© REUTERS/Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool

When Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani addressed the participants at the October 15 Valdai Club (the topic was “War and Peace”) he was wearing black, as is traditional among Shiites on Ashura in commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali. However, the mere fact that Larijani was invited to share a panel with Russian president Vladimir Putin surely must have cheered up the mood in Tehran – as well as Putin’s statements, which depicted the Islamic Republic as an indispensable partner in the search for a solution to the war in Syria and in the fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS).

But is this Tehran-Moscow axis a tactical marriage of convenience, or does it herald the emergence of a strategic alliance?

On the surface, the two states have several converging policy designs, including the immediate objectives of preventing the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Ba’ath regime in Damascus and the defeat and annihilation of what remains of United States-backed opposition groups in Syria, as well as the long-term total humiliation of the US and its allies in an attempt to roll back the post-Cold War American world order.

And it would seem the two have arrived at a certain division of labor to achieve these objectives. Since September 30, 2015, Russia has been conducting air operations in Syria, both to destroy opposition forces and to provide air support to the Syrian army, and it has intensified its arms deliveries to Damascus. Iran, on the other hand, is providing the boots on the ground, supplementing what remains of the Syrian army with Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) forces, Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, and Shiite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan, and even distant Pakistan.

This arrangement minimizes the risk of Russian and Iranian losses, which is essential for Russia in particular, as it still struggles with the painful “Afghanistan syndrome” and suffered a devastating blow on October 31 when an IS affiliate succeeded in bringing a bomb onto a Russian airliner departing from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing 224 vacationers and crew members. But the Iranian authorities are also keen to avoid casualties, which carry the risk of shifting public opinion, and so are happy to leave the heavy lifting to the more willing, and more politically expendable, Shiite militias and irregulars.

Limits of Convergence

The convergence may come to a sudden end, however, as the two sides discuss in greater detail the relative degree of order and stability they hope to achieve in Syria. Iran may want a perpetual low intensity conflict, where it may conveniently use the threat of the IS as a bogeyman in its relations with the US and the Europeans and thus legitimize its continued military presence.

Russia, on the other hand, is more likely to prefer a Syrian regime that is weak enough to be dependent on Moscow for continued support, but also strong enough to be able to effectively exercise its power throughout the entire territory of its state. An estimated 7,000 Russian citizens have reportedly joined the ranks of IS, from which they may turn their attention to the volatile regions of the Northern Caucasus or Central Asia. One therefore expects Putin to aim for nothing less than the total elimination of all pockets of IS resistance in Syria. Indeed, if this was not already his goal, the successful downing of the Russian airliner over the Sinai desert clearly will have made it more difficult to accept, however tacitly, any IS presence anywhere.

This difference in perspective most likely also translates into different views on the possible duration of the two states’ respective engagements in Syria. If Tehran actually prefers a continued low-intensity conflict, it will worry less about when the conflict ends and how it can eventually exit in a coherent way. Moscow, on the other hand, is restricted much more by time, and the Russian public is unlikely to accept a military involvement counted in years and trillions of rubles.

Moreover, the apparent lack of an exit strategy notwithstanding, the Kremlin surely must be thinking long and hard about how to leave Syria gracefully in case the US and its allies refuse to accept Bashar al-Assad as the legitimate ruler of Syria. Russia will only be able to provide military life support to Assad as long as Russian public patience lasts, but will find it difficult to leave him alone to be toppled by IS or one of the numerous opposition groups hoping for his downfall.

A related point of contention is that of the fate of Bashar al-Assad himself. While Moscow may be ready to replace him with another leader to save a regime subservient to Moscow, Tehran – the IRGC in particular – considers the preservation of Assad the only guarantee of regime survival in Syria.

Fundamental Distrust

Even more critically, however, the Russian-Iranian relationship is still complicated by a fundamental mutual distrust between the two parties.

By asserting itself in the Syrian theater of war, Russia demonstrates to the Iranians its superior military capabilities, insists that to sidestep it would be a bad decision, and tries to keep Iran within its sphere of influence. At the same time, Russia may also sell out Iranian interests in Syria if it manages to extract concessions from the US. Such a course would be consistent with existing Russian policy of using the Islamic Republic as a bargaining chip in its dealings with the US.

Putin’s claim at the Valdai Club that Moscow had been “deceived by the United States” with regard to Iran’s nuclear program was a crude attempt at covering his government’s support of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, while simultaneously extracting money and political concessions from Tehran in return for not allowing even harsher resolutions.

The political leadership of the Islamic Republic is only too aware of Putin’s scheming. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, however, along with the accompanying removal of the international sanctions regime have made Tehran less dependent on Russia, and seem to provide Tehran with greater maneuverability between Washington and Moscow. Iran’s use of US air support in the spring 2015 seizure of the Iraqi city of Tikrit – and Moscow’s fear of more instances of military cooperation between Tehran and Washington – may have been one of the motives behind Russia’s military engagement in Syria.

Bashar al-Assad, too, has an interest in gaining greater independence. By using his Russian benefactor, the Assad regime hopes to reduce its total dependence on the benevolence of Tehran, which may cause some tension between Iran and Russia, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Putin both competing for the position of master of Damascus and architect of the future order of Syria.

The official speeches in both Tehran and Moscow may celebrate the close ties between the two states and their joint efforts to save the “legitimate” ruler of Syria , thus restoring what they see as a lost international order. But behind the curtain problems abound, and the tactical cooperation which we are seeing now will have a difficult time developing into a fully fledged strategic partnership.

The post The Twisted Tehran-Moscow Axis appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/RIA Novosti

“Today is a historical day,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said as the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 nations – the UN Security Council and Germany – agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on July 14, 2015. Within an hour, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared: “God has listened to the prayers of the great Iranian nation!”

The triumphal tone of both men was understandable – after all, negotiating an agreement to govern the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in exchange for an end to the international sanctions regime and improved economic prospects for the average Iranian was the election promise that paved their way to office.

However, while Rouhani and Zarif were busy celebrating their recent negotiating triumph, their opponents in Tehran, chief among them Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), were engaged in a fierce political struggle against the dynamic duo. The outcome will not only affect the political career of Rouhani and his team, but also the fate of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group, along with the future of the Islamic Republic after Khamenei.

With the nuclear agreement in hand, Khamenei no longer needs Rouhani or Zarif. While he shielded them from domestic criticism during their first two years in office, he is not likely to continue to do so; in fact, fearing their popularity, Khamenei may actively encourage the Revolutionary Guards to attack the president and his allies politically.

Not that the Revolutionary Guards need Khamenei’s active encouragement: as the engine of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and the most likely custodian of the bomb, the Revolutionary Guards would doubtlessly benefit most if Iran were to resume its pursuit of a nuclear bomb. This goes a long way towards explaining the Revolutionary Guards’ opposition to Rouhani’s nuclear diplomacy: Rouhani has attempted to politically marginalize the Revolutionary Guards, pushing them out of economic activities.

Rouhani, however, has no intention of surrendering to his enemies in Tehran, and is perhaps in a better position to defend himself than his “pragmatic” forerunners. Rouhani’s team is not a one-man operation that emerged from nowhere, but the product of the large “technocratic” and clerical network built by his mentor, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

And Rouhani has been mobilizing the Iranian public to his cause. As demonstrated by the spontaneous street parties in Tehran and other major urban centers after the nuclear agreement was reached, there is significant public support for Rouhani’s nuclear diplomacy.

Rouhani has also come close to eliminating the international sanctions regime, providing brighter prospects for economic improvement for the average Iranian voter – who in turn may vote Rouhani’s allies into the Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregan-e Rahbari), the eighty-six-member body that formally elects the next Supreme Leader, as well as the parliament on February 16, 2016, eventually re-electing Rouhani himself in presidential elections the following year.

That scenario, however, is optimistic.

Facing adversity, Rouhani, Rafsanjani, and the hapless Zarif may find themselves deserted by their network. In the past, Rafsanjani and Rouhani seldom reciprocated the loyalty of their protégés, and can therefore not expect their former allies’ support in return. They did not move to save their friends when opponents, which sometimes included Khamenei, began to attack Rafsanjani’s too-powerful network during his presidency in the 1990s. When Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a reformist mayor of Tehran and a Rafsanjani ally, was targeted by a politically-motivated judiciary in 1998, Rafsanjani and Rouhani, who then served as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, remained silent. If Khamenei unleashes the Revolutionary Guards against the president, Rouhani’s network of friends is vastly smaller and weaker than Rafsanjani’s was a decade earlier, and would likely scatter in the face of adversity.

At the street level, the nuclear deal remains immensely popular. But the Islamic Republic isn’t a democracy, and Khamenei fears competition from the Rouhani-Rafsanjani camp. He has successfully curtailed the political power of Rafsanjani before, occasionally even persecuting his children to remind the cleric of his place: in March 2015, Khamenei frustrated Rafsanjani’s bid for chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts, and Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, the son of the former president, was summoned to Evin Prison shortly after Rafsanjani declared his intention to once again run for chairmanship of the Assembly.

Apart from weakening Rafsanjani, the Supreme Leader will likely ensure that the Guardian Council (Showra-ye Negahban), which approves candidates for public office, disqualifies candidates favored by the president and his allies. The purging of candidates would be done with the goal of keeping Rouhani’s supporters home and allowing anti-Rouhani forces to score huge electoral triumphs, checking the popular power of the executive branch.

Even in the unlikely event that Rouhani’s supporters pass through the filter of the Guardian Council, they will face the hurdle of rising expectations among the Iranian public: Rouhani’s critics are already fanning the flames of discontent with team Rouhani’s economic performance. Having lost the nationalist discourse over Iran’s nuclear program to Rouhani, they are shifting their attention to the gap between Rouhani’s pre-election promises and the grim economic realities of Iran today in an attempt to regain the political upper hand. This tactic resonates among the Iranian public, which chose to believe Rouhani’s pre-election explanation that the sanctions regime along with Ahmadinejad-era economic mismanagement caused their poverty. With both villains gone, the Iranian public understandably expects improvement in their living standards. Rouhani cannot possibly deliver this prior to the February 2016 parliamentary elections. Thus, the president’s diplomatic victory may turn into a resounding electoral defeat in the short term.

Even in the medium term there is no guarantee that Rouhani will be able to capitalize on sanctions relief to liberalize Iran’s economy and improve living standards for the average Iranian. To date, Rouhani has already repeatedly tried, and failed, to push the Revolutionary Guards out of the economy: Khatam al-Anbia Construction Base, which is the Revolutionary Guard Corps of Engineers, remains the largest contractor in Iran, operating as a “private” company, and is still awarded most major infrastructure development plans despite the government’s dissatisfaction with its performance. “We were no match for Khatam al-Anbia,” explained Akbar Torkan, presidential adviser.

The Revolutionary Guards probably received the tacit support of Khamenei, who cannot afford to lose his praetorians’ support – after all, it was the Revolutionary Guards that brutally suppressed the pro-democracy Green Movement in the wake of the fraudulent 2009 presidential elections. The money from sanctions relief is more likely to find its way to the companies owned by the IRGC and the semi-public foundations controlled by Khamenei than to state coffers and the ordinary citizen.

At the same time, ever more belligerent statements from Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards are beginning to drown out Rouhani and Zarif’s charm offensive towards the United States. “Our policy toward the arrogant US government won’t change at all,” Khamenei assured the Iranian pubic in his July 18, 2015 address marking the end of Ramadan, specifically mentioning the regime’s support of “the innocent nations of Palestine and Yemen, the nation and governments of Syria and Iraq, the innocent people of Bahrain, and the sincere holy warriors of The Resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, who will continuously enjoy our support.” Major General Mohammad-Ali (Aziz) Jafari, Revolutionary Guard chief commander, used his first commentary on the nuclear agreement to condemn the United Nations Security Council Resolution endorsing the deal: “Some elements in the draft are specifically contrary and opposed to the major red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in particular concerning arms capabilities, and we will never accept it.”

The cumulative impact of these efforts could be disastrous for Rouhani and his team. Deserted by their network, possibly abandoned by the voters who – either out of frustrated expectations or because of the manipulations of the Guardian Council – choose to stay home rather than vote for the government, and facing the Revolutionary Guards, Rouhani may face a disaster: his own political career, the nuclear agreement, succession after Khamenei, and ultimately control over the Islamic Republic may be slipping from his hands.

In Washington and European capitals, the nuclear agreement is being sold in part as an effort to bolster Rouhani against more hard-line forces. The opposite, however, may well play out. The nuclear deal with Iran may in fact be an investment in a sinking ship.

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