Originally published on the CGS blog on August 14, 2015.
The P5+1 Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is vital for reducing the risk of nuclear militarization and for allowing Iran to operate much more freely in international commerce—to pump more oil and gas, buy more freely abroad, entertain more direct foreign investment, etc. From the world’s perspective, the deal opens up much more international commerce with Iran.
But there is a broader perspective as well. In the modern history of Iran, this deal can be a landmark affecting both the internal dynamics and the external behavior of the country.
Iran, the current embodiment of the Persian culture and heir to one of the oldest major civilizations, has had a turbulent passage through the 20th and 21st centuries. It may be fair to say that Iran has faced two major governance challenges.
One challenge has been choosing among or somehow melding the open, secular, and democratic institutions which have grown out of Europe or “the West”; the dynastic traditions of much of Iran’s past; and the cultural and sometimes theocratic traditions of Islam, imposed on Persia by Arab conquerors in the 7th-10th centuries.
Iran nominally became a constitutional monarchy as early as 1906, but the roles of monarch and parliament have shifted from time to time. Monarchs have become highly autocratic for long stretches, including, according to some records, the period between 1953 and the revolution of 1979. That 1979 revolution ousted a Shah strongly identified with the West, and particularly the United States, who instituted economic and social changes deeply disturbing to Iran’s clerical establishment, to some of the land-owning elites, and to more traditional elements of its population.
Iran’s government now incorporates elections, a parliament, and a president, but ultimate authority is attributed to a cleric. Conceptually the State operates under a form of “guardianship” by an Islamic clerical establishment. The governmental, social, and commercial structures are complex and somewhat opaque, but show considerable tensions between elements of the population much attracted by “Western” norms and a repressive theocracy.
The second challenge is the struggle to maintain effective national sovereignty in an intrusive world. An Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 divided Persia into spheres of influence, regardless of national sovereignty. World War II saw an Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. After that Iran regained sovereignty, and an elected Prime Minister attempted to nationalize the oil industry, which the British had effectively controlled for over a century up to that time. The result was a British blockade of the country, and a British-American overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953.
When the government installed at the behest of Britain and the United States was itself overthrown in 1979, the ascendant Islamic leaders exerted control of Iran’s extensive petrochemical assets and attempted a massive restructuring of the economy and society along centralized, authoritarian and theocratic lines.
In this latest embodiment, Iran’s attempts to exert influence in the Middle East, including support for groups hostile to Israel, led to extensive sanctions by the United States. Such sanctions were strengthened by involving Europe and the United Nations on the basis of fears that Iran was nearing nuclear weapon capability. The net effect has been an extensive physical and financial blockade, substantially restricting the performance of the Iranian economy.
All this history has been evident in the process of negotiating the agreements now before our Congress. Though Supreme Leader Khamenei authorized negotiations with the West, the tensions of Iran’s past have been evident. Khamenei has articulated the suspicions and insular tendencies of the clerical establishment and other hardliners, while Iran’s President and its negotiators have indicated the desire of much of Iran for some accommodation with the remainder of the world economy and society.
In this context, the agreement has been framed as a limited one: a trade of new restraints on nuclear weaponization for relief from the current chokehold on Iran’s economy. Our diplomats have, quite honestly, made clear that there is no one option that would certainly and quickly bring all our “Western” goals in the Middle East into harmony with those of present-day Iran.
But if the agreement is enacted and respected by the parties, it will mark a historic re-opening of trade and social interchange between Iran and the West. If this re-opening does in fact raise the economic and social horizons of the Iranian population, the relative positions of the modernizers and the current insular elites are likely to change over time.
I learned long ago in India that any major civilization experiences cultural momentum, or inertia, if you will. This is certainly true of Iran. Thus our representatives have been wise in counseling us not to expect sudden affection from Iran or broad emulation of us in its government.
But the Iran deal opens pathways to peaceful accommodations among the nations involved, greater nuclear security for our allies in the Middle East, and greater integration of world societies. This is worth having. If it is implemented in accord with its provisions and spirit, the deal is likely to become a new and welcome landmark both in Iran’s internal evolution and in its relationships with the global community. It offers all of us better prospects.
