Last week, representatives from the United Nations Security Council and Iran engaged in talks about Iran’s nuclear program in Geneva. In exchange for loosening economic sanctions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani claims to be willing to employ greater transparency in Iran’s nuclear development. These negotiations and the phone call between Rouhani and President Obama have created a surge of optimism regarding future relations between Iran and the West. Many American leaders and strategists are eager to give the regime a chance to change its ways. But, sadly, Rouhani is no Mikhail Gorbachev.
This administration’s progressiveness is most likely a facade. Despite any notions of liberalism he harbors, the president answers first and foremost to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and would not be in power if Khamenei did not approve. All recent intelligence on Khamenei indicates that he is staunchly anti-American and leery of establishing any relationship with the West. Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Rouhani’s pick for minister of justice, was part of a council that orchestrated the mass torture and executions of Iranian political dissidents in 1988, during his tenure as deputy intelligence minister. Pourmohammadi was an integral part of the Special Affairs Council, the shadowy organization in charge of targeting political dissidents for assassination and torture. In short, Rouhani is charging a butcher with the justice of the nation, which indicates his administration is the same old oppressive Revolutionary Guard with a new, friendlier mask.
With the tacit approval of Ayatollah Khamenei, President Rouhani is extending a hand to the West only because Iran is withering. Western sanctions have succeeded in crippling the Iranian economy, and public support for a nuclear program is waning due to the falling standards of living. A majority of the population lives under the poverty line. The communication with the international community is only to reduce sanctions and preserve the regime for another season.
To avoid external threats, Iran will likely continue cultivating nuclear weapons, regardless of any accords reached in Geneva. North Korea exemplifies how to please the domestic and international community just enough to maintain power while still developing nuclear weapons.
Iran won’t stop pursuing this technology because it provides the ultimate tool for resisting challengers from abroad and ensures that the regime can keep their people isolated from outside ideologies. Many groups within the Iranian leadership — particularly the Revolutionary Guard, who control imports — stand to benefit from this continued isolationism and will hinder attempts to globalize Iran.
Repairing relations with the Iranian people, opening Iran up to the global community and preventing further human rights abuses are all essential to ensuring security for all parties. Rather than devoting all energies to haggling over nuclear policy with recalcitrant elites, the international community needs to invest in empowering Iranians. The current treatment of Iran’s citizenry is unacceptable. Iran has the most executions per capita in the world, which are often for offenses as minor as drug use. Prisoners are denied due process, and executions are public. In addition, the Iranian parliament is currently crafting legislation that would make it legal for men to marry 13-year-olds. All of these violate nternational standards of human rights. Rather than engaging Iran singularly on the nuclear issue, the negotiating parties should take a multipronged approach that includes human rights in its negotiations. I agree with Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who argues human rights violations in Iran need to be part of the sanction negotiations to avoid making the impression that nations can pick which international norms they violate.
This approach could help open Iran to the rest of the world. Contrary to popular belief, pro-West sentiment abounds throughout Iran. In a blog post published by the Huffington Post, Stephen Kinzer, visiting fellow at the Watson Institute, who has traveled to and written extensively on Iran, called this feeling “a priceless strategic asset to the U.S.” He went on to say that pro-American sentiments among the Iranian people come from admiration of American achievements: democracy, personal liberty and rule of law. Iranians want engagement with the global community in order to attain these attributes in their own country.
To harness these sentiments, the international community needs to move human rights into every conversation with Iranian diplomats. This Iranian administration is not made up of the reformers we would wish for. The global community must pressure Iran into ending human rights abuses and giving the Iranian people access to global communication. This way, we may be able to strengthen relations with the people of Iran and perhaps sway future leaders.
Any assistance must not be viewed as another form of foreign imperialism — and this is, admittedly, a very fine line to tread.
But the stakes are too high for inaction. The global community must approach Iran’s interest in negotiating with tact, caution and the lessons of North Korea fresh in mind, with an eye toward empowering the Iranian citizenry.
Robyn Sundlee ’16 is trying really hard not to be an imperialist.
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