OPINION:
The presidents of the United States and Iran have at least one thing in common during the next 40 days: selling the nuclear treaty to their doubters.
The Republican presidential candidates on Aug. 6 all made a point of highlighting their staunch opposition to the deal. Gov. Scott Walker even asserted he would immediately revoke the deal on his first day in office and would seek more biting sanctions on Iran.
In Iran the deal has fanned the flame of factional infighting. President Hassan Rouhani’s camp, seen to be allied with the so-called reformists group and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, are on a vociferous campaign to rally support for the deal that can translate into votes in parliamentary elections in February. The Iranian president has likened the deal to a football match in which Iran has won by a score of 3 to 2.
The hard-liners in the country, however, are having none of it. Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, the leader of Friday Prayers in Mashhad, the most important religious city in Iran, has openly stated that the red lines of the supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been breached in the agreement. Ayatollah Alamolhoda is not alone in his opposition to the agreement. The chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, has also asked the Iranian parliament to reject the deal. He has further claimed that some items in the agreement have no legal validity.
Mr. Rafsanjani, a chief advocate of the deal with the United States, is politically weakened due to unrelated scandals in his family. On Aug. 9, Mr. Rafsanjani’s son, Mehdi, started a 10-year prison sentence for bribery and financial corruption. On the same day, Javad Ghoddosi, a member of parliament, vehemently attacked Mr. Rafsanjani and his family, castigating him as the “leader of sedition” in 2009 (referring to a huge public protest over the election results) and threatening him with dire consequences if he continued his line of argument. Mr. Rafsanjani is currently head of Expediency Council, an organ that has no real power, but he is running for election to the Assembly of Experts to be held concurrently with parliamentary elections in February. The assembly is constitutionally empowered to elect the spiritual leader, the highest authority in all stately matters.
Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme spiritual leader, is carefully choosing his words at the moment. Even though the majority of Iranians appear to support the agreement, his concern not to alienate the hard-liners and the leaders of the Revolutionary Guards has prevented him from giving his unqualified blessing to the deal. It was, of course, his support that made the deal possible in the first place, since no major policy shift is allowed without his expressed approval.
Back in Washington, a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Yukiya Amano, with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee appears to have raised more questions than answers. Committee chairman, Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, stated after the meeting that “most members left here with greater concerns” regarding Iran’s nuclear program. At the meeting Mr. Amano refused to talk about the details of the inspection regime agreed with Tehran, citing rules of confidentiality.
Ironically. the hard-liners in Tehran and their GOP opponents on the Hill are finding themselves on the same side of the fence, allowing Mr. Obama to roil Republicans by making this stinging comparison at his American University speech on Aug. 4. It is a tricky issue, whose outcome can potentially impact U.S. and global politics.
The president was aiming to don the mantle of John F. Kennedy, who had made a seminal speech in 1963 at American University, arguing for an arms-control treaty with the Soviets.
Only time will tell whether the deal will be his legacy achievement when he leaves office — somewhat parallel to the arms agreements between Washington and Moscow that operated for decades. However, if Congress overrides his veto, he may take his place alongside Woodrow Wilson, the architect of the League of Nations, which also was rejected by Congress in his day.
• Farid Mirbagheri, a native of Iran, is professor of international studies at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus.
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