Iranian Society After the 2015 Vienna Nuclear Agreement

On the day the Vienna agreement was announced, politicians from the 5+1 group and the Islamic Republic emphasized the concessions they received from the other side and will continue to do so. Supporters of this agreement will also point out its positive aspects. But what can be said about Iranian society after the agreement? I will explain this with five questions. 1. What is the impact of this agreement on the livelihoods of the Iranian people? The Vienna agreement may give some segments of the Iranian population hope for improved economic conditions, but apart from psychological effects, there is no other factor or cause for this optimism. Given the existing structures, the lifting of sanctions will have no effect on the lives of tens of millions of Iranians living below the poverty line and in conditions of stagflation and widespread unemployment. The more than 100 billion dollars that will be made available to officials will, as in the past, be spent on 1) fueling conflicts in the region (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen), 2) rebuilding Syria and Yemen if the wars end, and 3) (the majority) embezzlement by officials and rent-seekers, similar to the Ahmadinejad era. A regime that squandered a trillion dollars during Ahmadinejad's eight years can easily waste one-eighth of that in a year. Sanctions over a two-year period reduced the extent and intensity of the plundering of public assets through embezzlement and collusion, but the unaccountable, extralegal government (in the absence of free media and civil society organizations) will return to its previous ways after the sanctions are lifted. Corruption in Iran is structural, institutionalized, and pervasive, leaving no room for investment in infrastructure. There is no mechanism to ensure that the returned oil revenues will be spent on the country's development and job creation. Already, there are disputes among officials over the amount of blocked oil revenues: from 180 billion dollars according to the governor of Tehran (Fars, July 15, 2015) to 130 billion dollars according to a member of parliament (Club of Journalists, July 16, 2015) and 29 billion dollars according to the head of the Central Bank (same source). The fate and amount of these dollars and how they will be spent is unclear. 2. What does this agreement mean for the image of the Islamic Republic in the public opinion? Contrary to the statements of government officials who consider the nuclear negotiations with six powerful countries as a credit for the Islamic Republic, these negotiations were a multilateral and rational approach by the international community to bring the government to its senses. It is unclear whether the Iranian people will attribute the credibility of this agreement solely to the officials of the Islamic Republic, especially after the nuclear program caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to the country. It is also uncertain whether, after the openings that will occur due to the lifting of sanctions, they will continue their defiance in the nuclear domain. International public opinion has welcomed this agreement as giving another opportunity to the Islamic Republic to return to legal and normal practices. 3. What will happen to poverty, inflation, and unemployment? In the past two years, the Islamic Republic has faced an empty treasury and an inability to pay employee salaries, and the government has managed to get through this period only by printing 300 trillion tomans of money and quasi-money (in addition to the previous 500 trillion tomans of liquidity). There is no reason to believe that the government will not continue this policy in the coming years. Ahmadinejad's government added more than 400 trillion tomans to the country's liquidity with a trillion dollars in revenue. The trend of increasing poverty and prices and unemployment is not limited to the sanctions period, so that with the lifting of sanctions, poverty and inflation will take a different course. Even with a return to 25% inflation and 15 million people in absolute poverty and a lack of economic activity for 40 million people before the sanctions, Iranian society faces a difficult period of social crises ahead. The government will continue to deny the physical and psychological problems of tens of millions of Iranians and their social and economic issues as before (see Khamenei's statements denying the existence of psychological problems in society during a meeting with students: "The enthusiastic, motivated, and lively presence of Iranian students and youth in various issues of the country is an important matter and the opposite of reports that some biased centers provide about the depression of Iranian youth... This is pure and malicious falsehood, an excuse for prescribing trivial freedoms." July 9, 2015). Nothing will change with denial of problems. 4. Will the political atmosphere inside move towards reducing pressure after reaching an agreement? The answer is clearly negative. The Islamic Republic vitally feels the need to suppress journalists, political activists, dissenters, and minorities. The policy of repression and restrictions is an inseparable part of domestic politics and does not change under shifts in foreign policy. Even during the final stages of negotiations, when people needed information more, the government, which had slightly reduced the sending of jamming signals, intensified them again. The promises of Rouhani's government regarding domestic politics have been and are not executable, whether before or after the nuclear agreement. Overcoming negotiations for Rouhani's government—despite rising public demands—will not create space for changes in the social and cultural atmosphere because these restrictions are vital for the government, and the executive branch has no power to change the behavior of the repression machine. Two days before the announcement of the agreement, the leader of the Islamic Republic stated in a meeting with students that the fight against imperialism will continue. The fight against imperialism, in the statements of the Islamic Republic's officials, has been and will be a code name for suppressing critics and opponents. In recent months, six critics of the Islamic Republic who had been abroad returned to the country, and all of them were arrested (five unnamed according to Mohseni Ejei's report and the sixth, Ismail Gerami Moghadam, spokesperson for the National Trust Party). 5. Will this agreement lead to foreign investment and a boom in business inside? The answer to this question is also negative for five specific reasons: 1) A significant portion of Iran's economy is in the hands of the IRGC, and foreign investors will not place their capital under the control of an institution that engages in terrorist activities worldwide; 2) The Iranian government remains opposed to the West and Western capitalism and will not give control of part of its economy to Western capitalists; 3) Western investors see the risk of investing in a country that lacks an independent judiciary and is anti-Western as high; 4) Widespread human rights violations and the implementation of cruel Sharia laws (such as amputations, stoning, and street executions) make it difficult for large Western companies to invest in Iran. Companies do not want to provoke public opinion in Western countries against themselves; and 5) In recent years, Iran has missed significant opportunities to strengthen its economic infrastructure, and foreign investors prefer other regional countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and even Iraq over Iran. The Islamic Republic cannot utilize the lifting of restrictions with the existing structures.