June 15, 2015 | The Arab Weekly

Don’t Look to Iran to Cave on Nukes

Ever since Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) was established in 1989 it has been in charge of strategic decision-mak­ing in the Islamic Republic, includ­ing the direction of Iran’s nuclear programme and the diplomacy as­sociated with it.

The world in general and the P5+1 in particular are pinning their hopes on reaching a comprehen­sive nuclear agreement with Teh­ran through the SNSC.

However, to judge by Iranian President Hassan Rohani’s 2011 book National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy, there is every reason to be sceptical that the SNSC will live up to such high expectations.

The hopes of the P5+1 — China, Britain, France, Germany. Russia and the United States — are under­standable.

Presided over by Rohani; Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the SNSC secretary; and Saeed Jalili, one of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representatives, the council is comprised of members from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government, along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rep­resentatives of the Islamic Revolu­tionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the regular military — in sum, the ruling elites of the regime.

The council’s decisions are usu­ally based on consensus, which seems to encourage optimism within the P5+1. But the body’s decision-making dynamics are far from ideal when it comes to en­dorsing a nuclear agreement.

According to Rohani, “Conflicting views of international affairs makes it difficult to reach consensus” among the elites who feel tempted to “engage in unhealthy rivalry” in an attempt to “impose their own preferences” upon the system.

Recent public statements by the IRGC’s Imam Hussein University threatening Rohani and the nuclear negotiators with “revolutionary ac­tion” is an example of factionalism, or what Rohani terms “unhealthy rivalry”.

This, in turn, not only constitutes a major obstacle to a comprehen­sive nuclear agreement but is also a potential threat to any other deal the Rohani government may reach with its counterparts before the June 30th deadline.

Referring to the November 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Teh­ran, when American diplomats were taken hostage, and the 1988 decision to accept a ceasefire that ended the mass slaughter of the eight-year war with Iraq, Rohani complains of “lack of courage” of Iranian officials who “out of fear of being accused (of treason or coun­ter-revolutionary activity)” did not intervene to “solve problems which the authorities had decided to solve”.

According to Rohani, both cri­ses were only solved by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini personally and publicly accepting the responsi­bility of freeing the US diplomats and ending the conflict with Iraq in which around 1 million people on both sides died.

Today, there is no sign that Khomeini’s successor, Khamenei, is prepared to be seen putting his stamp of approval on a comprehen­sive agreement that would curtail Iran’s nuclear programme.

Indeed, he constantly seeks to distance himself from a potential agreement, which makes Iranian negotiators wary of reaching an agreement that would expose them to accusations of treason in Tehran.

Rohani, in his book, also refers to a lack of coordination between the Foreign Ministry, the Intelligence Ministry and the Iran Atomic En­ergy Organisation.

He says representatives of these government agencies would at­tend SNSC meetings but would not exchange information with each other. Each had their own inter­pretation of the demands of the In­ternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the risk of the UN Se­curity Council passing resolutions against Iran.

While the ever-vigilant Foreign Ministry would express deep con­cerns about possibly adverse reso­lutions, the Atomic Energy Organi­sation and the Intelligence Ministry would withhold information about their nuclear activities.

According to Rohani, not even the Islamic Republic’s government was aware of details of nuclear ac­tivities in the Natanz uranium en­richment centre prior to the public exposure of those activities in the international media.

Today, Rohani may be capable of imposing a degree of inter-agency coordination but the culture of se­crecy may prove to be insurmount­able and there is no guarantee that government agencies would report all their nuclear activities to the SNSC.

Rohani’s commentary on the influence of the external environ­ment provides particularly im­portant insights into the SNSC’s nuclear decision-making. “No one thought the Saddam regime would collapse in three weeks,” he wrote of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

“Through psychological opera­tions and aerial bombardments, the Americans demonstrated their power. Many were bewitched by the military power of the United States… and thought America could defeat any country it pleases in a few weeks.” That US demonstration of power forced the SNSC to nego­tiate with the European powers. But today, the United States clearly does not instil the same fear.

Rohani’s observations, far from encouraging optimism, should serve as a warning of the destruc­tive role the SNSC could play in Tehran’s nuclear negotiations.

Ali Alfoneh is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @Alfoneh

Issues:

Issues:

Iran

Topics:

Topics:

Iran Twitter Iraq Tehran Russia Islam Europe China United Kingdom Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Germany Islamic republic France Ali Khamenei Saddam Hussein International Atomic Energy Agency Hassan Rouhani Ruhollah Khomeini Republic Natanz Joint Chiefs of Staff Ministry of Intelligence Organization Supreme National Security Council Ministry of foreign affairs Rear admiral Saeed Jalili Diplomatic mission Ali Shamkhani