Can Iran reinvent itself? A fragile charm offensive meets mounting internal strain

Original article by Patrick Wintour in Tehran

Iran is taking its first faltering steps to boost its dismal soft power abilities, spotting a slim opening to improve regional relations after Donald Trump’s June bombing campaign and Israel’s attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar unsettled Gulf states.

The tentative foreign policy tweaks are born in part of necessity: much of Iran’s network of regional military alliances has been dismantled in recent years. But there is also a feeling in Tehran that Trump’s trampling over international law gives it an opportunity to forge less disruptive alliances with Arab neighbours.

In mid-November an Iranian thinktank linked to the foreign ministry convened a forum in Tehran titled “International law under assault”. International academics and senior Iranian diplomats discussed how the US – not Iran – was now the rogue state destroying the rules-based order.

At a recent briefing in the Iranian capital, the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said: “The solid foundations of international law have been subjected to unprecedented attacks by powers that were expected to be its permanent defenders and custodians.”

‘Massive shift in thinking in Gulf’

The lack of condemnation by Europe of the unilateral US strikes on Iran in June, which killed more than 1,000 Iranians, still astonishes Iranian officialdom.

Trump’s recent confession that he was fully involved in planning the operation, while pretending to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear programme, has intensified that anger. Iranian diplomats recall preparing for a sixth round of talks with the UN, only to be woken at 3am by news of bombs falling – followed hours later by denials from the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, that he knew anything about the assault.

Iran is now not only nursing this grievance but trying to use it to reposition itself in the region, holding out the hand of friendship to states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar. “Iran considers the security of the countries in the region as its own security and wants ‘lasting trust’ to be the basis and axis of the new space in this region,” Araghchi said.

Trita Parsi, of the Quincy Institute in the US, believes Iran can find an attentive audience. “After the Israeli attack on Qatar in September, there is a massive shift in the thinking in the Gulf Cooperation Council as a whole,” Parsi said. “For so many years they viewed Iran as the main threat. Their investment in weaponry … was all geared to protecting them against Iran. Now many are seeing that on the one hand Iran has been weakened, but also Iran does not have the same hostility in their perception, whereas Israel is completely unconstrained.”

Some Iranian officials proudly cite a speech by Oman’s foreign minister, Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, at a recent foreign policy forum in Bahrain in which he bluntly said: “Israel, not Iran, is the prime resource of insecurity in the region.”

Speaking at the Tehran forum, Prof Mohammad Marandi from Tehran University argued that the world order was undergoing fundamental change.

As a result of US economic decline, he said “American exceptionalism does not have the same hold it had on the US public”. Simultaneously, images from Gaza were changing how Americans and Europeans were viewing Israel. “It is completely unimaginable,” he said of the shift.

Marandi said Iran should use the moment to build alliances.

“At a time the mood in the world is changing so substantially, clearly there are opportunities for relationships between countries in the region to improve,” he said. “Of course, because of the history and the nature of some of the states in the region, these exchanges are still going to be difficult, but this is the best opportunity right now.”

Nuclear dilemma

For all the talk of a possible new era in how Iran presents itself to the region, there is no sense that it is abandoning hard power or its sovereign right to enrich uranium.

Many officials privately say they fear they are between the wars. They say they must prepare for another US assault before Trump leaves the White House. That means re-equipping air defences, trying to buy Russian Sukhoi jets, expanding stocks of longer range ballistic missiles and, for now, keeping its rubble-strewn nuclear facilities away from UN nuclear inspectors.

Araghchi said he faces daily questions from the public about lifting the fatwa on possessing a nuclear bomb. One of the nuclear scientists killed by the US in June, Fereydoon Abbasi, was an advocate of nuclear-tipped drones, seen as a possible way of bypassing the fatwa on weapons of mass destruction.

Foad Izadi, an associate professor at the University of Tehran and a conservative, explained the dilemma. “There is a lot of pressure on the current government from the reformists to negotiate more but there is a pressure from the other side – the principalists – saying Iran cannot afford to be surprised again,” he said.

“So the foreign minister is caught in the middle. He has to be cautious because the June attacks happened on his watch, and people are asking ‘why did he not see that this was a deception operation?’ He is under pressure because there was no statement by him saying he was suspicious.”

Izadi said he was convinced that the US would return, pushed by Israel. “I don’t think they are done,” he said. “They think Iran is weak and I don’t think they have any ethical standards … The goal of Israel is to turn Iran into another Syria or Libya.”

Saeed Khatibzadeh, a deputy foreign minister, said: “If a negotiation takes place, it will certainly be an armed negotiation.” He described the current period as “a battle of repair and recovery that will decide the future” between Israel and Iran. Like many, he fears negotiations with the US could be another trap.

Izadi claimed, less convincingly, that Iran was experiencing a new form of domestic social cohesion. “Trump is threatening to attack Iran every other day, but what he is doing is teaching the new generation of young Iranians to become as anti-American as their parents were, and that is not an easy task,” he said.

But Izadi himself admits the unity created by the June attacks is wearing off, as Iranians are reminded of grinding economic problems, including inflation, which is now at 50%.

Moreover, the nationalist awakening has not led to a relaxation of the state’s iron grip on society.

In a recent speech, the reformist former president Mohammad Khatami criticised the government’s inability to release political prisoners or lift internet restrictions. “The summoning, recalling, and even trial of many politicians, media figures, intellectuals, and even reputable and tested figures has increased,” he said.

On 30 October the UN’s independent international fact-finding mission on Iran found that the June strikes followed a domestic crackdown that “has further constricted civic space, undermined due process, and eroded respect for the right to life”. By mid-August the security forces had arrested about 21,000 people. Executions reached their highest recorded level since 2015. Even leftwing translators were being rounded up.

Mostafa Tajzadeh, a reformist political prisoner, wrote recently from Evin prison that Iran remains trapped in a kind of purgatory, waiting for change, but not knowing what the outcome will be.

Developments at another event in Tehran demonstrated the likely limitations of any foray into soft power, as well as laying bare the country’s deep divisions.

A design week was underway at 64 venues across the city under the slogan “Dynamic Heritage and Sustainable Future”, showcasing set design, fashion, furniture and street sculpture. The event presented an image of Iran totally at odds with its depiction in western media.

But it was shut down on the grounds of “safety hazards” caused by a large number of electrical installations and a high density of visitors. In reality, there had been a backlash after videos on social media showed many women at the exhibition not wearing the hijab.

In its culture and diplomacy, the faint outlines of a different Iran freed from its largely self-imposed isolation can be seen, but such are the entrenched forces of conservatism and its faith in hard power, that any new Iran will face a momentous battle to be born.