September 25, 2014
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani today takes the podium at the U.N. General Assembly. With Rouhani two years into his presidential term, many in the West hold out hope he will push Iran toward modernization domestically and assume a less confrontational approach abroad. Rouhani is seen as savvy and moderate, steering through a mass of treacherous hardliners in Tehran and an entrenched Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. But this is the wrong way to understand Rouhani - it likely reflects wishful thinking on our part.
In the face of momentous crises and policy challenges over the past year, the president has stood firmly in Iran's political center, closely bound to Khamenei. This should not be surprising. After the tumultuous 2009 election and the internal political strife that characterized the latter years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, Khamenei was probably pleased to see one of his confidantes ascend to the presidency. Indeed Rouhani, long a regime insider, was intimately involved in the country's nuclear program, and he helped carry out a harsh crackdown on major student protests in 1999.
On grave issues such as confronting the Islamic State, Rouhani has deftly managed the Islamic republic's diplomacy and its public relations. In an interview with an American news correspondent, he characterized the Sept. 22 airstrikes against the Islamic State as illegal. Earlier, he dismissed a U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, labeling it "ridiculous." This balanced suspicions, in Iran and in the West, that some in the president's camp were pushing for broader cooperation with Washington, an effort that would cut against the Supreme Leader's implacable ideological opposition to any such shift.
Nowhere has the strength of the Khamenei-Rouhani bond been more evident than in the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
When Tehran indicated last year that it was open to a new round of nuke talks, Khamenei issued some extraordinary statements about the "heroic flexibility" that would be required of Iran. He had to prepare his people - particularly the regime elites - for public negotiations and possible compromises with the United States that would be hard to digest. Khamenei's support for securing a comprehensive deal has since remained strong and consistent, belying fears that his backing of Rouhani was tenuous and under severe pressure from regime conservatives.
What convinced the Khamenei that a nuclear deal was worth pursuing - indeed, that a deal favorable to Tehran could be reached? Certainly it was more than Rouhani's persuasion. Economic pressures on Iran were obvious, especially after Europe imposed an oil embargo in 2012. But other vital issues were also at play.
The growing threat from Sunni extremists and the regional sectarian conflict emanating from Syria were becoming dominant and expensive strategic problems for Iran. That challenge has made itself manifest in 2014 with the rise of the Islamic State. Meanwhile, the deterrent value for Iran of a potential nuclear weapon was declining: Nuclear capabilities are useless against non-state actors, and Tehran's increasing missile and naval strength in the Persian Gulf reduces the urgency of the nuclear option.
As for the United States, the administration of President Barack Obama appeared to be shifting its position, now willing to accept some measure of Iranian uranium enrichment. Khamenei likely sensed the importance Obama places on reaching a deal, and he understood the willingness of the United States to yield, under the right conditions, on former non-negotiable redlines.
Perhaps most important, by 2013 Iran had achieved a level of nuclear technical competence that can no longer easily be reversed. By reaching this threshold, Iran could now trade away some of its enriched uranium, knowing that it has the ability to produce more. It was time for Iran to pursue a deal with the West.
As negotiations have progressed this year, Iran's nuclear research, development and infrastructure, rather than enriched uranium or monitoring, have unsurprisingly become the real stumbling block to any realistic agreement with the West. Any reversal of Iran's technical competence and capability would undermine Khamenei's incentive to engage in serious talks.
Khamenei has continued to visibly support Rouhani's efforts toward a deal, even though the ayatollah doubts the willingness and sincerity of the United States. The threat posed by the Islamic State, and Iran's dim economic prospects, continue to make a compromise viable, but it will not likely come at the expense of Iran's hard-won and increasingly sophisticated ability to indigenously enrich uranium. That will remain an extremely hard sell for the West.
Whatever the resolution of talks this fall, and however the fight against the Islamic State evolves, Rouhani's position with Khamenei will almost certainly remain secure as the president navigates critical economic reforms - with or without sanctions relief - and helps manage regional crises. Washington and other world powers should have no illusions. Rouhani is ultimately a creature of this regime, and as such, his domestic polices and diplomatic outreach will inevitably aim to preserve the Islamic republic rather than to change it from within.
J. Matthew McInnis is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He previously served as a Middle East analyst at the Department of Defense, including as the Senior Expert for Iran at United States Central Command from 2010-2013.
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