Former Al-Arabia Director In Response To Obama's Interview: 'Nuclear Deal Will Empower Iran's Hardliners, Not Moderates'. (MEMRI).
In response to statements made by U.S. President Barack Obama in a May 13, 2015 interview with the London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat,
that a nuclear deal would strengthen the moderate leaders in Iran, the
daily's former editor and former director of Al-Arabiya, 'Abd Al-Rahman
Al-Rashed, wrote that the deal is likely to do the opposite, namely
empower Iran's hardliners.
Al-Rashed pointed out that the hawks in the
Iranian regime were already boasting that the West had capitulated and
agreed to lift sanctions, while the Iranian nuclear program was nearly
complete.
Their current confidence is also evident in a recent fierce
clampdown on political rivals and dissidents, he said. Al-Rashed added
that the moderates in the Iranian regime may have been strengthened if Washington had linked the deal to Tehran's halting its harmful intervention in other countries.
The following are excerpts from his article, as it appeared on May 13, 2015 in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat's English edition:
"There is an illusion that the promised agreement
with Iran regarding its nuclear program will push it toward moderation,
as well as economic and political openness. What will probably happen is
the complete opposite.
The agreement will empower Tehran’s hawks, who
are currently being marketed in Iran and who are bragging that most of
the nuclear program has been accomplished and that the West has finally
submitted and abandoned sanctions.
"During the past few months of international
negotiations, Iran’s security fist tightened against state rivals,
voicing the regime’s self-confidence. The Kurdish rebellion a week ago
in the city of Mahabad, northwest Iran, was to protest security forces’
practices. A girl whom a military officer tried to rape jumped off a
balcony, and the Kurdish minority - whose population is 8 million -
revolted. Cruelty is behind growing anger in the outskirts of this
multiethnic state. In addition to the armed Iranian opposition (People's
Mojahedin of Iran), the number of anti-regime armed groups has
increased.
"The civil opposition in Tehran fears that signing
the nuclear agreement with the West will, unlike what is being promoted
in Washington, serve the interests of regime hardliners. The struggle
between moderates and hardliners within the state is no secret. The only
case when Iran was led by a moderate was under popular leader Mohammed
Khatami, who was president from 1997 until 2005. Khatami was met with
clerics’ expanded war against the entire moderate movement. He was
replaced by extremist Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who led Iran to its current
situation of more extremism and militarism, and thus engaging in wars in
Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
"The Iranian Revolutionary Guards are also active
domestically trying to suppress sedition, as they have done in Mahabad
and Balochistan province in the southwest. They have also increased
their presence in Khuzestan province, where there is a restive Arab
population. The government has previously faced considerable
difficulties in taming its Azeri citizens.
"Tehran still remembers the huge uprising that
erupted after the rigged elections in 2009, which lasted until Feb.
2010. That revolt was led by reformists from within the regime, and they
all ended up in jail.
"By signing the nuclear agreement, the hardliners
will feel more confident, aware that foreign threats will have been
neutralized and that no one will be able to confront them.
If Washington
had linked the deal to conditions obliging Tehran to halt its military
adventures in exchange for ending international sanctions and a pledge
that the West will not militarily target Iran, the situation of the
moderates within the theocratic regime may have been enhanced.
"The agreement will grant hardliners two gifts. The
first is that lifting economic sanctions will fill their treasury with
funds to manage their battles. The second is that they will have a
stronger status within the regime and against moderate clerics and
politicians."
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