Three long years of Iranian isolation
On the third anniversary of the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program, there are many doubts about whether this historic agreement can survive. US President Donald Trump has never concealed his dislike for the deal, and argues that his predecessor Barack Obama gave too many concessions to Iran.
Since he became president, Trump has withdrawn from the agreement, and unless Iran engages in talks about its ballistic missile program and regional meddling, he will reimpose sanctions. European signatories to the deal are looking for ways to help Iran, but in their hearts they must doubt whether this regime is worth the effort.
As for its regional neighbors, Iran’s engagement with them ranges from little to none. Tehran has arrogantly ignored them.
During previous international sanctions, the UAE, for example, behaved like a good neighbor. Its ports remained mostly open to Iranian trade, and it provided some banking access. However, Iran’s relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain soured, and mobs attacked Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad in January 2016.
Iran has never apologized to Saudi Arabia for those attacks, nor shown any interest in improving relations. Perhaps the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are too busy in Syria and Iraq, or using Houthi militias in Yemen, with the aim of dominating the region.
Peaceful relations with the rest of the world require trust, and there is none of that in Iran at the moment. Even foreign investors, who might have been expected to rush to compete for opportunities in the large and relatively untouched Iranian markets in the wake of the nuclear deal, hesitated. They preferred to test the waters before swimming in this unknown pool.
For investors, Iran was simultaneously attractive and unsafe. Mobs attacked the UK embassy in Tehran in 2011, and before that, in 1980, the US embassy. They took American diplomats hostage for 444 days. Canada severed diplomatic ties with Iran and closed its embassy in Tehran in 2012, because of Iran's support for the Assad regime in Syria.
Iran has never apologized to Saudi Arabia for those attacks, nor shown any interest in improving relations
Camelia Entekhabifard
The other side of the story is the suffering of the Iranian people themselves. The regime rules them with an iron fist, while wasting their wealth on military adventures in pursuit of its regional ambitions in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Against this background, it is understandable that foreign investors were so slow in showing up in Iran.
No one knows if the regime has a Plan B to survive this turmoil. President Trump believes he can force them to the negotiating table. He said last week: “They’re treating us with much more respect. I know their economy is collapsing. But I'll tell you this, at a certain point they’re going to call me and say ‘Let’s make a deal.’ They’re feeling a lot of pain right now.”
However, here was Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, speaking last Friday: “Tehran does not want talks with the United States and does not think US President Donald Trump is worthy of being addressed by Iran.
"We do not want to have talks with the Americans, and if the Americans have an illusion that we will approach them and offer to negotiate, we do not need that.”
Nevertheless, everything has a price. When they meet this week, we will see what Russian President Vladimir Putin has to sell President Trump.
- Camelia Entekhabifard is an Iranian-American journalist, political commentator and author of Camelia: Save Yourself By Telling the Truth (Seven Stories Press, 2008). Twitter: @CameliaFard
