Is Iran About to Blow It?

Is Iran About to Blow It?

10/21/14

John Allen Gay

Nuclear Proliferation, Iran

Tehran has won the PR battle in the nuclear talks, argues a new report, but that won't lead to negotiating-table victories.

Iran’s negotiators have successfully framed these final days of the nuclear talks on their terms—and that might lull them into making big mistakes. That’s Brookings Iran watcher Suzanne Maloney’s argument in a deep analysis of Iranian tactics ahead of the November 24 expiration of the interim agreement. Tehran, she says, is taking four steps to strengthen its hand.

First, it’s using “the divisions within its ruling system” to play “an elaborate game of good-cop-bad-cop.” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s regular pronouncements about what the final deal must allow foster a perception that he is reining in his negotiators and insisting on a tougher position, particularly on Iran’s enrichment capacity; the negotiators can then go to their counterparts and claim their hands are tied. However, Maloney writes, “there is no hard evidence that absent the Supreme Leader's public rhetoric, Iran's position on enrichment was particularly flexible.” Rouhani and Zarif, she says, have both made statements of their own about preserving enrichment capacity and mitigating international worries with measures in other areas.

Second, Iran is promoting itself as a bulwark against the marauding Islamic State, one whose “assistance...can be bought” at the nuclear negotiating table. This, Maloney suggests, may explain the increased visibility of powerful IRGC Qods Force commander Ghassem Soleimani on the frontlines in Iraq—appearing in “battlefield selfies,” to use her term. Is Iran showing off its wares?

Third, Iran has sought to “depict [its] rehabilitation as a fait accompli,” with the nuclear deal a minor obstacle standing in the way of an Islamic Republican triumph. “Rouhani and company have sought to persuade the world that the era of Iranian isolation has now passed,” writes Maloney, “...and that business as usual can resume immediately.” In this vein, there have been waves of exploratory talks between Iranian and European commercial interests.

Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/iran-about-blow-it-11502