The precise ideological lessons that Iran\u2019s new leadership draws from the 110-day war may prove to be the overriding factor in determining whether negotiations with the US culminate in an agreement that verifiably prevents the country from developing a nuclear weapon \u2013 an outcome that could usher in a new era for the Iranian economy while also reshaping the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Does this rapidly assembled leadership team, forged in the fire of war, still represent an Islamic ideological crusade \u2013 a description coined by Henry Kissinger \u2013 or does the acceptance of the memorandum of understanding, in the words of JD Vance, denote a desire for pragmatism?<\/p>\n
The vacuum created by the invisibility of Iran\u2019s injured supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a>, makes this moment something of an interregnum. On Thursday, Khamenei published a letter saying he opposed the deal in principle but had deferred to the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, after being given undertakings that if the US demanded too much, he would not accept.<\/p>\n The rights of the country and the axis of resistance had to be protected, Khamenei said. Like his father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei, he has put himself in the enviable position of ensuring absolution from blame if the elected politicians get burnt dealing with the west.<\/p>\n An Iranian man walks past a banner depicting Mojtaba Khamenei, the country\u2019s supreme leader, at Valiasr Square in Tehran. Photograph: Atta Kenare\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n His public intervention, on the eve of now-cancelled talks in Switzerland, may yet influence the balance of a charged debate inside the US administration as to the nature of Iran\u2019s new, younger leadership.<\/p>\n On Friday last week, Donald Trump seemed to land on one side when he accused the Iranian leadership of being \u201cvery dishonourable people who don\u2019t deal in good faith\u201d.<\/p>\n That assessment appeared to chime with the views of John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, who warned his president that a significant gap separated the positions publicly expressed by Iranian officials from what they were saying privately. \u201cIntelligence indicates that Iranian intentions do not align with the commitments made in the agreement,\u201d Ratcliffe concluded, a source close to the discussions told Axios.<\/p>\n The hint was that Iran\u2019s leadership team would either stall on a nuclear agreement or, worse, conclude they must secretly assemble a weapon since the strait of Hormuz would eventually become a wasting asset.<\/p>\n Few Iranians deny that the strait was decisive in proving the US could no longer impose global order unilaterally.<\/p>\n Donald Trump talking with the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, left; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and the White House chief of staff. Susie Wiles. Photograph: Daniel Torok\/AP<\/p>\n Payam Fazlinejad, a hardline editor of the magazine Naqd Andisheh, said: \u201cHistory has also shown America that geography sometimes takes revenge on technology; part of the source of power lies in geographical straits, not in heavy military equipment. Iran has come to understand that it possesses a greater deterrent power than a nuclear weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n But, like many others, Fazlinejad urged the leadership to break the never-ending cycle of war, negotiations and protests. \u201cThe country cannot afford a new miscalculation and must restore stability to the country,\u201d he told Pezeshkian at a meeting of media editors this week. Politicians may have different prescriptions but it is clear the public crave a return to normality.<\/p>\n Trump, judging by his remarks at the G7 summit in \u00c9vian-les-Bains, has gone all in on a version of this analysis and, as a result, decided to embrace Iran\u2019s leadership. On Tuesday, he described the country\u2019s leaders \u2013 the third set with whom he has had to negotiate \u2013 as \u201cthe most rational group we have ever dealt with \u2026 They are not radicalised. They are looking to help their country.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s team like to think they have been given in the last few weeks privileged access to the most senior figures in Tehran in a way that is unprecedented for US politicians since the 1979 revolution.<\/p>\n Donald Trump and France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron during the signing of a deal with Iran to end the Middle East war. Photograph: @EmmanuelMacron\/X\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Vance, for instance, said the US had never got so close to the Iranian leadership. \u201cThe coolest thing about the progress we\u2019ve made over the last few weeks is that you\u2019re seeing people within the Iranian system \u2013 senior leadership, even IRGC<\/a> officials \u2013 say: \u2018You know what? We recognise the way that we\u2019ve done business with the US for 47 years is a mistake.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He said it was the hardliners in Tehran who were playing up the benefits of the deal for Iran and playing down its drawbacks \u2013 an assessment that in fact is probably the opposite of what has been happening in the capital over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n In reality, it has been the most hardline faction, known as the Paydari Front and long opposed to engagement with the west, that has denigrated the deal. This group, linked to the former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and prominent in the parliament, described the deal as a catastrophe and said ending the blockade now was premature.<\/p>\n Many of its members appeared at street rallies and on TV to denounce the negotiating team as a betrayal of the revolution and of the martyred supreme leader. Jalili\u2019s brother Vahid, who runs much of the state broadcaster Irib, has provided a platform for critics of the deal, to the open frustration of Pezeshkian. Critics claim Irib is an inverted version of Fox News, suppressing diverse opinion.<\/p>\n The internal battle over the deal was, in some ways, a re-run of the arguments Iran went through when it signed the nuclear deal in 2015. The chief negotiator, the then foreign minister Javad Zarif, became a target of vitriol for years, accused of naively striking a deal with the \u201cGreat Satan\u201d.<\/p>\n When Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, he severely undermined the faction that saw Iran\u2019s opening to the west\u2019s markets as essential. Ever since, the advocates of negotiation have had to overcome the reasonable argument that the US cannot be trusted. Currently it is Trump\u2019s inability to control Israel in Lebanon that weakens the negotiations in Tehran.<\/p>\n