May 18, 2021/ Paris, France



Iranian Foreign Policy at a Crossroads






Dr. Lana Ravandi-Fadai

Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Science/ Professor, Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU)


I would like to look over the past few decades and make a few observations about certain patterns in the US-EU-Iran relationship surrounding the nuclear issue. It looks to me that these patterns may be set to repeat.


There are talks that Ahmadinejad is running for presidency again in this year’s election. It is worth remembering the context of his first victory which was related to Iran’s nuclear program and western concerns about it. Whether or not Ahmadinejad wins, it seems sad that history is repeating itself. Hardliners may do well in this election. Ahmadinejad was preceded by Khatami who was in office from 1997 to 2005. You will recall that Khatami has a theory and wrote a book about the dialogue of civilizations. He was the symbol of a friendly Iran, friendly towards the West, but this policy seemed to have failed what gave Ahmadinejad such a strong position in his first election in 2005. Under Khatami Iran took a softer stance towards the West and hold uranium enrichment in 2004 for a time. The Europeans, mainly England, Germany and France, urged Iran to do this and promised to influence the United States to take a softer position on Iran. The deal fell apart though. The US refused to provide guarantees to the Iranian side in particular a non-aggression guarantee. Many in Iran thought that Iran had lost valuable time and had been played for a fool, that the US has never been interested in any agreement. Thus, a soft line changed to hardline in Iran. There is a real danger of the same thing happening now. While Iran desperately needs sanction relief, many Iranian politicians feel Iran was again played for a fool by making concessions and compromises only to have the most powerful partner in the nuclear agreement back out of it. Now the US has a president who seems willing to return partly to the Obama administration’s Iran policy. But with Iranian presidential elections coming at the end of this summer, Biden may have only a few months to try to bring what is left of the deal back to life. The window is rapidly closing. If we look at the presidents of both countries over the past few decades, we see that to a certain extent negotiation between the two countries have been the victims of the capriciousness of democracy, and partly because of the toxic history shared by Iran and the US. Often when a president on one side is willing to negotiate, the other country will elect a hardliner. Bush and Khatami, no chance of deal, or Trump and Rouhani, no chance of deal, as examples. The nuclear deal was signed when the terms of a US and Iranian president who were willing to negotiate overlapped, Obama and Rouhani in 2015. But is seems that this might be an exception and the rule for these presidential cycles is not fall in line.


What also speaks against the success of restarting the deal is that despite Biden and the democracy party’s passionate anti-Trump rhetoric, Biden seems to support some of the Trump’s administration’s positions on Iran, mainly that a nuclear deal with Iran must limit Iranian activities outside the nuclear sphere as well as ballistic missiles. Will the desperate straits of the Iranian economy force the Iranians to swallow their pride and return to the negotiating table? Much depends on the upcoming elections.


Further complications is Soleimani and other incidents. Last year began with the assassination of the commander of the Iran Quds Force general Soleimani. This year was murdered a scientist. These blows will not make negotiations any easier. One version of the events is that general Soleimani was traveling with a message to improve relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. According to this version he was not on a military mission at all. Indeed, Soleimani had acted as mediator on many occasions with China and Russia. He was not just a commander. I was in Serbia on the eve of the assassination, attending the inter-parliamentary talks between Iran, Serbia, Turkey, Russia and other countries. The speaker of the Iranian Majlis Ali Larijani said that Iran wanted to improve relations with Saudi Arabia, but the Trump administration was doing anything it could to block it. Israel and Saudi Arabia are two Iran’s most powerful enemies in the Middle East. If Iran comes to an agreement with Saudi Arabia, it will be a huge blow to Israel and the American hopes. The Americans wanted to intimidate Iran, to gain support in Iraq, but stifling the protest movement and demonstration that were there including demonstration against excessive Iranian influence. Iran received a terrible blow, after the assassination of the general Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, Tehran limited itself to firing missiles at US bases and using force against US allies in the region. Only the murder of nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in December of the same year coinciding with the planning of lifting sanctions against Iran and the victory of Joe Biden in the presidential election led Tehran to begin enriching uranium again to 20% and step back from other limits in the nuclear deal.


Even if negotiations do happen between the US and Iran, they will be much more to overcome in the few months remaining before summer elections than simply the Americans leaving the nuclear deal. It will be a hard road.