Iran sets hardline tone as new leader takes over
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Once a protege of Iran’s supreme leader is sworn in as president this week, hardliners will control all parts of the Islamic Republic’s civilian government.
Given the brinkmanship over its accelerating nuclear program and the West alleging that Tehran launched a fatal drone attack targeting an oil tanker last week, one might think that had already happened.
Iran’s inauguration of Presidentelect Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday represents the last stop in a slow slide from the hopes that the 2015 nuclear deal would open the Islamic Republic to the West.
Instead, the country that Raisi takes over is now enriching small quantities of uranium closer than ever to weaponsgrade levels, interferes with international inspections of its nuclear sites and allegedly plotted to kidnap an exiled critic from the streets of Brooklyn.
Relations between Iran and the U.S. always remain anchored to the weight of their bitter history. For America, it began with the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover and subsequent hostage crisis that doomed the presidency of Jimmy Carter. In Iran, the original sin remains the 1953 CIAbacked coup that toppled the country’s prime minister and cemented the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — lighting the long fuse for the Islamic Revolution.
The nuclear deal sought to end another escalatory cycle between Iran and the United States. Under the accord, Tehran agreed to drastically limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions crushing its longailing economy.
The deal came under the administration of nowoutgoing President Hassan Rouhani, a relatively moderate cleric within the theocracy. It showed that Iran’s civilian government, though operating with narrow leeway under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can affect how the rest of the world interacts with Iran.
But former President Donald Trump in May 2018 unilaterally withdrew from the deal, saying it dealt only with the nuclear program and not Iran’s ballistic missile program nor its support of regional militias.
And by last week, Khamenei assailed the deal’s failings, saying: “In this government, it was shown that trust in the West does not work.”