Republican Win Hinders Nuclear Deal

News of the Republican Party election victory in the United States dominated the headlines in Iran on Wednesday, November 5, from top-selling newspapers to websites promoting a hardliner agenda. During a week that anti-American billboards reappeared on the streets of Tehran, it was the perfect climate for the conservative media to remind Iranians that the US was Iran’s arch enemy. And, for the anti-Rouhani camp, the news offered ample opportunity to launch fresh attacks on nuclear negotiations, set to resume in Vienna later this month and preceded by talks between Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU Policy Chief Catherine Ashton in Oman this weekend.

“Until yesterday, perhaps Hassan Rouhani believed he could trust in Obama’s promises,” reported hardliner newspaper Vatan-e Emrouz. “But today his promises don’t have credibility. Obama cannot offer any guarantees that Congress will repeal sanctions.”

Vatan-e Emrouz urged Foreign Minister Zarif to take advantage of the political climate in the US; after a mid-term defeat for the Democrats, it said, Obama was in a weak position, and Zarif was all too aware of the impact nuclear talks could have on domestic affairs in Iran: the paper was quick to point out that he had said as much at the American Council on Foreign Relations on September 17.

“Victory for the Republicans is going to make the process of negotiations difficult,” Fouad Izadi, a foreign affairs analyst with close ties to hardliner politicians, told the website Mashregh News. “We negotiate with the other side to reduce sanctions, but who imposed the sanctions in the first place? It was Congress and it’s Congress that must lift them. As long as it’s controlled by the opposition party, the long-standing rivalries between the Democrats and the Republicans will turn into yet another problem for US-Iranian relations.”

“Obama believes that a nuclear accord with Iran will be a winning card in the next US election,” wrote Mehdi Mohammadi, a member of the nuclear negotiating team under former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Therefore the Republican victory could spur the Obama administration towards a quicker agreement, an administration which has become known for lacking resolve in dealing with crises.”

Mohammadi wrote that although the Republicans won a majority in the Senate, giving it overall control of Congress, nuclear negotiations should not be affected. “Obama is determined to reach an agreement with Iran and is ready to stand up to Congress. There’s no sign to indicate that Congress is willing to risk scuttling an agreement at the last minute.” But, he warned, “It’s more logical to assume that Congress and Israel want to extract further concessions from Iran and to give as few concessions as possible, especially when it comes to sanctions. They will aim to stop an agreement because they have no plan for dealing with a complete breakdown in talks.”

Revolutionary Guards-affiliated newspaper Javan lashed out at Iran’s reformist media, highlighting their coverage of the election and the possible negative implications for future talks. The paper accused some media of treason for suggesting that a nuclear negotiation be pushed through quickly. And it accused reformists of planting fear in order to gain political power, “offending the intelligence of the Iranian people” by linking Iran’s next parliamentary elections with a nuclear agreement.
 

Hardliners on Both Sides

Raja News, affiliated with the Endurance Front, a coalition of hardline politicians, linked US mid-term election results with greater pressure for Iran’s negotiating team, as did Basirat, run by the Revolutionary Guards. The website referred to the Republicans as “extremists” and “hardliners,” conjuring up a vision of a renewed battle between conservative politicians on both sides of the negotiating table. “Considering the financial and media strength of the Republicans, the Obama administration will probably have no choice but to yield to their demands,” the website said.

But hardliner daily newspaper Kayhan chose a different tack, refusing to lead with US political upsets. Instead, it questioned the significance of events for Iran in an editorial, pointing out that while the Democrat and Republican Parties had their differences, especially in regards to domestic politics, but that when it came to Iran their opinion differed only slightly. In fact, the paper said, “the hostility towards the Islamic Republic is the only policy on which parties both completely agree.”

It also quoted US chief negotiator Wendy Sherman, using her recent refusal to reveal details about negotiations to cast Iran’s nuclear capabilities in the boldest terms possible. On October 23, Sherman told a symposium in Washington that negotiations, like mushrooms, often grow best in the dark, adding that she did not want to undermine the success of nuclear deliberations by talking about the outcome beforehand. Timing, she said, was key.

 “The last time the Westerners tried to feed the Islamic Republic such a poisonous mushroom, forcing it to yield to excessive American demands, was more than a decade ago,” the paper said. “No doubt this will be a watered-down version of the poison offered in 2003. At that time, Iran had very few centrifuges; now it has around 20,000. Americans should know that under the best conditions the nuclear mushroom can be harvested only once in a decade. In 2024, Iran will go to the negotiating table with another 10,000 advanced centrifuges.”

Keyhan, which is run by the office of the Supreme Leader, called Obama a “gambler who has lost everything.” He was, it said, “sending his representative to the bargaining table with empty pockets,” but warned that the Obama administration might find it easy to bluff since it had nothing to lose.

“It’s likely that the White House envoy will push for Iran to sign a nuclear agreement as soon as possible,” Keyhan announced, “suggesting that if it does not do so then Congress will enter the field with threats of sanctions.”

Whatever efforts Keyhan and other hardliner media make to cast the US as a weak player floundering ahead of negotiations, Iranian politicians know that this week’s election results have the power to destabilize. Some hardliners believe that disrupting negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries is a good thing, buying Iran more time to bolster its own standing on the international stage. However they worry that the events of this week could make President Obama more determined to reach a nuclear accord in order to build up the Democratic Party for its 2016 presidential battle. And, more than this, they worry that President Rouhani will use a quick resolution to build his own prospects for re-election.