Revisiting Zarif's Resignation; Coordination Issues in Rouhani's Office?

On the morning of Thursday, March 8, the first image I saw of Mohammad Javad Zarif showed him climbing a regular slope, as if he were on his way to conquer a peak. A peak that would have the flag of 'the power of the Foreign Ministry' at its top. It was a useful visualization. In several subsequent images, Zarif was seen next to Mahmoud Vaezi and Hassan Rouhani, looking so happy and smiling as if he had taken all possible points from his opponent in a complex game. This visualization was expected. Zarif's first appearance in Saadabad Palace, after his resignation was rejected by Rouhani, was on Thursday, March 8. Hassan Rouhani's government is a government of the non-aligned, a diverse government full of disagreements. In the first government, Mohammad Nahavandian, Rouhani's chief of staff, played in the economic field and entered into a complex, multifaceted, and controversial competition with Eshaq Jahangiri, who had economic interests, and the consequences of this disagreement could still be seen by the time cabinet members were chosen for Rouhani's second government. Why did Zarif leave and why did he return? In the second government, when Mahmoud Vaezi became the President's chief of staff, his interests were in two other areas: foreign policy and domestic policy. The IRNA news agency published a report in September 2017, headlined: 'A Diplomat in Rouhani's Office.' This headline was not strange; he had experience in this area and had a research background. In October 2015, when Vaezi was the Minister of Communications, a list of his edited or authored books was published under the title 'The Minister of Conquering Books,' showing that he had written 32 books, and except for one book, all were in the field of diplomacy. However, the IRNA headline was not merely a description but an announcement of an important change. Two months later, on November 29, 2017, when Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Zarif's Deputy for Europe and America, was introduced as Vaezi's political deputy, the diplomatic weight of the President's office doubled. Takht-Ravanchi was also present in subsequent diplomatic negotiations. He was a friend of Zarif but was assigned missions by Vaezi. A few months later, when the JCPOA fell into decline and circumventing sanctions became a strategy in Iran's diplomacy and economy, Mahmoud Vaezi was the first Iranian envoy to Turkey to discuss with Erdogan and his son-in-law. Vaezi was the head of the Iran-Turkey Joint Commission until September 2017. This responsibility was transferred to Mohammad Shariatmadari, but secret negotiations with Turkey, especially for circumventing sanctions, continued with Vaezi. In December 2018, he led a high-level delegation to Turkey and met with Erdogan regarding sanctions and preparing for a meeting between the two countries' leaders. In January 2019, he officially took back the responsibility of the joint commission from Shariatmadari. Turkey is not an exception during the sanctions; it is a clear example of Vaezi's growing power in the field of diplomacy. He has experience in the 'Economic Deputy' of the Foreign Ministry and now has a good opportunity to lead Iran's economic diplomacy. Turkey is not an exception during the sanctions; Vaezi's diplomatic meetings from Azerbaijan have also caused controversy in recent months, and Alireza Rahimi, a representative from Tehran, warned that the chief of staff's missions should not overlap with the Foreign Ministry. Vaezi's rise to power over the past 212 days, during which Rouhani's government has no spokesperson and his chief of staff has become the government's most important spokesperson, has also become more evident in the media, from announcing the government's position on FATF to discussions about the meeting between Trump and Rouhani; for now, it is Vaezi who delivers important news and warnings. In Rouhani's second government, the position of 'Executive Deputy' has also been eliminated, and the tasks of this deputy, which has good maneuverability in local domestic political areas, have also been assigned to Vaezi to more easily exert influence in the Ministry of Interior's playing field. Mahmoud Vaezi, backed by the influence of his brother, Ahmad Vaezi, who is the head of the Islamic Propagation Office of Qom Seminary, has also become the main intermediary between the government and religious authorities in Qom. Meanwhile, the forced removal of Hossein Fereydoun, the President's brother, has made things easier for Vaezi compared to Nahavandian. In addition, Vaezi's clear disagreements with Rouhani's reformist supporters and his strong inclination for political coordination with the Ali Larijani faction have also transferred the area of disagreement to domestic politics in Rouhani's second government, to the extent that he publicly stated that Hassan Rouhani's victory in the elections was their work in the Moderation and Development Party and that they had no coalition with the reformists. In this context, the extent of disagreements with Jahangiri, who is considered the strongest representative of reformists in the government, progressed to the point where talk of the resignation of Rouhani's first vice president arose, but with Rouhani's intervention, the disagreements were pushed back, and no change occurred in Jahangiri's status. During this time, reformists have repeatedly complained and warned about Vaezi's role. These complaints have not been limited to domestic politics; Abdollah Naseri, a reformist activist and one of Rouhani's most persistent critics, stated in an interview with Shargh newspaper on October 22, 2018, pointing to Vaezi's interference in diplomacy: 'There are protocols in the Foreign Ministry for official meetings with foreign guests that seem to not be observed during this period,' and predicted that Vaezi's behaviors would 'cause coordination problems in the cabinet.' His prediction has at least proven to be correct analytically, and there are few media outlets, whether supportive or opposing the government, that have not referred to Vaezi's role and interference in various areas and the increasing disorganization of the cabinet in recent days. Part of this pressure was, of course, opportunism. Even if reformists were aware that Zarif's main problem was not his disagreement with Vaezi or his absence in the meeting with Bashar al-Assad, they tried to use Zarif as a shield to voice their grievances against Vaezi to advance their project to contain him a few steps further. Conservatives also did not mind this discussion in the meantime. They wanted the disagreement between Vaezi and Zarif and the disorganization within the government to be so prominent that no one would think about other disagreements in Iran's diplomacy, especially its regional diplomacy. It seems they have been somewhat successful. However, if one of the instances of this prediction and the degradation of the Foreign Ministry's status is considered to be the disorganization of the recent meeting between Bashar al-Assad and Hassan Rouhani, and we do not take into account the interference and pressure from Qassem Soleimani and Ali Akbar Velayati in the field of diplomacy and forget that the leader of the Islamic Republic is the main decision-maker in Iran's foreign policy, the simple question is whether Mohammad Javad Zarif has the strength to restore the credibility of the Foreign Ministry against Mahmoud Vaezi? To answer this question, a more important question must be answered. Does Hassan Rouhani have the desire to contain his chief of staff? The experience and existing evidence in Iran's domestic politics suggest that an effective and real solution to contain a powerful and ambitious figure like Mahmoud Vaezi is to remove him from the cabinet. Even a reshuffle would not be very useful. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei was moved several times in Ahmadinejad's government but still had the same influence he desired because he was Ahmadinejad's confidant. Ali Akbar Velayati has also become busier in executive management over the past two decades, but his influence in foreign policy remains as it is because he is Khamenei's confidant. From this perspective, as long as Mahmoud Vaezi's level of influence and credibility with Hassan Rouhani is as it is now, neither Zarif's authoritative posture nor friendly smile nor the warnings and complaints of reformists will change the existing situation. Media portrayals and virtual atmospheres are useful for electoral competitions, but in the context of power play, no one pays attention to souvenir photos; it is not Zarif's politics.