Banaei: Iran Faces Internal Contradictions to Become an Economic Power

How much does the nuclear agreement pave the way for Iran's return to the global economy as an influential player, and can Iran regain the position it held before the 1979 revolution after the JCPOA? Hassan Banaei believes there is potential, but given the many internal contradictions observed in Iran, the gap between Iran and such a position is significant. Hussein Banaei researches the development of liberal political thought in modern Iran at Indiana University in the U.S. He graduated with a Ph.D. from Brown University in 2012 and is also one of the authors of a book on Iran-U.S. relations and the Iran-Iraq war. Do you think we will see a different Iran after the nuclear agreement, or is everything continuing as it was? I believe we are witnessing different intellectual preoccupations for the Iranian government and a new global approach that they need to consider. If we talk about Iranian society and the country, I think everything remains as it was before the agreement. I don’t think there has been a significant change because the agreement was not supposed to alter Iran's domestic politics. Perhaps there is a new approach to utilizing more efficient bureaucratic forces, but apart from that, almost everything is the same as before. When you have a more moderate government, you face a series of policies, and when you have a hardline government, the policies change accordingly. The difference is that the Iranian government now has to think about an approach that has not been available since the Islamic Revolution, which is the willingness of countries that viewed the revolution as a radical and unpleasant event to engage in dialogue with the government and recognize the regime's legitimacy from many aspects in diplomatic and economic behavior. Now Iran must consider how it wants to shape these relations and how to send signals about changing its behavior in the region, economy, and politics to others, and I think these are the changes we see, even if they happen very gradually. Since the agreement was implemented a few months ago, even the Iranian Foreign Ministry has - according to its officials - focused primarily on economic diplomacy. More visits to Tehran are also more pronounced from an economic perspective. Do you think Iran can be seen as a more influential player in strategic and political balances alongside its return to the international economy, in such a way that the West, not necessarily the U.S., sees Iran as an ally or partner in this regard? I think this is possible, and Iran has the opportunity to regain this position, and the Iranian Foreign Ministry is also interested in sending signals in this regard. However, this issue is still unresolved within Iran's power circles, and the reason for the hesitation in this regard and some contradictory signals being sent is the same. The government has a structure that requires a kind of consensus, but officials have different ways of expressing their approaches and priorities. The leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, recently gave a very fundamental speech that had a confrontational nature regarding the possibility of the agreement failing. This doubt, along with the emphasis on the regime's revolutionary goals versus Iran's national interests and economic benefits, has always been part of officials' statements. This is a problem that may not even be solvable. Many countries face it. The ideology versus pragmatism issue arises. But because Iran has been isolated for a long time, and everyone is waiting to see how it will act to open its doors, from the West's perspective, these issues become tensions or contradictions. I believe Iran is naturally a better strategic ally for Western countries, and many of these countries have understood well, given their history over the past three decades with their Arab allies, that Iran has more economic, political, and even cultural similarities with them, but how to turn this into a real policy is a separate issue related to those contradictory signals. Iran needs to think about the contradictory signals it sends, and the West needs to figure out how to respond to the different approaches it receives from Iran. Western officials cite issues such as human rights violations in Iran or Iran's support for terrorism and consider these as obstacles to normalizing relations. Since the September 11 attacks, the U.S. and Western countries have faced a difficult moment in dealing with human rights and terrorism issues. When we look at some of America's traditional allies, these issues become even more urgent. For example, regarding Saudi Arabia's economic or even military aid to certain terrorist groups or Qatar's support for these groups, or human rights violations in these countries, which are not much different from the situation in Iran and in some cases worse than Iran's behavior in the region. And these contradictions are somewhat in the public eye to be seen. But since this has been the criterion for explaining the West's relationship with Iran for over thirty years, retreating from it or giving it less priority compared to strategic interests is a very vulnerable action. I believe the Obama administration did a great service to the West by engaging with the Iranian government and making the nuclear issue the main strategic issue and working to resolve it, creating a suitable space to address other issues. One of the main issues regarding the agreement is that analyses surrounding it stem from the approach to Iran's nuclear file. I have always believed that this file is synonymous with the regime's security and acknowledging the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic in international relations, and I never thought Iran was seeking to produce nuclear weapons, using the nuclear program as a tool to achieve interests that it had reached a deadlock on. I think with such an approach and diagnosis, the outcome of the nuclear agreement will be what was predicted, that now that the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic is recognized, other characteristics in political or human rights status will remain as before, and now it is up to both sides to show how they will behave on these issues to be satisfactory. And this is the dilemma we are currently in. You mentioned the countries in the region. When you look at the Middle East and Iran's neighboring countries and the existing tensions today, how concerning do you find this situation? This situation is very concerning. It is worrying both from the perspective of entities and approaches. The rise and fall of two countries in this regard are significant. Saudi Arabia, which has had a powerful position in foreign policy in this region, seems to be slipping, and there are many economic, political, and geopolitical issues for the monarchy of this country, and there are many internal unrests there. On the other hand, Iran has somewhat succeeded in overcoming internal rivalries and factional policies, and in a way, the unified Rouhani government is intensely focused on repairing economic and political relations with the world and has also been given an opportunity in Iraq and Syria to address its interests. This situation, where Saudi actions stem from a position of weakness and Iranians from a position of strength, creates a combination for a dangerous environment. I think Arabs, not just Saudis, are currently not worried about the nuclear agreement itself but about the future that this agreement could bring. They fear the 'Iranization' of the Arab Middle East, which has historically had autonomous political and cultural institutions. If Iran becomes an economic power, for example, we will witness the increasing spread of Iranian companies in the Arab world, which would be very frightening for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in terms of its cultural impacts. They also do not want the situation to revert to pre-1979 Iran, where Iran was a pillar of America's and the West's grand strategy in the region. Do you think Iran could potentially regain that pre-1979 position? No. There is potential, but Iran is far from it. That is why I mentioned that perception and misperception are very important. The perception is that Iran is moving toward that potential, which, in my opinion as an analyst of Iran, is not the case at all. And if this is the perception of the Saudis, and they are prone to misperception - for the last 30 years, the slightest improvement in relations between Iran and the Western world has been a cause for alarm for them - then this will be problematic. It is the responsibility of Western countries to reassure the Saudis. Unfortunately, the way this has been done is to fully heed the demands of the Saudis, who wanted more military weapons and equipment. I think this reassurance should be in the form of an honest dialogue where these political relations are explained. On the other hand, Iran has many internal contradictions and is indeed far from becoming an economic power. Turkey, which had a much better position in terms of economy, society, and politics in the late 90s and early 2000s, and was talking about its membership in the European Union, has still not been able to reach that status despite having a good position and domestic and international support. Iran is not in that position at all. As a result, perception and misperception have fueled this competition in the region, but this uproar will subside, especially when Iran realizes that the hundred billion dollars will not solve its problems; a sum that even in reclaiming it has difficulties. It can be said that Iran's domestic economy is devastated, rife with corruption, and has no shortage of abuses by rival groups, with a large part of it operating in the shadows since the revolution, opaque and incomprehensible for anyone wanting to engage in transactions.