There is an illusion that the promised agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program will push it toward moderation, as well as economic and political openness. What will probably happen is the complete opposite. The agreement will empower hawkish elements in Tehran, who are currently being marketed in Iran and who are bragging that most of the nuclear program has been accomplished and that the West has finally submitted and abandoned sanctions.
During the past few months of international negotiations, Iran’s security fist tightened against state rivals, voicing the regime’s self-confidence. The Kurdish rebellion a week ago in the city of Mahabad, northwest Iran, was to protest security forces’ practices. A girl whom a military officer tried to rape jumped off a balcony, and the Kurdish minority — whose population is 8 million — revolted.
Cruelty is behind growing anger on the outskirts of this multiethnic state. In addition to the armed Iranian opposition (People’s Mojahedin of Iran), the number of anti-regime armed groups has increased.
The civil opposition in Tehran fears that signing the nuclear agreement with the West will — unlike what is being promoted in Washington — serve the interests of regime hard-liners. The struggle between moderates and hard-liners within the state is no secret. The only case when Iran was led by a moderate was under popular leader Mohammed Khatami, who remained the president from 1997 to 2005.
Khatami was met with clerics’ expanded war against the entire moderate movement. He was replaced by extremist Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who led Iran to its current situation of more extremism and militarism, and thus engaging in wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are also active domestically trying to suppress sedition, as they have done in Mahabad and Balochistan province in the southwest. They have also increased their presence in Khuzestan province, where there is a restive Arab population. The government has previously faced considerable difficulties in taming its Azeri citizens.
Tehran still remembers the huge uprising that erupted after the rigged elections in 2009, which lasted until February 2010. That revolt was led by reformists from within the regime, and they all ended up in jail.
By signing the nuclear agreement the hard-liners will feel more confident and aware that foreign threats will have been neutralized and that no one will be able to confront them. If Washington had linked the deal to conditions obliging Tehran to halt its military adventures in exchange for ending international sanctions and a pledge that the West will not militarily target Iran, the position of the moderates within the theocratic regime may have been enhanced.
The agreement will grant hard-liners two gifts. The first is that lifting economic sanctions will fill their treasury with funds to manage their battles. The second is that they will have a stronger status within the regime and against moderate clerics and politicians.
