Zarif Under Pressure as Hardliners Show Endurance

Ahead of major talks about the future of Iran’s nuclear program later this month, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is preparing to fly to Oman for two days of meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU foreign policy head Catherine Ashton on November 7. According to those inside and outside of Iran, what happens in Muscat, the capital of Oman, could set the scene for the talks in Vienna scheduled for later this month. Less than three weeks remain until the November 24 deadline for reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries. The week-long discussions begin on November 18.

The fact that Kerry, Zarif and Ashton will meet in the gulf state is symbolic in itself: it was in Oman, during a series of secret meetings two years ago, that Iranian and US officials first discussed the possibility of negotiations. In autumn 2013, Zarif confirmed rumors that the king of Oman was acting as a go-between, talking to both Iranian and American authorities.

Closed Doors, Wise Men and the Leader’s Infographic

News of the trilateral meetings in Muscat, coupled with speculation that a negotiation could be on the table in Vienna, have reignited panic and anger among hardliners in Iran, who have launched a fresh campaign of anti-Rouhani rhetoric.

Endurance Front activists, responsible for the “We are Anxious” rally earlier this year, have been quick to point out failures over the past year, highlighting what they describe as the futility of holding negotiations. This week’s Ramz-e Obour (“Watchword” or “Password”) features Foreign Minister Zarif and former President Hashemi Rafsanjani on its cover, along with a strapline entitled: “Actors of the Last Mission.” Endurance Front supporter and editor-in-chief Mohammad Hossein Roozitalab gives his take on recent events in his editorial: “Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani has constantly talked about the 1988 letter he wrote to Imam Khomeini, in which he asked the founder of the Islamic Republic to solve the problem of relations with the United States while he was alive because nobody would be able to solve it after him. At a time when the pathetic Geneva agreement has harmed national interests throughout the first 100 days of Hassan Rouhani’s administration, making the negotiators’ work difficult, it is important to revisit this memory. Perhaps, at 80 years of age, Rafsanjani’s only wish and his only mission is to establish permanent relations with America.”

Hardliners routinely accuse Foreign Minister Zarif and his negotiating team of doing deals behind closed doors. Among them is Alireza Zakani, a hardliner politician who recently accused the negotiating team of going against established guidelines — or “red lines” —  set out by Ayatollah Khamenei and published on his website on October 7. Among the demands are the “preservation of facilities such as Fordo, which the enemy cannot destroy or get access to,” “securing an enrichment capacity at the level 190,000 SWUs (Separative Work Units)” and a call for scientific nuclear research to carry on unabated. According to the infographic on Khamenei’s site, the work “must not stop or even slow down.”

On October 29, hardliner newspaper Vatan-e Emrouz sarcastically referred to Zarif as a “Wise Actor,” warning that he risked political isolation if he failed to toe the line. Zarif, the paper suggested, not only lacked wisdom, but also had a misguided sense of his own power. “The red lines drawn by the Leader of the Revolution can only be changed by him personally and no one else,” it said. “There are forces in this society that even a ‘wise actor’ would not want to tangle with.”

The comments echo this year’s anti-Rouhani rally organised by the Endurance Front — a coalition of hardliner politicians and sympathetic media — where one speaker warned that the negotiating team could be wiped off Iran’s political map if they failed to reach an agreement that meets the approval of hardliners. These threats have considerable weight - the Supreme Leader has effectively removed politicians from political activity in the past.

Oman’s Bid for Success

Oman has a recent history of smoothing over diplomatic relations between Iran and the West. In 2007 it mediated the release of British Royal Navy sailors arrested by Iranian authorities in the Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq. In 2010 it played the same role in securing the release of three young American hikers who were picked up by Iranian border guards on the Iraqi border. In recent years, a number of detained Iranians have gone through Omani mediation, including Nasrollah Tajik. Tajik was an Iranian diplomat who was held in England on charges of spying and an Iranian-American scientist who was charged with selling dual-use hardware to Iran.

The sultanate stands to make its own gains from hosting the talks between Kerry, Ashton and Zarif. Oman’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on November 2, saying it welcomed the dignitaries and hoped that the Muscat meetings would be a step towards “ending the dispute over Iran’s nuclear case.” Any perceived tipping point towards an agreement could become associated with Oman and its king and not with President Rouhani’s recent trip to New York to participate in the UN General Assembly session.

Despite credit being taken away from Rouhani and the New York meetings, these steps in the right direction do not sit well with hardliners. Politicians and affiliated media have worked hard to cast the West, and the United States especially, as untrustworthy and peddling anti-Iranian agendas. They have pegged any move towards nuclear negotiations to a more widespread opening up to or softening towards the United States, and have called for both a halt to nuclear talks and any other matter concerning Iran and its enemy.

Mehdi Mohammadi, a former member of the nuclear negotiating team under President Ahmadinejad, said on October 26: “the renewal of the Geneva agreement in the form of a new interim accord is exactly in line with the American strategy aimed at dismantling the infrastructure of Iran’s nuclear industry without seriously dismantling the sanctions.”

A day later, Mohammad Imani, an analyst for the hardliner daily Keyhan, compared the West to a loan shark and accused Rouhani’s government of squandering strategic assets and dismissing advice given to him by trustworthy, honest advocates for Iran’s best interests. Rouhani, he said, like many other reformists, was making a lot of noise in order to distract the public from the real issue: the fact that his administration was willing to come to an agreement with the West “at any price.”

If these tactics are anything to go by, the next three weeks will involve serious nail biting for hardliners and reformists alike. Conservatives have one eye towards the Zarif-Kerry-Ashton meeting in Muscat, and the other towards Vienna but, as always, there is Ayatollah Khamenei in the background. Some of them may fantasize that the Supreme Leader will shut down negotiations entirely, as he did in 2005. But, mostly, they know all too well that it is too early in the process for Khamenei to take such a drastic step.

After all, Ayatollah Khamenei does not want to be remembered as the one who obstructed negotiations. True, he has his parameters, his red lines, but even the staunchest hardliner knows that a total collapse of negotiations is the ultimate no-go area. As much talk as there is about “final missions” and the need for loyalty, no one can predict what the final word in Vienna will be.