Is Iran Nuclear Deal a Victory for Rouhani?

Even if an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear programme is reached, it would leave one big question unanswered. Would a deal help strengthen the country’s moderates, or would it enrich and embolden the forces that remain intent on exporting Iran’s Islamic revolution? “I think there are hard-liners inside of Iran that think it is the right thing to do to oppose us, to seek to destroy Israel, to cause havoc in places like Syria or Yemen or Lebanon,” US President Barack Obama said in an 6 April interview with NPR. “And then I think there are others inside Iran who think that this is counterproductive.”

In remarks after the announcement in Switzerland of a political framework for a nuclear accord, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the negotiations as a test that could be “repeated on other issues,” even as he cast the US as untrustworthy. That was a rare hint that Iran’s Supreme Leader might countenance efforts to continue a dialogue with the nation he regularly denounces as the “Great Satan.” The remark is “very positive and could signal an important change,” says Reza Haghighatnejad, an Istanbul-based independent political analyst and Iran-watcher. 

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Karim Sadjadpour, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, says that “in the medium- or long-term, there is a valid hope that the deal becomes transformational” by helping empower elements of Iranian society “who want to put national interests ahead of revolutionary ideology.” Even Sadjadpour is hedging his bets, though. “There is a valid concern that this nuclear deal will be transactional—that Iran will simply have far more resources to double down on its existing policies,” he says. Critics such as Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA clandestine service officer and a Farsi speaker who’s now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, say it’s naive and dangerous to see Iran as anything but a threat. 

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