Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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Iran is posing a number of geopolitical challenges to European security. In response, the EU should support Iranian civil society and work on a regional security scheme that can also address Iran’s continued violations of international norms.
China’s brokering of the Iran-Saudi deal is emblematic of a regional realignment that no longer sees the United States as the only party in its calculations. It may be tough for the great power to accept and harder for it to readjust. But it may have no choice.
Four decades of the Islamic Republic’s hard power will ultimately be defeated by two millennium of Iranian cultural soft power. The question is no longer about whether this will happen, but when.
It’s premature to assess whether these protests will meaningfully change Iran’s politics, or whether they are simply another crack in the edifice of a rotting regime whose lone source of diversity is whether the beards and turbans of its ruling men are black or white.
Iran is a very bad actor, and the Iran nuclear deal 2.0 won’t likely go down as one of the great moments in U.S. diplomacy. But to paraphrase former U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the JCPOA is the worst option, except when compared with all the others.
If the four-decade history of the Islamic Republic is any guide, Mr. Khamenei may be unwilling or incapable of marshaling an internal consensus to revive the nuclear deal with the United States unless he feels regime solidarity is faltering, and societal exhaustion is beginning to fuel a new generation of power seekers.
As frustrating as it may be, shutting the door on negotiations with Iran has few advantages.
The Biden administration has opted for a most conciliatory approach to lure Iran back into the JCPOA.
Syria and Russia will not break with Iran, and indeed many Arab states may ultimately improve ties with Tehran. However, in the transactional new regional environment, everyone has a stake in compelling Iran to recognize their interests as well.
Few countries have maintained clearer or more consistent aspirations over the last four decades than the Islamic Republic of Iran.