Tehran has an opportunity to become a force for stability in a region in meltdown, The lifting of sanctions on Iran’s economy this weekend not only provides a welcome example that concerted international action and dogged diplomacy can resolve intractable global problems. It brings the Islamic Republic, seen by the west and many of its neighbours as a rogue nation since the 1979 Iranian revolution, in from the cold as a regional power in the Middle East. And it reconnects a potentially vibrant emerging economy to world markets, with the allure of a bonanza for international and local investors, and a brighter future for a restive young population.
The agreement Iran reached last year, with international powers led by the US, to curb its nuclear programme and place it under external scrutiny in exchange for relief from draconian sanctions and the unfreezing of up to $100bn of Iranian assets, opens the way for Tehran to become a force for stability in a region in meltdown.
Iran is already being treated as an indispensable player in several Middle Eastern conflicts. It has a seat at the table in the US- and Russian-convened diplomatic forum to chart a transition out of Syria’s savage civil war. The US and Iran discreetly co-operate in Iraq in the fight against Isis. The exchange of American and Iranian prisoners over the weekend underlines that Washington and Tehran intend to do business based on interests rather than the visceral animosities of the past.
Yet it is not just whether Iran abides by the terms of the nuclear deal that will decide its global legitimacy. It has a long road to travel to win acceptance inside the Middle East, where it has forged a Shia axis from Baghdad to Beirut, and where Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni Arab power, is unremittingly hostile to a re-emergence of Iran that it believes can only come at its expense.
The Saudi absolute monarchy, legitimised by the doctrinal absolutism of the Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam, has lashed out against Shiism it regards as both heresy and threat, executing a prominent Saudi Shia cleric this month and last year launching an air war against quasi-Shia Houthi insurgents in neighbouring Yemen. Under a more assertive but untried leadership, the Saudis have also made clear they feel betrayed by the US, their long-term patron and ally.
Yet the Saudis are not alone among Arabs in feeling that Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have taken advantage of the fracturing of Arab countries — after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in the convulsions that followed the 2011 Arab uprisings, above all in Syria — to behave like an imperial power.
Iranian support, now reinforced by Russia, has kept the regime of Bashar al-Assad in place in Syria, albeit within a shrinking rump state. It was Tehran’s support for the ruinously sectarian, albeit US-backed, Shia Islamist prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, that opened the way to the Isis surge into north and west Iraq in 2014. The IRGC, using militia as its weapon of choice, has contributed to the implosion of states and institutions from Iraq to Lebanon.
But even if Tehran now decides it is in its interest to pull in its geopolitical horns, it faces both great opportunity and real challenge in how it opens up its economy.
Regional experts on Iran say that as a result of the sanctions just lifted it has unmet investment needs of $150bn-$200bn a year for the coming decade. Even at a time of low oil prices, its possession of a fifth of proven world gas reserves will count in a world more attuned to climate change. This weekend it announced plans to buy more than 100 new airliners from Airbus to renew its decrepit fleet.
But managing economic transition and reintegrating with the global economy will inevitably embolden new players and rivals to traditional power centres in Iran such as the IRGC, which controls a sprawling business empire. The Revolutionary Guard always saw this kind of change as the slippery slope to regime change. Jubilant as Iranians are at the end of their isolation, their leaders, riven between modernisers and vested interests such as the IRGC, still have a lot to play for.
The agreement Iran reached last year, with international powers led by the US, to curb its nuclear programme and place it under external scrutiny in exchange for relief from draconian sanctions and the unfreezing of up to $100bn of Iranian assets, opens the way for Tehran to become a force for stability in a region in meltdown.
Iran is already being treated as an indispensable player in several Middle Eastern conflicts. It has a seat at the table in the US- and Russian-convened diplomatic forum to chart a transition out of Syria’s savage civil war. The US and Iran discreetly co-operate in Iraq in the fight against Isis. The exchange of American and Iranian prisoners over the weekend underlines that Washington and Tehran intend to do business based on interests rather than the visceral animosities of the past.
Yet it is not just whether Iran abides by the terms of the nuclear deal that will decide its global legitimacy. It has a long road to travel to win acceptance inside the Middle East, where it has forged a Shia axis from Baghdad to Beirut, and where Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni Arab power, is unremittingly hostile to a re-emergence of Iran that it believes can only come at its expense.
The Saudi absolute monarchy, legitimised by the doctrinal absolutism of the Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam, has lashed out against Shiism it regards as both heresy and threat, executing a prominent Saudi Shia cleric this month and last year launching an air war against quasi-Shia Houthi insurgents in neighbouring Yemen. Under a more assertive but untried leadership, the Saudis have also made clear they feel betrayed by the US, their long-term patron and ally.
Yet the Saudis are not alone among Arabs in feeling that Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have taken advantage of the fracturing of Arab countries — after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in the convulsions that followed the 2011 Arab uprisings, above all in Syria — to behave like an imperial power.
Iranian support, now reinforced by Russia, has kept the regime of Bashar al-Assad in place in Syria, albeit within a shrinking rump state. It was Tehran’s support for the ruinously sectarian, albeit US-backed, Shia Islamist prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, that opened the way to the Isis surge into north and west Iraq in 2014. The IRGC, using militia as its weapon of choice, has contributed to the implosion of states and institutions from Iraq to Lebanon.
But even if Tehran now decides it is in its interest to pull in its geopolitical horns, it faces both great opportunity and real challenge in how it opens up its economy.
Regional experts on Iran say that as a result of the sanctions just lifted it has unmet investment needs of $150bn-$200bn a year for the coming decade. Even at a time of low oil prices, its possession of a fifth of proven world gas reserves will count in a world more attuned to climate change. This weekend it announced plans to buy more than 100 new airliners from Airbus to renew its decrepit fleet.
But managing economic transition and reintegrating with the global economy will inevitably embolden new players and rivals to traditional power centres in Iran such as the IRGC, which controls a sprawling business empire. The Revolutionary Guard always saw this kind of change as the slippery slope to regime change. Jubilant as Iranians are at the end of their isolation, their leaders, riven between modernisers and vested interests such as the IRGC, still have a lot to play for.
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