Essay on Shargh Newspaper - April 20, 2019 -
The original text is in Persian and the following translation was done by Ai.
With the increasing speed of developments between Iran and the United States, as well as the feeling of pressure in society, especially in economic and commercial aspects, which naturally affects other aspects of life, a question is raised among almost all layers of society, and that is about the continuation of this line and the end of this story, where is it going to end?
Due to the secret negotiations that began in the second half of 1991 in Oman between Iran and the United States, and eventually became public with the change of government and its approach, and eventually led to the JCPOA agreement, this thought has always been raised in a part of society - which mainly views politics with skepticism - that due to the similar pressure of that era and considering the presence of a prominent team of diplomats in the country's executive branch, secret negotiations are not out of the question. Others who see politics as completely polar and absolute believe in completely hard positions from the parties to the dispute that are closer to their official and media positions and from this perspective they do not see any willingness to talk from either side and do not even consider the possibility of tension and military confrontation far from the mind.
But it seems that the reality of politics, as a complex and relative matter that is sometimes a matter of moments and sometimes follows long-term trends, is something in between the above: An issue that should be kept in mind when analyzing the behavior of politicians of all election-based governments (which in this case are both sides) is that they also have a glimpse of electoral issues and the conquest and dethronement of power, both in their own politics and in analyzing the behavior of the other side.
The US elections, in which Trump will fight for his second term as president, are probably the most important issue that will determine the main directions of him and his government this year. From this perspective, it is clear that Trump's main purpose in increasing pressure on Iran every day - from unilateral sanctions to placing the Revolutionary Guard Corps on the list of terrorist organizations - is probably to make Iran restless to start new negotiations with him and his government; but rather, to achieve what he wanted to gain from the negotiations with North Korea and compensate for this failure. It should be noted that Trump's main rival is not Iran, but the American Democrats. Because almost all of his efforts are aimed at advancing his personal strategy and not the national interests of the United States. This is why not only people like John Kerry, William Burns, and Wendy Sherman - Democrats who were all negotiators with Iran - are openly attacking him, but others like Nicholas Burns have also regularly put Trump on their agenda in serious American foreign policy circles due to America's distancing itself from Europe and weakening institutions like NATO. If we believe this, we will be convinced that the increase in pressure is not simply to "pull" Iran to the negotiating table, but to do so in the year and a half ahead and before the 2020 elections. Of course, it can be assumed that he is willing to make significant concessions for such pre-election negotiations.
Accordingly, no matter how much the sanctions pressure increases, the possibility of a military confrontation before the elections seems unlikely unless Trump sees the pressure from the House Democrats on him as too much, and resolving the issue of collusion with Russia does not paint such a prospect.
The analysis of the government, and especially the moderate government of Iran, in agreement with the aforementioned argument, is also based on Trump's failure to win the elections. This has made a rational choice out of investing in past successful interactions with the Democrats, and has forced Iran to indirectly contribute to Trump's defeat in the election by not giving him the publicity he wants - namely, the image and news of Iran being convinced to negotiate with him - and to remain waiting and possibly hoping for a Democratic victory at least until November of next year. This political analysis is, of course, serious, because what has been observed so far in the political atmosphere of the United States neither reduces Trump's popularity nor shows a prominent Democratic candidate who can be trusted to confront the incumbent president.
It must be admitted that Trump's victory and defeat in the second term of the presidency will have a major impact on the 2014 Iranian elections: If he wins, it is clear that the current disappointment of the reformists and moderates in the participation of their target groups in the elections will increase, and they will inevitably have to hand over the government to someone from the opposite faction, who will have a difficult task ahead of him: both to resist Trump's pressure and at the same time keep the country's foreign and nuclear policy balanced in a way that the other JCPOA partners will remain loyal to it to this point, and to reach an agreement with Trump, who is not only guaranteed to continue for another full term, but who will also see little reason to make concessions to the Iranian side during any negotiations. The other side of the coin - in my opinion, less likely - would be the loss of the Republicans and the return of the Democratic government to the JCPOA, in which case one could hope for the reconstruction of Iran's political and economic environment; an event that, as a result of which, the expectation of economic growth and normalization in the international arena, similar to the first Rouhani government, would create a new opportunity for the reformist tendency and the moderates.
In any case, Iran's current foreign policy, if it was not so lucky, could not continue the country's economic exploitation of the JCPOA, but by maintaining its moderation and restraint, it has managed to preserve its security achievements - especially its withdrawal from Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter - and also to maintain a positive international atmosphere towards itself. The moderate and proactive foreign policy of the government, if it has lost the economy of the JCPOA, has been able to create potential and actual allies for itself not only from Asians such as China, Japan, India and South Korea, but also from the European Union, Britain and even the American Democrats, who will return to their pre-Trump position as soon as there is any change in the current exceptional situation of the United States and can raise greater expectations of compliance from the Western and Eastern sides and start a bigger game.
Considering that international politics is not like a game of tennis, where a move by the other side inevitably leads to a reaction, but rather, like football, it requires persistence in approach and continuity in action and strategy to achieve the final result, if we want to interact with the world in the long term in the vein of the "pre-Trump JCPOA", we need to continue to be patient, patient, and trust-building behaviors that may also experience phenomena like Trump in the middle of our long journey. We must be vigilant, both with poise and seriousness, so that the initiative is not lost and our actions do not turn into reactions, even to the unconventional and irrational actions of the other side.
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