Ebrahim Raisi, ex-judiciary chief of Iran, has been elected as the new president in Iran’s June 2021 presidential elections. The 2021 elections were low key; economic hardship and fading public trust in government alienated people from the ballot boxes. Iran’s election turnout was the lowest since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Many experts interpreted the low turnout as a sign of a legitimacy crisis for the Iranian regime.

With Raisi’s victory, reformists and moderates were wiped off the political scene. Conservatives have complete control over the legislative, executive, and judicial bodies. Hence, the Iranian political scene will be dominated by conservative elements for at least four years. In domestic politics, strict media control (especially on social media), limited political freedoms, and a colorless political life can be expected. In foreign policy, Iran will have breaks and continuities because of regional and global developments, and Raisi’s political orientation.

Raisi’s Presidency and Foreign Policy-Making in Iran

Based on the constitution of Iran, the president must consult on foreign policy issues with other institutions, assemblies, and senior officials. The parliament has a say on every domestic and foreign political matter. Specifically, the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee is very active in foreign policy discussions. Furthermore, the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) is one of the highest authorities that decides on Iran’s foreign policy. The Iranian president is the council’s natural chairman, and the council’s secretary is appointed by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Members of the SNSC are comprised of heads of the three branches of the government; the interior, foreign, and intelligence ministers; the chief of staff for the Armed Forces; the heads of the Army and the Revolutionary Guards Corps; relevant ministers; and other members appointed by the supreme leader. Iran’s strong political and economic institutions called “bonyadha” (foundations) also have an impact on foreign policy decision-making. Consequently, the Iranian president has limited power in determining Iran’s foreign policy.

The new president of Iran, Raisi, is unlikely to display strong political leadership in his first years in power. Beside institutional and legal restraints, there will be two determinants contributing to Raisi’s limited political power: First, Raisi has spent most of his career in the judiciary, thus, lacks political and administrative experience apart from being the head of the famous religious charity organization Bonyad-e Astan Quds Razavi (Astan Quds Razavi Foundation) between 2016 and 2019.

Bonyads are highly powerful institutions in Iran and are constitutionally exempt from parliamentary or governmental examination – they are only accountable to the supreme leader. Second, Raisi owes almost all his career to Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei. This means, he cannot breach the line drawn by Khamenei.

An interesting point about the new Iranian cabinet is that it contains some figures, who worked under Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Interior Minister Ahmed Vahidi served as defense minister under Ahmadinejad; Javad Owji, who has been nominated as the new minister of oil, was Ahmedinejad’s oil minister; and Rostam Ghasemi, who was also Ahmadinejad’s oil minister, has been appointed as the roads and transportation minister. Considering the tension between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, Raisi’s ministerial choices show that the above names are pursuing their agenda rather than participating in Ahmadinejad’s current political stream.

Many of the names Raisi appointed and he himself are on the U.S. or EU sanctions list. This situation severely limits the diplomatic capacity of the new Iranian government. Some are curious as to how Western countries will contact and negotiate with the Iranian president and his ministers given that some of them are on their sanctions lists.

Iran’s Current Foreign Policy

Both during the election campaign and after his election, President Raisi declared that he is not against nuclear negotiations. However, he also said that negotiations carried out in the previous period did not serve the interests of the Iranian people. For this reason, one can say that although the Iranian president is not against nuclear negotiations in theory, in practice, he will approach the issue in a tone and style that the P5+1 countries do not desire.

Both during the election campaign and after his election, President Raisi declared that he is not against nuclear negotiations.

Therefore, nuclear deal negotiations are likely to come to a deadlock. The latest round of negotiations were held two weeks before the Iranian presidential election. It was necessary to clarify how the newly elected president and his team would approach the issue of nuclear negotiations. However, although Raisi has been elected to office, the negotiations have not started yet. Hardline MP Mojtaba Zonnour said that Iran would not continue negotiations because the “Vienna format is a worse repetition of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] and is jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.” Even though Raisi’s new cabinet and foreign policy team started their work, the future of the nuclear deal is not clear yet.

Raisi repeatedly emphasized prioritizing friendly relations with Iran’s neighbors in his foreign policy agenda. After his election, he clearly stated that Iran wants to normalize its relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. During Trump’s presidency, Tehran’s relations with these two countries deteriorated. With Biden coming to power, Gulf leaders calculated that they would not enjoy U.S. support against Iran as they did before.

The change in the U.S. administration is the main reason behind the two Arab Gulf states’ recent positive attitudes towards Iran. The main objectives on the Iranian side are maintaining the Gulf’s security and preventing conflicts with Gulf countries. Considering Iran has suffered from the U.S. sanctions seriously for almost ten years, avoiding costly conflicts with regional powers will benefit it.

Following his inauguration as Iran’s new president, Raisi has faced serious challenges from Afghanistan. As many experts and officers indicated, after the U.S. withdrawal from the war-torn country, the Taliban took over government. Land warfare expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Ben Barry claimed, “If the U.S. ceases to use its airpower to directly support Afghan forces, the Taliban will gain a considerable military advantage.” Sadanand Dhume from the American Enterprise Institute, said, “The Taliban don’t care about human rights any more than they did in 2001 and likely will take power.”

With the Taliban takeover, regional balances have drastically changed. To orient itself with newly emerging dynamics in Afghanistan, Iran changed its rhetoric and attitudes towards the Taliban. The situation in Afghanistan poses many challenges to the Tehran administration. For this reason, Iran has been negotiating with the Taliban for the past two years. First, to maintain border security, Iran took preventative measures and increased its military presence at the border and closed some border gates with Afghanistan.

Thanks to the agreements between Iran and the Taliban, this time, the notorious military group did not systematically persecute the Shiite minority.

What is more, the Taliban are famous for atrocities against Shiites in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, thanks to the agreements between Iran and the Taliban, this time, the notorious military group did not systematically persecute the Shiite minority. Although there are reports about Taliban attacks towards Hazara Shiites, there is no credible evidence that shows it is an official Taliban anti-Shia policy.

On the contrary, according to some media outlets, Taliban members joined the Ashura ceremonies and gave assurances that the Shia minority will be protected. Furthermore, in terms of trade and preventing drug and human trafficking, Iran needs to negotiate with the Taliban.

The Raisi era began in Iran with a vibrant foreign policy agenda. The stalemate in nuclear talks, normalization of ties with the Gulf states, and the Afghanistan crisis will take over most of Raisi’s foreign policy agenda. However, there may be unexpected turns or advancements in the coming days. Raisi’s response to these developments will be shaped by the dynamics stated above.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is making many headlines. In this letter, Blinken proposed steps to put momentum behind talks between the government in Kabul and the Taliban. Washington’s chief diplomat also confirmed the US administration’s consideration of a “full withdrawal” of approximately 2,500 American military forces from Afghanistan by May 1 and he called for new peace efforts under UN auspices.

Perhaps this letter is an important indicator of how President Joe Biden’s administration will approach the security crises plaguing Afghanistan at a time in which the US public remains weary of Washington making further commitments to this war-ravaged country.

Interestingly, Blinken called for the foreign ministers and envoys from Iran plus a number of other countries (China, India, Pakistan, and Russia) to join the US in discussing a “unified approach to supporting peace in Afghanistan”. It will be critical to see whether the US and Iran could find some common cause in Afghanistan, particularly regarding the threat posed by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP).

Realistically, however, the Biden administration will likely also perceive a need to confront Iranian influence in Afghanistan, especially in areas where Tehran undermines Washington’s interests.

Historical Background (2001-Present)

Since the George W. Bush administration launched “Operation Enduring Freedom” in 2001, Afghanistan has played a complicated role in US-Iran relations. Early on in the war, the Americans and Iranians fought alongside each other against the Taliban in Herat, located in western Afghanistan next to Iran and Turkmenistan. However, the nature of Iran-US relations in Afghanistan gradually worsened, especially after Bush’s 2002 “axis of evil” speech.

From the Islamic Republic’s perspective, the massive US military presence along Iran’s eastern border is a major threat.

After a while, both Tehran and Washington found themselves on hostile terms vis-à-vis Afghanistan. From the Islamic Republic’s perspective, the massive US military presence along Iran’s eastern border is a major threat. Meanwhile, the US has remained cautiously observant of developments in Iran-Taliban relations and Tehran’s attempts to undermine NATO forces in Afghanistan.

In more recent times, disturbing developments and dynamics—chiefly ISKP’s rise and the Afghan government’s inability to meaningfully confront this force—have prompted both the US and Iran to reassess their perceptions of the Taliban. Put simply, both Tehran and Washington began seeing a need to help this Sunni fundamentalist political movement and military organization against ISKP, which officialdom in the Islamic Republic and the US have both deemed more dangerous and extreme than the Taliban.

Within this context, Tehran and Washington parallelly advanced their negotiations with Taliban representatives with Qatar serving as a diplomatic bridge between the US and the Taliban. In January 2021, less than a year after the US-Taliban deal, Iran officially hosted the Taliban to exchange views on the peace process. The timing of both Tehran and Washington’s unilateral talks with Taliban stokes suspicion about Iran and the US competing over a détente with the Taliban.

As the US soon enters the third decade of the “Global War on Terrorism”, Biden is inheriting a complicated situation in Afghanistan and the rest of Southern Central Asia. His administration should not overlook the fact that the US and Iran share certain interests in relation to Afghanistan such as the ISKP menace.

While US and Afghan military operations led to ISKP losing significant amounts of territory and becoming weaker in 2019, the extremist group remains a major threat to Afghan security and that of the region. ISKP maintains a presence in parts of areas such as Kunar and Nangarhar and has sleeper cells in Kabul. To be sure, the Afghan branch of Da’esh has retained its ability to carry out terrorism even without controlling territories like it did years ago, and there is no guarantee that ISKP would necessarily fail in future efforts to regain control of Afghan land.

If history is any guide, organizations in Afghanistan which are violent and extreme can easily bounce back after initial defeats.

If history is any guide, organizations in Afghanistan which are violent and extreme can easily bounce back after initial defeats. To the point, if Afghanistan’s Islamic State franchise becomes more deadly in upcoming months or years, the Biden administration might find itself being more open to considering the merits of working with Iran against ISKP, even if tacitly or unofficially so.

Fighting for the Regional Order

Regardless of ISKP and its activities, there is no denying that the US and Iran have major conflicts of interest concerning Afghanistan. At the heart of Washington and Tehran’s disputes over this war-torn country is the struggle for the regional order. Iran’s leadership seeks to challenge the status quo and empower the so-called “Axis of Resistance” in its struggle against the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

In this vein, Iran relies on its proxies such as Liwa Fatemiyoun, which operates under the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Lebanese Hezbollah’s patronage. With roots in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and the Soviet-Afghanistan war (1979-1989), this phantom force of 10,000–50,000 Afghan Shi’a militants, who mostly come from Afghanistan’s Hazara community, emerged as an actor in the Syrian civil war early on in 2012-2013. As a pro-Assad paramilitary force, Liwa Fatemiyoun contributed to Syrian government forces’ victories in major battles throughout the conflict (Aleppo, Palmyra, etc.).

Sometimes referred to as “Afghan Hezbollah”, Liwa Fatemiyoun has raised concerns in Washington, where in 2019 the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated the group for its relationship with the IRGC-Quds Force. Officials in the US worry about what Liwa Fatemiyoun’s uncertain future may entail, especially if Tehran decides to leverage this militia against American interests to the east of Iran.

According to a United States Institute of Peace publication from last year, “Tehran has laid the groundwork to strike US interests across its 500-mile border with Afghanistan and significantly raise the cost of American deployment in the country.”

If US-Iran tensions do not ease under Biden, Iran could potentially use Liwa Fatemiyoun as a proxy in Afghanistan to counter Washington and/or NATO designs for the conflict-ridden country. Abdul Qayoum Rahimi, the former governor of Herat province, warned: “Iran and the United States are already at odds with each other, and if things get worse between them, Afghanistan would be the most natural battleground for them.”

Forty-two years have passed since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran by a referendum landslide held on March 30 and 31, 1979, when 98.2% of the country’s eligible citizens approved the new regime. A series of dramatic developments which unfolded during the last years of the Pahlavi regime ultimately brought its downfall ushering the revolutionary triumph of Ayatollah Khomeini, whose arrival back to Iran on February 1, 1979 after fourteen years of exile marked the movement’s zenith.

Immediately after his return, he made a historic speech at Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran’s famous cemetery, where he said, “I will appoint the government! I will slap the present government on the mouth! With the support of the people, I will appoint the government!” Indeed, he “slapped” the shah’s last government and held the country’s reins in a matter of days, with Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar resigning from his post to flee Iran shortly afterwards. Nevertheless, the long-standing chaos was far from over.

Post-revolutionary Iran

Iran is, more often than not, a puzzling case especially when it comes to its recent past. The referendum was approved by an overwhelming majority, but it did not take long for the unrestrained revolutionary enthusiasm to start to fade and an increasing number of Iranians to experience a sense of anxiety and fear which had a lot to do with the chaos that erupted after the revolution.

The situation further deteriorated by the assassinations of senior revolutionary figures, including some high-ranking ayatollahs and politicians; the trials and executions of several figures who served under the deposed shah; and the bloody struggles between the erstwhile allies of the revolutionary movements who turned into its staunch enemies after its victory. But none of these could match the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted eight years, and brought devastating humanitarian and economic costs to both sides.

In the early 1980s, during the heat of the revolutionary turmoil, many people, including politicians, ordinary citizens, and observers at home and abroad alike, wondered if this “unlikely” revolution was “inevitable” or whether things could have followed a different path had the shah and his regime behaved more consciously. Now, more than four decades later, the more valid question is whether the Iranian revolution fulfilled its promises or not.

Retrospectively speaking, in a country where the population more than doubled from approximately 39 million in 1979 to some 83 million currently, the economic and infrastructural records of the Islamic Republic cannot be said to be worse than the Pahlavis. The same holds true for its educational and health policies. Yet, the pressures on freedoms never stopped and in time, the “revolutionary ideals” turned into viable tools for subjugating not only “the traitors” (khain) or “the enemy” (doşmen) but also ordinary Iranians including some of those who originally supported the revolution.

This never-ending revolutionary discourse hinders Iran’s normalization. During the last decades, significant progress has been made in this regard but it has fallen far behind popular expectations, especially those of Iran’s younger generations. This is the most pressing domestic challenge awaiting Iranian political elites, both from the conservative and the reformist camps. As for the outside, there are other challenges.

Iran in the Middle East

Obviously, the attitudes of the new regime changed Iran’s position within the international community at large – and not necessarily for the worse in all cases. As a matter of fact, had the Hostage Crisis of November 1979 not occurred between Iran and the U.S., the Islamic Republic could have been more warmly welcomed by the Western world as the shah’s image as a reasonable leader was, at least to the end of his reign, badly hurt.

Islamic Republic’s Middle East policy was not a radical shift from the previous era, at least in terms of its objectives.

But even so, Iran’s capacity as a principal oil exporter, its geostrategic location, and the economic interests of many European states in the country, gave it enough room for maneuver in international politics. To this, Iran’s major role in Middle Eastern politics should also be added.

From a broader historical perspective, the Islamic Republic’s Middle East policy was not, from the beginning, a radical shift from the previous era, at least in terms of its objectives. Yet, the means and the discourse used for this policy were revolutionary. In the thick of the war against Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini said that they were not after conquering the world and that they wanted to share pains with Muslims. “We do not want to go anywhere to capture it… We are defending Islam… Saddam is oppressing his own people. We are not attacking; at this we are in a defensive position.”

Evidently, although the war was originally started by Saddam Hussein, it could have stopped much earlier and at lower costs for both sides had Iran not shifted from a defensive position to an offensive one at some stage of the war. Equally significant was the lesson Iran’s leaders learnt from the war which, they thought, was “imposed” on them.

During the war, Iranian leaders felt that they were left to their fate by most of the Arab regimes which, they thought, strove for the Islamic Republic’s downfall with the notable exception of Hafez al-Assad’s Syria. He had his reasons to hate Saddam more than the Islamic Republic that was eager to align with him. Khomeini died in 1989, about a year after the war was over, and was replaced by President Ali Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relatively moderate figure, emerged victorious in the 1989 presidential elections to be Iran’s fourth president.

Now Iran seemed to follow a different path in its regional policies. Nonetheless, the growing presence of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the region, the emergence of Lebanese Hezbollah in the early 1980s with Iran’s full backing, and the unwillingness of some Arab regimes including, but not limited to, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, for a rapprochement with a “revolution-exporting Iran” undermined the prospects for normalization throughout the 1990s.

Moreover, faced by the threats posed by the U.S. and Israel, Iran adopted an extensive armament policy to the further concern of its neighbors. The 21st century opened an entirely different page for Iran’s presence in the Middle East.

The turn of the century unfolded two rather paradoxical developments. On the one hand, Iran’s nuclear program came to the attention of the U.S. and the rest of the international community at a time when Saddam was soon to be blamed for having weapons of mass destruction. On the other, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) after 9/11, eliminated two of Iran’s archenemies: the Taliban and Saddam respectively.

On 10 January, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. government would be designating the Houthis as a terrorist organisation drawing criticism from aid agencies and U.N. diplomats.

However, the decision also drew praise from Yemen’s internationally-recognised government and other Yemenis who have lamented the descent of their country into war following the Houthi overthrow of the democratic transition in 2014. Nevertheless, the extent to which the designation will affect the conflict, or even the peace process is unclear.

Aid agencies

Human rights organisations and aid agencies have decried the designation, asserting that it hampers efforts to assist a population that is in the midst of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

The designation complicates the process of acquisition of aid, and its subsequent delivery in territories that are currently under the control of the Houthis. This includes the capital Sanaa which continues to reel from the impact of the conflict, and the wider famine that the country is experiencing.

Moreover, aid agencies have argued that the designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organisation is ill-considered as it fails to clarify the necessary exemptions to prevent shipping companies, banks, and other commercial entities involved in the supply of emergency assistance to the country from falling foul of designation.

This therefore threatens to deter these necessary entities from engaging with Yemen, exacerbating the already dire situation.

U.N. diplomats involved in peace efforts have also lamented the designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization, asserting that it complicates efforts to bring the parties together in what is already a complex political and military landscape. By designating the Houthis as terrorists, the argument is that they will be less inclined to engage with international efforts to bring the parties back to the table once more.

Moreover, the designation is believed to have come at the worst possible time as optimism was increasing prior to the announcement that Saudi Arabia and the Houthis were seriously considering negotiations.

Impact on peace efforts

However, the suggestion by aid agencies and the U.N. that the designation hampers peace efforts has been received by many as naïve, and another example of the failure of the international parties to fully grasp the nature of the conflict and understand its complexities.

However, the international community’s insistence on talks at such an important crossroads in the war eliminated this possibility. Houthis fully welcomed the call for talks, using the negotiation period effectively to re-entrench themselves and regroup, before deciding to renege on the agreement that they never had any intention of abiding by in the first place.

The Houthis have made it increasingly clear that their preferred system of governance is one that recognizes the divine right of the Houthi family to rule over Yemen in a manner similar to the Imamate that was overthrown in 1962.

It is in this context that the international community has been heavily criticized by many for failing to consider Yemen’s unique history in that the Houthis’ armed overthrow of the internationally-recognized government in 2014 was not uniquely the result of circumstances specific to the time, but rather a seventh armed attempt at asserting Houthi supremacy.

Even Houthi participation in the National Dialogue alongside all of Yemen’s political parties and representatives of civil society, and their subsequent agreement to abide by its outcomes and eventual elections, did not suffice to prevent a renewed armed attempt at seizing power. Therefore, the suggestion that the designation hampers peace efforts is detached from Yemen’s more complicated recent history with peace processes generally.

Rather, many have argued that what truly hampers the peace process in Yemen is the imbalance in military power that enables the Houthis to remain entrenched in the capital, and that renders the internationally-recognized government that emerged from the democratic transition (that included the entire spectrum of Yemen’s political landscape) militarily impotent to reassert itself.

In military terms, the designation changes little. The Houthi offensive on Ma’rib continues to rage, and their grip on the capital Sanaa has tightened to the extent that Tehran has sent an ambassador to recognise the Houthi ‘administration’.

The internationally-recognised government, while welcoming of the decision to designate the Houthis as terrorists, is unable to capitalise as it remains hamstrung by its official ally UAE’s preference for the Southern Separatists who are more inclined towards secession, and as Saudi Arabia scrambles to prepare to navigate pressure to rein in military activity from the new Biden administration.

Iran

However, while the focus of the discussion over the designation has been on Yemen, the reality is that it has far more to do with Iran and scuppering prospective attempts by the new Biden administration to pursue a new deal with Iran. Biden has already made clear that he intends to pressure Saudi Arabia and the Arab coalition into ending the war.

This means that Washington is less interested in restoring the internationally-recognised government, and is more inclined to push for negotiations.

Based on the current political and military dynamics, the three main parties that will dominate the negotiating table will be the Houthis who are backed by Iran, the internationally-recognised government which is tentatively backed by Saudi Arabia, and the Southern Separatists who are backed by the UAE. In other words, any negotiations superimposed by the Biden administration will require the buy-in of Tehran, and therefore some form of dialogue between them.

Iran is likely to view negotiations in Yemen as part of the wider talks over a nuclear deal as it seeks concessions and compensation over Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 agreement.

In parallel with these changes in the balance of power, the Iran-Iraq War began and lasted eight years. Many Iranian volunteers joined the war fronts and, in many cases, were killed. Therefore, the images of “martyrs” became the most visible icons of public spaces.

In the 1980s and 1990s, almost all public urban areas in Iran displayed the images of Ayatollah Khomeini and the war’s martyrs. In addition, symbols of opposition to the West, especially to the U.S. government, were prominent on many of Iran’s streets. These images were often murals painted on the walls of tall buildings.

The works were usually anonymous and it is not easy to locate the artists’ traces today. An academic study has argued that after the revolution, the murals of martyrs were part of memorial and political propaganda campaigns. The artists combined the images of martyrs with inscriptions. The harmony of these murals with their surrounding environment was limited, and they maintained a moderate connection with the audience.