By Denis Korkodinov
Washington’s strategic mistake regarding Iran is to consider the Ayatollah regime as a whole. Such a mistake may lead to the intensification of radical forces in Iran, which could favor the outbreak of a war.
More than 1,000 Iranian organizations and individuals were subject to US sanctions only because they operate in Iran, even Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.
According to the White House administration, such diplomatic pressure will force Tehran to sit at the negotiating table. However, if the position about Ali Khamenei, who is the reference persons of the Ultra-Orthodox Iranians, could be understandable, then the sanctions against the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who has lived in the United States for more than 30 years and knows the intricacies of American politics are much better than everyone else in Iran, are not justified.
Currently, Javad Zarif is the only Iranian politician who can sit at the negotiating table with Washington. And the introduction of sanctions against him suggests that the “American hawks” will have no one to negotiate with.
The Iranian foreign minister is the spokesman of the moderate wing of the political elite. Despite the fact that, due the nature of his function, he acts as an integral part of the political hierarchy of the regime of the Ayatollahs, Javad Zarif is a pragmatist who will not launch of a war in a fit of emotion. However, his elimination from the negotiation process gives a chance to conservative clerics and the military to be more unpredictable, and therefore more dangerous.
US-Iran negotiations will be possible only if it will be is a balance of interests between radical and moderate grouping of forces. In taking the distance with the Iranian foreign minister, the White House administration probably eliminates the only possibility to open a negotiation process.
According to the order of the United State Department, the movements of Javad Zarif in US are limited to only six points between the UN headquarters, the Iranian mission and the UN seat of the Islamic Republic.
In itself, this restriction may be considered absurd, since, in accordance with international rules, the activity of a diplomat cannot be limited. Such restrictions have not been established even for Muammar Gaddafi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, among other things, had the opportunity to speak freely to the students of Columbia University.
Javad Zarif is the only one who was able to convince the Iranian government to eliminate nuclear facilities in accordance with the nuclear deal. In addition, he was able to influence the Supreme Leader of Iran to ensure unhindered access for international inspection, designed to monitor compliance with the nuclear agreement. It is quite likely that without Javad Zarif the access in Iran of the International experts of the Atomic Energy Agency will be closed.
Moreover, if Tehran nevertheless will decide to build nuclear weapons, this could be facilitated precisely by the fact that Javad Zarif, as a result of the sanctions to him, may consider himself free from any obligations towards the United States.
Thus, whether Washington wants to or not, it will be necessary to negotiate with the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Strengthening US sanctions against members of the moderate wing of Tehran’s political elite will only exacerbate the problem, strengthening the Iranian nationalist fanatics who push for the war.
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).