At The National, the UAE’s captive media outlet, Raghida Dergham cautions the incoming Biden Administration that, however pragmatic President Joe Biden might be, the Iranian mullahs are ideologues:
Apart from rolling back some of the gains made by the current administration and reducing the leverage America currently has over Iran, the Biden team must also remember that it will be dealing with a regime that is ideologically driven like few others around the world.
Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me that there is little possibility of a “grand bargain†between the US and Iran. This is not due to a lack of American desire to push for it, but because hostility towards the US increases the Iranian regime’s credibility in the eyes of its supporters. “Continued conflict with the United States is far less of an existential threat to Iran than a rapprochement,†Mr Sadjadpour pointed out.
Tom Fletcher, who currently serves as the principal of Hertford College at Oxford University, also ruled out the possibility of a grand bargain – although he said that could actually work in America’s favour. “It’s better that we pick out one [issue] that we might potentially be able to get done and then hopefully create the climate for the rest,†he said, essentially echoing Mr Biden’s strategy.
concluding
Ultimately, though, the final say may not rest with a Biden administration but with the Iranian regime, especially its hardline faction led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In truth, the instincts of Iran’s leaders will be to not deviate from the dominant ideology of the regime since its establishment more than four decades ago.
And if the Biden team hopes it can help reform the regime, it will be disappointed. The reason is simple: Iran is a country that has essentially been hijacked by a group of expansionist-minded ideologues who are supported by, as Mr Sadjadpour described them, “radicals willing to go out and fight and kill for the Islamic Republic of Iranâ€.
I would add a further word of caution. Each of Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia is trying to position itself as speaking for 1 billion Muslims worldwide. This despite the reality that there are more Muslims in either Indonesia or India than in all of those countries combined. As the U. S. tries to cultivate relations with all of those countries it should keep in mind that there can be only one.
The Iranian problem is worse than indicated. By adhering to US sanctions, the UK, France, and Germany effectively removed themselves from JCPOA.
The agreement is, therefore, a dead letter, and a new agreement must be negotiated, almost from scratch.
Since Trump began the nullification of JCPOA, the facts on the ground have changed. Iran now has over a tonne of low-enriched uranium, far above the JCPOA limits. The new agreement will have to allow Iran to keep that stockpile and its new centrifuges. The Mullahs will also demand a plutonium breeder reactor.
Obviously, all sanctions and limitations in Iran will have to go, and Iran must be allowed to freely trade its oil and engage in trade of all kinds, including weapons.
There is also the issue for reparations for the murders of Soleimani and Fakhrizadeh and for the effects of the sanctions.
That is the likely bottom line for the Mullahs. Is it conceivable that Biden can make such a deal.