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Tense talks: the European Union high representative, Federica Mogherini, during the negotiations in Lausanne. Flickr / EU External Action Service. Some rights reserved.
Finally we can breathe a little easier. With the achievement of the
provisional, ‘in-principle’ accord between Iran and the US (and the other P5+1 group members), the hope of
peace has been kept alive.
There is still a long way to go. We must get through the next three
months of negotiations, with all the attendant risks, large and small, before
this initial, tentative agreement can be turned into a permanent accord.
Its opponents are many. On one side we find Israel and the war-mongering
military adventurists of the American right, in de facto alliance with the right-wing
within Iran’s governing forces. On the other, America’s moderates, led by the
president, Barack Obama, and supported by Israeli realist factions, stand
together with the reformists within the Iranian regime.
But, despite all the threats and ranting of American senators and their
Iranian counterparts, the footholds of peace between Iran and the US have been established.
Stark choice
President Obama has left his opponents in an exposed position. Despite being
subjected to many long decades of intense pressure, Iran succeeded in
developing its own independent nuclear programme. Obama says this leaves
America with a stark choice: finalise an accord which limits and controls
Iran’s nuclear programme or go to war with the Islamic Republic. There is little
appetite among the American public for the latter: the latest polls show most Americans
oppose war with Iran.
Under this agreement, Iran will see its nuclear programme severely cut
back and subjected to rigorous controls. For the first time, however, Iran
gains formal recognition by the international community of its rights to the
peaceful development and use of nuclear power. And, after 10-15 years, the accord
and its restrictions will be up for renegotiation.
Those who have thrived on the fear of war will have the cutting edge of their arguments blunted by the prospects of peace.
Iran has paid a steep price to reach this juncture. In addition to the enormous
direct costs of establishing its nuclear industry, to date Iran’s economy has had
to cope with more than $100 billion in damages under the current, back-breaking
economic sanctions. Iranians hope that this accord will bring to an end the
decades of deprivation and isolation they’ve suffered, and that living
standards finally will start to improve.
On the Iran side, this accord has been made possible only through the dogged
determination of Iran’s reformists. This time around, they’ve acted with more
courage and tenacity than during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, and they’re
reaping the reward. If the regime’s right-wing factions do not succeed in
sabotaging the negotiations, the current president, Hassan Rouhani, will receive
the credit for this supreme, highly tangible triumph.
Far-reaching
But a final accord would have two ramifications of even greater potential
significance. Inside Iran, the most far-reaching consequence of such an
agreement is the increased possibility of positive change in the public sphere.
The spectre of threats by the conspiratorial ‘Big Satan’ against the Islamic
Republic has been the Iranian regime’s most important tool in repressing its own
people’s rights. The deal under negotiation would weaken this instrument, giving
the struggle for increased freedom greater opportunity. Those who have thrived
on the fear of war will have the cutting edge of their arguments blunted by the
prospects of peace.
And from an international perspective the most important consequence of
the prospective agreement is the new order it will bring about in the Middle
East. Any such agreement will undoubtedly include ‘understandings’ or even
formal accords, far beyond nuclear issues, which will remain undisclosed for
the time being. Details of these unacknowledged understandings aside, it’s
clear that they include recognition of the important changes that have already
occurred in the balance of forces in the region.
The existing order in the Middle East, established in the aftermath of
the first world war, is giving way. Perhaps it’s best to say that this accord signals
the beginning of the end of the old order and the start of a transition which,
through copious blood and fire, anguish and pain, will certainly issue in a new
one.
Translated by Linda Heiden, in
collaboration with the author, from ‘Tavafogh-e
Iran va Amrika: Ruzaneye Solh’, an article which appeared simultaneously on 4 April 2015 in the Persian online
publications Asre
Now, Irane Ma, Akhbare Ruz and Kar-Online.