Zarif's Resignation and the Nightmare of the Diplomat Sheikh

On January 9 of this year, while the media was seeking confirmation or denial of the news of Mohammad Javad Zarif's resignation, Alireza Moazzi, Secretary of the Supreme Council of Information of the Government, wrote on his Twitter account that this news was a "rumor" and a "complex design" by a "suspicious current," resulting in "playing into Trump's hands" and discouraging the people. However, Zarif's Instagram post on March 6 showed that this news was not a "rumor." Zarif's absence from meetings between Bashar al-Assad and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and the President of Iran was not coincidental and, according to some reports, played a significant role in Zarif's insistence on resigning again. Zarif's resignation may take on a different color tomorrow morning if it is rejected, and he remains the Foreign Minister of Rouhani's government, but the important question remains: why did he resign just hours after speaking about "resistance" in front of professors and students at Tehran University, when he had recently become a symbol of defending the major interests of the Islamic Republic and the spokesperson for the "axis of resistance"? Throughout the five years that Mr. Zarif has held the position of Foreign Minister of Iran, at least nine important files have been on his desk: nuclear negotiations, the Syrian war, developments in Iraq, the Yemen war, relations with Saudi Arabia, human rights, the missile file, relations with the United States, and the approval of FATF bills. In dealing with these files, he had no authority or specific program regarding relations with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and was primarily overshadowed by Qassem Soleimani. Ultimately, he could only promote the policies and decisions of the system as a public relations figure. In the field of human rights, Mr. Zarif either withdrew or tried to distort and lie to wrap up the discussion. Zarif's absence from the meeting between Rouhani and Bashar al-Assad, contrasted with Qassem Soleimani's presence at this meeting, indicates his limited role. Zarif only had limited and conditional play in three files. He was allowed by Ayatollah Khamenei to negotiate with American officials at the level of Foreign Minister during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA. Relations with the U.S. and the approval of FATF bills were two subsidiary issues where Zarif's ability to intervene and advance them was even more restricted than in the nuclear negotiations. From this perspective, the analysis of the resignation of Iran's Foreign Minister should focus primarily on developments regarding the JCPOA and its attachments. Content analysis of the Supreme Leader's speeches in the field of foreign policy also indicates that he viewed Zarif's mission in this area as prominent yet limited and conditional. During the JCPOA, by using the term "children of the revolution," he provided a temporary shield for the negotiating envoy, and later, whenever he wanted to highlight the deficiencies of the JCPOA and the validity of his warnings, he would refer back to Zarif, who had admitted that he could not uphold some of the Leader's red lines. In recent months, when Khamenei wanted to strengthen the line of resistance and confrontation with the U.S., he praised Zarif, saying he had responded well to the "breach of trust" by the West. These references, which have often been limited to the nuclear negotiations, indicate that from the perspective of the Supreme Leader, Zarif's most important diplomatic mission has been in this area. The JCPOA, which is the only achievement and the most important part of Mr. Zarif's political life over the past five years, has turned into a corpse over the past two years due to a series of internal and external events. Currently, it can be said with sufficient confidence that all of the Iranian Foreign Minister's ideas about the JCPOA have failed. Initially, he intended to create a strong safety margin for the JCPOA by increasingly integrating and layering Iran's economy with the global economy, especially European countries. This tactic did not take off due to the ongoing "Eastward orientation" discourse continuously raised by Khamenei, and the continuation of banking sanctions severely slowed the return of major international companies to Iran's economy. The IRGC's missile attacks, the attack on the Saudi embassy, interventionist regional policies, the JCPOA's inability to effectively and swiftly lift sanctions, and the declining public hope in the effectiveness of Rouhani's foreign policy, among other events and sidelines, provided the necessary groundwork for the final blow to the nuclear agreement, namely the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, and placed the JCPOA on the path to complete collapse. Another unsuccessful tactic of Zarif was his special effort to separate domestic and foreign policy, which was even true for the JCPOA but proved futile and failed. It can be said that a significant Achilles' heel for Zarif was that he had little knowledge and skill to play in the domestic political arena and always tried to keep diplomacy safe and away from the shrapnel of domestic politics. This tactic was sufficiently ineffective and even clumsy at a time when, from the perspective of domestic critics, Zarif was seen as a Western-influenced infiltrator, and from the perspective of foreign critics, he was described as a symbol of hypocrisy and lies. Zarif told his opponents that he had no intention of running for the 2021 presidential election and urged them not to pressure him, but from the opponents' perspective, any success in diplomacy could be an important asset in domestic politics. Another tactic of Zarif for the survival of the JCPOA was the separation of files. He extensively tried to separate human rights, terrorism, regional policies, and Iran's missile file from the JCPOA. This separation was legally based on the text of the JCPOA but was never accepted by international actors in reality. Even the Europeans, who were more flexible than the U.S., had recently linked the missile file to the survival of the JCPOA, and the occurrence of some terrorist operations had caused the terrorism file to also be linked to the future of negotiations between Europe and Iran. Zarif's last efforts to save the JCPOA were related to the approval of FATF-related bills and the establishment of a financial channel with the European Union. The process of approving these bills domestically has been very slow, and the financial channel proposed by the European Union lacked sufficient power to motivate and convince opponents. Content analysis of Zarif's recent speeches about the JCPOA clearly showed that his power to convince others was less than ever. If we consider the continuation of Trump's policies and the high likelihood of the expansion of U.S. pressure alongside the Supreme Leader's explicit prohibition on negotiating with the Trump administration, we will find that he is a bound agent who currently has no choice but to insist on stepping aside. Even if we describe Zarif's resignation as a victimization display or a targeted tactic to reduce pressure from his domestic opponents, if his resignation is not accepted and the result of this affair is a temporary opening in the path of approving FATF-related bills or negotiations with Europe, the overall picture does not change much; his diplomatic career has ended. The end of Zarif's diplomacy is not the end of an individual. From the team that was assigned for Iran's nuclear negotiations or were active on the sidelines of the negotiations, some were forced to leave the country to avoid arrest, Abdolrasool Dari Esfahani was accused of espionage and is in prison, Majid Takht-Ravanchi went to the Presidential Office, Hamid Baidi-Nejad became Iran's ambassador to London and survived, Hossein Fereydoun is going back and forth in court, Mohammad Nahavandian has completely fallen into the sidelines, Abbas Araghchi is caught up in controversies such as the arrest of his nephew on corruption charges and shows signs of fatigue and anger from domestic political entanglements, and Mohammad Javad Zarif's main concern has become leaving the ministerial table. Zarif's resignation, even if not accepted, is a complete manifestation of the collapse of Rouhani's diplomacy; the nightmare of the Diplomat Sheikh.