he nuclear negotiation between Iran and the United States represents a historic shiftone that is actually more significant for Iranians than it is for Americans. If there is a deal over the next week, as the two sides approach their end-of-March deadline, it will severely undermine the ideology that has been in place since the beginning of the Iranian Islamic Republic in 1979, and which regime hardliners have used to great effect to consolidate their power: anti-Americanism as a legitimizing force.
For more than 35 years, any liaison whatsoever with the United States has been perceived in Iran as simple treason. Any taint of involvement with the United States by anyone has politically undermined the alleged perpetrator and shored up the regime. Every misfortune and disaster the country confronted was blamed on U.S. intrigues against the Islamic Revolution: Saddam Husseins invasion of Iran in 1980 and subsequent eight-year war with Iraq; the massacre of more than four hundred Iranian pilgrims in Mecca in 1986; the fall of the oil prices in the late 1980s; the assassinations of hundreds of Iranian revolutionary officials by the Peoples Mujahidin and everything else that went wrong in post-revolutionary Iran. The Islamic Revolution was turned into a historic struggle against the U.S. aggressor.
Now, for the first time since the founding of the Islamic Republic, Tehran and Washington are openly negotiating, and they may be close to an agreement. Were that to be achieved, the Iranian government would have to own up to a new reality that would be a hammer-blow to hardline thinking and could pave the way for the two countries to cooperate on mutual concerns in the region, including in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and even Lebanon.
If the talks fail, on the other hand, it could all easily backfire and play into the hands of the hardliners once again. And we will all be back where we were.
The last time officials from the two countries met publicly, which was in Algeria during the anniversary of the Algerian Revolution in 1979, a political earthquake shook Iran and resulted in what became known in the United States as the hostage crisis. Thousands of Iranians rallied against the meeting and demanded the resignation of the government of Mehdi Bazargan, which had dared to negotiate with their American counterparts. Radical Islamic students took over the U.S. Embassy compound in Tehran and detained all its employees. The incident lasted for 444 days. The Iranian government was forced to resign and a powerful anti-Americanism euphoria ran through Iran which has lasted since today. Anti-Americanism became the principal criteria of the emerging revolutionary Iran. The Iranian supreme leader, the late Imam Khomeini, increasingly became more and more hostile towards the United States.
A race started among the Iranian leaders in order to prove they were more anti-American than each other. Many moderate Iranian figures fell from grace for not being sufficiently opposed to the United States. Others had to prove their revolutionary credentials by veering strongly toward anti-Americanism.
The nuclear dispute has been portrayed in the same way. When for the first time in 2003 it was known that Iran was carrying out a nuclear program, the reformist government led by moderate P Mohammad Khatami tried to reach an agreement with the West. Tehran voluntarily suspended her enrichment program for two years in order to appease the Western powers. When the West failed to reciprocate, the radicals exploited it to their benefit. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the hardliners won the presidential election in 2005 and the new president went as far as accusing the previous government of treason for slowing down the countrys nuclear program for two crucial years. Ahmadinejad blamed the United States for hatching a new plot against revolutionary Iran. He accused the Americans of preventing Iran from developing her nuclear program. He argued that the countrys nuclear program would lead major technical, industrial, economical and scientific progress and turn Islamic Iran into a regional superpower. That is why, Ahmadinejad explained, the countrys arch enemy, the United States, was so much against it. U.S. disagreement with Irans nuclear program was interpreted as stemming from Washingtons long hostility toward Islamic Iran since the 1979 revolution. Ahmadinejad was thus raised to heroic stature. Needless to say, anyone who thought otherwise was considered a traitor.
It is against this background that the West should view Irans willingness to negotiate now over the nuclear dispute. Any concession in the countrys nuclear activities has been seen, until today, as tantamount to giving in to Western arrogance. Hardliners in Iran would invariably see any suggestion of an easing of hostility between the two countries as a treasonable course, and a path which deviated from Khomeinis path.
So this is another revolution for Iranand if the talks succeed in a deal it could be an enduring revolution. It will undercut the hardliners who have been using anti Americanism as a powerful fuel to justify a wide range of policies both domestically and internationally and exploit Anti-Americanism to justify their mismanagement and wrongdoings. At the same time it will create a more appropriate climate for moderates and reformists inside the country who wont fear engaging in serious conversations with hardliners on both domestic and international concerns, as they will no longer have to labor under the fear of being accused of being pro-American.
This article was written by Sadegh Zibakalam for Politico Magazine on March 25, 2015. Sadegh Zibakalam is a professor of political science at the University of Tehran.
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