Engagement or isolation are Iran’s only options

Further talks between Iran and the West will not bear fruit unless they set aside decades-old suspicion, writes Stephen Blackwell

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani walks alongside Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation chief Ali Akbar Salehi at the Bushehr nuclear power plant (AFP PHOTO / IRANIAN PRESIDENCY WEBSITE / MOHAMMAD BERNO)

Iran and the P5+1 countries (the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China) meet in Geneva this week to resume their search for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme. Although these sessions will focus on technical aspects of the Iranian programme, the chances of their success will depend on whether Tehran is prepared to abandon decades of ideological hostility in favour of a more pragmatic approach towards international relations.

US-Iranian talks, which began with an informal meeting between John Kerry and Mohammad Jawad Zarif yesterday, will culminate in a session on Sunday incorporating representatives of Iran and all of the P5+1 powers. In theory, the Geneva talks should lead to an agreement in principle by March and in detail by the end of June. The declared aim of the P5+1 is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons programme while permitting civil nuclear energy capability under close international supervision.

No agreement will be possible unless the US and Iran set aside their intense mutual suspicion. The format of the Geneva talks shows that the P5+1 structure serves mainly as a forum for an intense haggling process between Washington and Tehran. The Iranian negotiators are aware that a rejectionist lobby in Tehran is watching their every move. Similarly, Mr Kerry is worried that the Republican-dominated US Congress could sabotage any proposed deal with Iran by proposing new sanctions.

Overshadowing the entire process is the awareness that the issue of the nuclear programme is inseparable from Iran’s tentative efforts to break out of isolation. For Iran, defiance of the US and its allies used to enhance its reputation among global opponents of the “imperialist” West. After suppressing domestic opposition, Tehran bolstered its domestic legitimacy through its claim to embody Islamic values and Iranian nationalism. As the US and its allies floundered and then withdrew from Iraq, Iran was able to exploit Washington’s uncertainty to further its own influence over Baghdad and Damascus.

With the rise of ISIL and the threat of a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, Iran is faced with an increasingly unstable neighbourhood. The collapse of state authority in large areas of Iraq and Syria has drawn Tehran into seemingly intractable local conflicts. While the Iranian regime used to gain credit for promoting the Palestinian cause, the Arab world now sees the complicity of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Bashar Al Assad’s persecution of Syrian civilians. Paradoxically, Iran was more secure with US troops in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan than they are now without them.

International sanctions and the recent decline in oil prices have exposed Iran’s over-dependence on hydrocarbons exports. The growing economic imperatives behind a policy of engagement were evident in the combative performance of Mr Zarif in the Iranian parliament last week. Faced with criticism that Iran had been too accommodating towards the P5+1, Mr Zarif responded by claiming that the international community now recognised Iran as a “powerful and logical actor that cannot be set aside or ignored” and that “large countries and large corporations are lining up at our door”.

Iranian leaders are now faced with a hard choice between leading a continuing revolutionary crusade and developing a more pragmatic relationship with the international community. The evidence suggests that Hassan Rouhani and his allies wish to take the road of moderation. Mr Rouhani has sought to build broader public support for his policy of engagement with the P5+1. His remark that “our ideals are not bound to centrifuges”, given to an audience of economists in Tehran last week, suggests that Mr Rouhani has accepted that Iran can best serve its national interests by compromising over the nuclear issue.

The argument is ultimately about whether or not the Islamic Republic can withstand the shock of “opening up” to the outside world. Although he repeatedly denounces the US as the “enemy”, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has said he will “accept any just and rational agreement”. Perhaps the success of the entire deal will turn on the Supreme Leader’s ability to overcome his distrust of those he sees as Iran’s historic enemies.

The reality is that international sanctions and the toll taken by declining oil prices mean that Iran needs this agreement more than the P5+1 powers. Some years ago, in anticipation of the potentially lengthy diplomatic process needed to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned that normal relations with Tehran “cannot happen unless Iran’s leaders decide whether they are representing a cause or a nation”.

The time has come for the Islamic Republic to choose between ideology and national interests. As the June deadline looms, Iran can opt for either deepening isolation or a new engagement with the international community.

Stephen Blackwell is an inter­national politics and security ­analyst