UNREST SHOWS THE IRAN DEAL’S VALUE

For ordinary Iranians, the great promise of the 2015 nuclear deal was economic revival. International sanctions would be lifted, foreign investment would flow and the standard of living, crippled by years of ostracism by the United States and its partners, would rise, allowing Iran to once again flourish.

That hasn’t happened, or at least not the way Iranians expected, thus producing conditions that helped make the recent protests — the most serious since 2009 — possible. Over two weeks, thousands of Iranians in more than 80 cities took to the streets to denounce high unemployment, inflation and corruption.

As the unrest unfolded, President Donald Trump blamed the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated under President Barack Obama because it required the United States to put millions of dollars back into the hands of a repressive government — money that belonged to Iran but was frozen after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and returned when Iran curbed its nuclear program.

It’s more plausible that by raising expectations for a better life, the deal opened Iranians’ eyes and made them less tolerant when the government fell short.

The deal has had a beneficial effect. The economy grew by 7 percent in 2016 and was expected to do so again in 2017, a far cry from the 9 percent shrinkage in the two years before March 2014, when modest sanctions relief took effect. Oil production is nearly at pre-sanctions levels, foreign companies are making new energy investments and Boeing has received orders for commercial aircraft.

Nevertheless, growth and investment aren’t doing enough to meet the needs of a population mainly too young to remember the Islamic Revolution.

While low oil prices are a big factor in Iran’s failure to rebound, so are corruption, mismanagement, a weak banking system, money laundering, a flawed rule of law and human rights abuses, including arrests of American-Iranian businessmen, that make foreign companies reluctant to do business. The hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and religious institutions, which control much of the economy, are obstructions to reform.

On Monday, President Hassan Rouhani came to the protesters’ defense, saying they objected not just to a weak economy but also to widespread corruption and the clerical government’s strict policies on personal conduct and freedoms. “One cannot force one’s lifestyle on the future generations,” he said in remarks reported by the semiofficial ISNA news agency.

All this reveals a real struggle for Iran’s future that requires an approach more sophisticated than Trump’s, which until Friday would have exploited the turmoil to justify reneging on the nuclear deal. That would have freed Iran to resume nuclear activities and enable new sanctions that would shift Iranian rage from Tehran to Washington. On Friday, Trump decided to stay with the Iran nuclear deal for another 120 days.

But Iran’s future is for the Iranians to determine. The United States needs to be cautious about more direct involvement in the country’s politics. America has a troubled history with Iran, including overthrowing the country’s democratically elected leader in 1953. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Vietnam are haunting reminders of America’s failures at orchestrating change abroad.

The question is how to help Iranians who favor nonviolent change. The United States, with its Western allies, should, of course, advocate the right of Iranians to seek peaceful political change, condemn the arrests of peaceful protesters and the violence against them, and urge internet companies to make it harder for Iran’s leaders to block social media apps like Telegram. If he cares about the Iranian people, as he claims, Trump will also lift the ban on Iranians traveling to America.

But the president should also be aware that foolish moves by his administration could empower the most regressive forces and set back reforms that could bring Iran fully into the community of nations.