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Why the Iranian Nuclear Deal Didn't Happen
(Foreign Policy) Aaron David Miller and Jason Brodsky - The president and foreign minister of Iran may be moderates, but they are not free agents. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the final arbiter on all matters of state. It has been Khamenei calling the shots throughout this entire process. Sanctions may have brought the mullahs to the table, but that doesn't mean that they can force a deal. Tehran has been nimble in finding loopholes to lessen the bite of sanctions. There are new indications that Iran's economy is rebounding. The supreme leader has consistently coupled the nuclear file with the Islamic Republic's perennial quest for dignity. According to an internal IAEA document, Khamenei told a high-level meeting at the presidential palace in Tehran in April 1984 that launching a nuclear weapons program "was the only way to secure the very essence of the Islamic Revolution from the schemes of its enemies, especially the United States and Israel, and to prepare it for the emergence of Imam Mehdi." When Gallup asked ordinary Iranian citizens in 2013 whether it was worth continuing to develop the nuclear power program, 63% said yes. Iran is playing for time. Thus any comprehensive agreement is, by definition, interim. Iran wants to preserve as much of its nuclear weapons capacity as possible and free itself from as much of the sanctions regime as it can. The mullahs see Iran's status as a nuclear weapons state as a hedge against regime change and as consistent with its regional status as a great power. That's why it isn't prepared to do a deal. It's hard to believe that another seven months is going to somehow fix that problem. Aaron David Miller is a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where Jason Brodsky is a research associate.