Hassan Rouhani has undoubtedly won a brilliant victory
in the presidential election, with a tally exceeding 60% of the valid votes
cast in its first and only round (the 57% figure usually cited by the media
included blank and invalid ballots). The result has exceeded the predictions of
most experts. It provides Rouhani with a strengthened mandate to implement the
campaign pledges that he already made during his first election in 2013 and
that he reiterated during the latest campaign: more freedom for Iranian society
and a more positive interaction with the rest of the world. These mutually
reinforcing policies should lead to greater prosperity.
But this popular support won’t be enough to persuade
the main pillars of the Islamic Republic—the Supreme Leader, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the judiciary—to acquiesce in such a
program. For the conservative core of the regime, Rouhani has fulfilled his
historical task by concluding the Vienna nuclear agreement of 2015 and would be
well advised to confine himself henceforth to the management of current affairs.
Will the incumbent president be able to escape the
curse that struck his two predecessors during their second terms? Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, though supported initially by the most powerful elements of the
regime, ended up at war with all his patrons and unable to take the slightest
initiative. Before him, Mohammad Khatami had seen the ultra-conservative
Guardian Council rescind all the progressive legislation passed by a friendly
parliament. More recently, Ahmadinejad was barred from running in the last presidential
election, as another former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, had been
in 2013. Since 2015, all Iranian media have been banned from even mentioning
Khatami. In Iran, being a president of the Republic is indeed a risky
proposition.
Of course, Rouhani could bet on the prompt demise of
the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, aged 77 and seriously ill, as an opportunity
to reshuffle the cards of Iranian political life. But he would put himself
entirely into the hands of providence. And Khamenei is almost certainly
preparing the ground for two or three potential successors whose views are
unlikely to differ significantly from his. Even if this succession were to come
on short notice, there is no guarantee that Rouhani’s task would be made
easier.
The Fights to Come
If Rouhani does not want to reach the end of his term
of office discredited and rejected by his electorate, he will have to engage in
some tough fights and be prepared to break some of the Islamic Republic’s most
sacred crockery. Rouhani knows that internal and external openings tend to
interact and that he will have to act simultaneously on both fronts.
Fortunately, some steps forward, highly symbolic but also carrying tangible
effects, are within his reach, whatever the formidable obstacles looming before
him.
On the domestic front, for instance, the Law
Commission of the Iranian parliament has already pronounced itself in favor of
a draft amendment to the criminal code abolishing the death penalty for drug
offenders. The adoption of such a bill by the parliament, if confirmed by the
Guardian Council, would reduce the number of executions in Iran by about 90%,
from at least several hundreds per year to a few dozen. Even if that would
still be too many, it would mark the end of the disastrous image of Iran as the
world’s first or second country for the number of executions per capita.
On the international front, two dramatic gestures
would allow Iran to surprise even its most hostile adversaries and position
itself as a regional trailblazer in the field of nuclear and ballistic
non-proliferation.
Movement on Missiles
The first one would be to join the Comprehensive
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). By ratifying a text that it already signed in
1996, Iran would incur no new obligations, as it has already renounced the
development or acquisition of a nuclear weapon when it acceded to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. But it would set an example for its neighbors, and
even beyond, as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, and even the United States and China
have yet to join the CTBT. At the turn of the century, Iran already authorized
the CTBT Organization to install on its territory automated seismic stations
designed to detect nuclear explosions. If this arrangement were reactivated, it
would send an additional positive signal to the international community.
The second gesture would be for Iran to join the Code
of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation adopted in The Hague in
2002. Iranian experts participated at the first preparatory meeting but dropped
out later. In essence, this code requires its signatories to provide an annual
declaration on the outline of their ballistic missile and space launch
policies, disclose the number and characteristics of ballistic and space
vehicles launched in the previous year, and provide advance notice of launches
and test flights. In this age of worldwide satellite observation, such
transparency measures would in no way jeopardize Iran’s ballistic defense
decision-making autonomy. It could also exert a deterrent effect probably more
effective than the usual bombastic declarations coming from Tehran on the
subject.
The powerful IRGC manages the Iranian ballistic
missile program, but Rouhani should be able to overcome its possible
institutional resistance, much as he did in 2003 when dealing with the nuclear
file. In that episode, he demonstrated that he had enough energy and political
will to secure from the IRGC the cessation of some controversial nuclear
activities. If he could convince the IRGC of Iran’s interest to adopt the Hague
Code of Conduct , Tehran would position itself as the vanguard of its region,
given that the kingdoms of the Arabic peninsula, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and
Israel have yet to join this agreement.
The Role of Others
These possible moves by Iran should, of course, be
encouraged and also reciprocated in one way or another. At the very least, the
present US administration should perceive them as a signal of good will. For
its part, Israel could find in such moves an indication that the “Iranian
threat” could become less “existential” than before, even if Netanyahu might
find it difficult to publicly admit. Saudi Arabia, which has asked repeatedly
for “deeds, not words,” would thus receive an appropriate answer. And of
course, the P5+1 countries that concluded the 2015 nuclear agreement with
Iran—China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, United States—would bear a
special collective responsibility to respond.
The last provision of the agreement’s preamble states
that Iran and its six interlocutors, plus the representative of the European
Union, shall meet at the ministerial level every two years, or earlier if
needed. Two ministerial meetings have already taken place in New York, in
September of 2015 and 2016 on the sidelines of the session of the UN General
Assembly. Can we nurture the hope to see the next, and possibly fruitful,
meeting in September this year?
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire