facilitate collabora- tion with the East and the West. The Center’s activities include lectures, seminars, conferences and roundtable discussions. It houses the King Faisal Library, collections of rare manuscripts, an Islamic art museum, and the King Faisal Museum. It also administers a robust Visiting Fellow Program. Since the Center’s focus is scholarly research, the Research Department was restructured in 2013 to carry out in-depth analysis in contemporary political thought, Saudi studies, regional studies, Arabic language studies, and modernity studies. The Center has also been collaborating with various research centers around the world within its scope of research. The Chairman of the KFCRIS Board is HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz, and the Secretary General is Prof. Yahya bin Junaid.

P.O.Box 51049 Riyadh 11543 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tel: (+966 11) 4652255 Ext: 6764 Fax: (+966 11) 4162281 E-mail: [email protected] June, 2015