Iran Matters

Farhad Rezaei, research fellow at the Center for Iranian Studies (IRAM) in Ankara, writes to Iran Matters on the implications of the IRGC's missile tests for the Rouhani administration, the Trump administration, and the upcoming Iranian presidential election. 

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stepped up his criticism of President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday, suggesting Iranians “should not thank [Rouhani’s] policy of detente with the West for any reduction in the threat of war,” Bozorgmehr Sharafedin reports for Reuters. Payam Mohseni, Iran Project Director at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, emails Global Briefing that Khamenei’s remarks should be seen as a rebuff of the Rouhani campaign’s efforts to tie the country’s security to the nuclear deal, rather than as criticism of the deal itself.

The case of Halkbank reveals a short-term disjointed relationship between Turkey and Iran. The Turkish government cites Halkbank’s economic success as evidence of a rising Turkey. Regarding the transfer of 51% of the bank’s share to the newly established Turkish Sovereign Wealth Fund in February 2017, the bank occupies a central role in the domestic and international policies of the Turkish state. For Iran, on the other hand, this relationship was a part of the ongoing strategy of creating alternative mechanisms to bypass the impact of sanctions. Therefore, there was a mutual economic interest for both countries, with Halkbank acting as a facilitator of this exchange. And while economic interest was at the core of the relationship, this cooperation established between Iran and Turkey spilled over into the political sphere in a limited manner. The political relations between Turkey and Iran have continued to fluctuate, stifling any possibility of a meaningful long-term political alliance. A number of recent regional and domestic developments have set further constrains on the emergence of a Turkey-Iran partnership.

Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered to run in Iran’s presidential elections in May, despite having been advised not to do so by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Payam Mohseni, director of the Iran Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, emails CNN Fareed Zakaria's Global Briefing that Ahmadinejad’s entry is a genuine surprise, and that just registering could be seen as an act of defiance.

Do export sanctions cause export deflection? Data on Iranian non-oil exporters between January 2006 and June 2011 shows that two-thirds of these exports were deflected to non-sanctioning countries after sanctions were imposed in 2008, and that at this time aggregate exports actually increased. Exporting firms reduced prices and increased quantities when exporting to a new destination, however, and suffered welfare losses as a result.

In 2006, in the midst of a fierce war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously stated that the world was witnessing the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” She was right—but not in the sense she had hoped. Instead of disempowering Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran, the war only augmented the strength and prestige of what is known as the “axis of resistance,” a power bloc that includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas in Palestine.

A key foreign affairs issue for the Trump administration will be its policy on Iran, as was the case also for the Obama administration. But we have no idea what approach it will take, an uncertainty amplified by the fact that Trump has no experience whatsoever in foreign policy, and no idea whose input he will accept in shaping it. It’s not as if we have no information about his attitude – during the election campaign, Trump made his intention on Iran very clear – but, as with other topics, it is unclear how he will act when once he is forced to translate his intentions into action and realizes that reality is far more complicated than he imagined.

In the 5 years following the Arab Uprisings, it is apparent that the Middle East and Islamic world are undergoing a profound sociopolitical reconfiguration. The rise of armed resistance groups and the clash of nationalisms between secular and religious movements have only served to undermine regional stability and deepened the fragmentation of the social cohesion. As a consequence, many Arab countries are immersed in a process of counterrevolution and experience deep cleavages. A number of these have been categorized as sectarian in nature, between Sunni and Shi’a, yet this article seeks to show that the term requires broader intellectual development to understand contemporary events. To this end, it engages with the term by looking at the rise of Islamist groups and their evolution across the twentieth century, to stress that socioeconomic contexts are also important in shaping the emergence of groups that are described as sectarian in nature. From this position, we are better placed to understand the fluid nature of domestic and geopolitical change across the Middle East and Islamic world.

Iran has entered uncharted territory following the landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers. I recently came back from a six-week trip to Iran where I had the opportunity to observe first-hand the changes, developments, and uncertainty in the country. The widespread optimism that initially surrounded the deal, and the expectations that it would bring an economic windfall, have been significantly diminished since, and there were many questions: Should Iran integrate into the global economy? How much will the economy improve with the lifting of sanctions? What will the policies of the next US president be, and what will this mean for Iran? With the recent victory of Donald Trump, these questions have become all the more important to Iranians.