Hashemi Rafsanjani from the Perspective of Foreign Policy

Hashemi Rafsanjani passed away while both his supporters and opponents, despite their differences, agree that he was a "super heavyweight" in the power structure of the Islamic Republic. Such a heavyweight had exerted all his weight to anchor the Islamic Republic. With his death, the Islamic Republic lost one of its pillars of power, one of its buffers, and one of its anchors. There is much discussion surrounding him. However, he must be examined from three distinct periods: against power, in power, and alongside power. Before the Islamic Revolution, he was against power. After the revolution until the protests of 2009, he was in power, and after 2009, he was alongside power. This note briefly addresses Rafsanjani's role in the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. Since this note cannot provide a comprehensive account of Rafsanjani's influence on the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic over the past four decades, it inevitably focuses on his impact on five "macro cases" of the Islamic Republic, in which Rafsanjani had a serious involvement. These five macro cases consist of three completed cases and two unfinished cases as follows: a) Completed cases 1. Ending the eight-year war: Ayatollah Khomeini had said that if the war lasted 20 years, we are ready. He even went so far as to say that we must fight until there is no sedition in the world. (This became the slogan of the fighters at the front who said: War, war until sedition is removed from the world.) Such a dangerous trajectory had blocked the path of diplomacy to end the war for eight years. Even in the last months of the war, he stated that anyone who doubts the war is opposing Islam and the Prophet of God. Interestingly, only three months after Rafsanjani was appointed by Ayatollah Khomeini as the successor of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and took on the responsibility of the war, the Islamic Republic accepted UN Security Council Resolution 598. Thus, his critics have accused him until today of being "the one who made Imam drink the poison cup." 2. Architect of the renewal of relations with Saudi Arabia: Rafsanjani referred to himself as the "architect of renewing relations with Saudi Arabia" in his memoirs. When he was elected president, political relations between Tehran and Riyadh were severed due to the massacre of Iranian pilgrims in the bloody Hajj (1987). He presided over a country that needed to improve its relations with neighbors to "rebuild" the damages of the war. Tensions in Tehran-Riyadh relations had also damaged Tehran's relations with most Arab and Sunni capitals. Therefore, relations with Saudi Arabia had to be resumed, even if Ayatollah Khomeini had said: We will not forgive the House of Saud even if we forgive Saddam. It was Rafsanjani's pragmatic approach that led him to design the renewal of relations with Riyadh, disregarding such slogans, in a way that is worth knowing. In his memoirs, he recounts an incident during a meeting with Prince Abdullah (later King of Saudi Arabia) at one of the Islamic Cooperation Organization summits, where according to protocol, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia was supposed to visit the President of Iran. However, Rafsanjani writes that: "Suddenly they came and said: Prince Abdullah is not coming, and he is waiting for you. Mr. Velayati said: Our agreement was that he would come; what should we do now? I said: Let’s go; we should not be arrogant, and the principle is to talk. We stood up and went to their room, and suddenly we saw that King Abdullah and his entourage came out of the room to greet us and said: We are ready to go to your room. Suddenly, they turned around. The same "humility" we showed brought him there. In that room, many of our problems were solved. They were opposed to holding the next summit in Tehran, which was resolved... Our friendship continued to become familial... He, who had come to Tehran for the summit of leaders, contrary to diplomatic norms, insisted on coming to our home." The result of such a warm relationship was that Saudi Arabia allowed the holding of book exhibitions with Shia content in Shia-populated areas of Saudi Arabia, and the political-commercial relations between the two countries experienced one of their brightest periods, resulting in rising oil prices. 3. Realism in sanctions: While the paralyzing nuclear sanctions had made Mahmoud Bahmani, the then head of the Central Bank, lament that the country's situation was like the situation of Abu Talib's clan (the economic pressure during the early Islamic period), Ayatollah Khamenei immediately took a stance and said we are in the conditions of Badr and Khaybar (economic abundance during the early Islamic period). He claimed that firstly, sanctions do not affect us, and secondly, we will circumvent the sanctions. However, during that period of "exaggeration," such positions were never seen from Rafsanjani; rather, he paved the way for Hassan Rouhani's rise to power in the 2013 elections, who now considers the JCPOA a product of his government. Although Khamenei gave the green light for nuclear negotiations with his "heroic flexibility," the JCPOA, whatever it may be (good or bad), is the product of the government that Rafsanjani supported wholeheartedly until his last day. Thus, in the analysis of the "concerned" ones, it was again Rafsanjani who made the leader drink the poison cup once more. b) Unfinished cases 4. The unfinished war in Syria: Throughout the years of the Islamic Republic's practical support for Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, Rafsanjani did not express clear positions against this approach of the Islamic Republic, but he occasionally hinted at its effects on the deterioration of Iran's relations with the Arab world and the Sunni world. Those who expected him to play an effective role in resolving this external crisis of Iran (the Syrian civil war) were disappointed, as he had written the book "Crossing the Crisis." Either Rafsanjani had no solution in this protracted crisis, or he saw no listening ear in the government to share his solution with them. Whatever it was, he left this world while the consequences of the Syrian civil war had completely destroyed all his architectural work in Iran-Arab relations and Iran-Arab relations. 5. Relations with the United States: Rafsanjani's most notable trait should be considered his "pragmatism." Many examples can be cited that indicate his distancing from the official slogans of the Islamic Republic. For example, in a system that has chanted "Death to America" for nearly four decades, a politician must be very pragmatic to believe in renewing relations with the "Great Satan" to the extent that he considers this not his desire but the wish of Ayatollah Khomeini. He himself recounted that: "In the last years of Imam's life, I wrote a letter to him, I did not type it because I did not want anyone to read it, and I personally gave it to the Imam. In that letter, I raised seven issues with the Imam and wrote that you better solve these issues during your lifetime; otherwise, they may become obstacles to the future of the country. There are hurdles that if you do not help us cross, it will be difficult to cross them after you... One of these issues was the relationship with America. I wrote that the way we currently have, which is not to talk or have relations with America, is not sustainable. America is the dominant power in the world." The recounting of this memory in 2011 (i.e., the years after 2009 when Rafsanjani's power was declining and Khamenei called him the "silent of the sedition") was enough to spark a storm against Rafsanjani from those loyal to the leadership. Following the harsh reactions that this recollection provoked, he did not back down and later emphasized that "if my discussions regarding relations with America in that letter were objectionable, certainly the Imam would have responded to me at that time." Whatever it was, the repository of secrets of the Islamic Republic has now been buried with many untold stories. However, at least in the last years of his life, he unveiled the perception that Ayatollah Khomeini was not entirely averse to renewing relations with America. A consideration and a conclusion: There is much to say about Hashemi Rafsanjani's influence on the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. This brief note addressed five macro cases in which he had entered and made efforts, whether his involvement resulted in outcomes or remained unfinished. However, if we want to address Rafsanjani's role in cases where he did not openly intervene, many examples can be cited that are beyond the scope of this note. For example, there was never a prominent role of Rafsanjani in improving the human rights situation in Iran; on the contrary, his name is at least tied to two criminal cases for which foreign courts issued arrest warrants against him. These two cases are the murder of Kurdish leaders in the Mykonos restaurant in Germany (1992) and the bombing at the Jewish community center in Argentina (known as AMIA 1994). There is much to discuss about this heavyweight politician of the Republic, including in the field of foreign policy, but in any judgment and evaluation regarding him, one criterion should not be overlooked: that victory and defeat in the realm of politics are evaluated based on "results-oriented" rather than "intention-oriented" politics.