All eyes look hawk-like on the major world powers as they chart the future’s history in this year of elections– Modi’s second re-election, Starmer’s triuRaisi’s visit so evidently laid bare that Iran is truly alienated and looking for all avenues of support, and only an increase in contact surface within our relations with Iran will clarify what spine Pezeshkian stands on. Start small: cultural and educational exchange programmes, technology partnerships, and the like. Maintain an open dialogue with Washington on potential policy initiatives, and treat the project with cautious optimism. Only time will tell whether Pezeshkian can lay a golden egg, after all.
Trumph over the Tories, the fall of France’s right-wing alliance, and US President Biden’s second face-off against former President Trump (now with Biden replaced by Kamala Harris)), who was subject to horrific political violence only this past weekend, in a true emblem of the gravity of this election cycle.
Yet, perhaps the election that holds most promise for Pakistan is the one which was neither expected nor planned, as reformist Masoud Pezeshkian wins the presidency in Iran after his predecessor Ebrahim Raisi passed away in an accident in May.
Pezeshkian is both an anomaly and a curiosity– after a long period of discontent in Iran, accentuated in the mass protests following Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody and exacerbated by record inflation, the Iranian populace had lost faith in their tenuous democracy entirely. Indeed, the first round of voting saw only a 40 prtcent turnout, and it was only through Pezeshkian’s fear tactics that he was able to mobilize enough people to defeat his hardliner opponent: “Vote for us, or worse than us is coming for you.”
His policy stances are an intriguing contradiction of obeisance to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard as well as a firmly pro-USA and social reformist stance. He campaigned on a platform of scaling back Iran’s nuclear programme in a bid to lift sanctions, deescalating Iran’s belligerence in Middle Eastern conflicts, and placating public anxiety about policing public and private life, including an easing of the mandatory hijab policy. Intuitively, his candidacy would never have been permissible– and yet, Khamenei saw fit not only to approve it, but to bless his incoming presidency.
Therein lies the fundamental contradiction: when key domestic and foreign policies fall under the ambit of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard, why would Pezeshkian’s promises be worth anything more than the God-gifted breath with which he delivered them? Most would argue not.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has gone on record expressing skepticism that his presidency will lead to any substantive change in relations between Washington and Tehran, and perhaps they are right to believe so. Despite the pressure that the USA has exerted through the geopolitical alienation of Iran, the latter has remained unmoved on its hardline policy stances. The worst of times have seen escalations like the assassination of TRDC chief Qasem Soleimani.
However, for all that the State Department may be pessimistic about Pezeshkian’s ability to realign the Washington-Tehran axis, that is not to say that it will not be looking for cause for optimism.
US interests with regards to Iran are compelling and have always been so. When Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953, the reintroduced shares of the British in the denationalized Anglo-Iranian company saw a 40 percent split towards the Americans, and Iran served as a key bulwark against Soviet influence in the region which formed much of the architecture of the Sino-American rapprochement of the 1970s. More recently, Iran’s antagonism towards key Middle Eastern allies of the USS..Saudi Arabia and Israel, has upset US interests in the region, and any thought of nuclear warheads commanded by the Revolutionary Guard leaves one blanching.
Setting aside the irony for a moment that Mossadegh was the last Iranian leader to recognize Israel, Pezeshkian’s position as a mouthpiece reformist is nonetheless an opportunity for both the U.S. and for Saidi Arabia – and Pakistan, by proxy.
In the most charitable of terms, Islamabad’s relations with Tehran have been lukewarm, and the frank reality is that our role as their protector state carries less than ceremonial weight. In practice, Iran is a major potential partner on the geopolitical and economic front, while also being an unshakeable threat to Pakistan’s own foreign policy interests.
Take India: they see in Iran the opportunity to sandwich Pakistan between two antagonistic neighbours, and any support of the US. initiative to bring Iran to a nuclear deal shadows a satisfaction at the thought of seeing Pakistan caught between two nuclear-armed neighbours. In either case, they act as an economic anchor for the country with projects in Chabahar accelerating rapidly, in a mirror to China’s own investments there given that the latter views the port as an alternative to Gwadar due to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard acting as a consolidatory force when put against the political instability that has upset CPEC progress.
Raisi’s visit so evidently laid bare that Iran is truly alienated and looking for all avenues of support, and only an increase in contact surface within our relations with Iran will clarify what spine Pezeshkian stands on. Start small: cultural and educational exchange programmes, technology partnerships, and the like. Maintain an open dialogue with Washington on potential policy initiatives, and treat the project with cautious optimism. Only time will tell whether Pezeshkian can lay a golden egg, after all.
Despite this, Pakistan found itself hosting Raisi not too long ago, where he enticed us with oil trade agreements – something that many will recall led to a near-standoff between Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and the US government. It is not surprising in the slightest– Iran itself revitalized an antagonism with the USA on the Levantine front, and as President Biden’s government pursues a peace deal with Israel before the upcoming election in November, Iran will lose the slight purchase it has gained on this path from the tacit support offered by Russia and China.
India will throw down its weight to bring Iran to the negotiating table with the USA., of course, but this is arguably indicative of how dire the situation in Iran truly is. As Khamenei faces a succession crisis for the role of Supreme Leader, his approval of Pezeshkian’s presidency is a sign that Iran’s need of the hour is to trend towards normalization. If that is true, then perhaps Pezeshkian may be Pakistan’s golden goose.
Crucially, a stable Iran is imperative to three of Pakistan’s key foreign policy partners; namely the USA, China, and Szudi Arania. As Pakistan enters a 37-month programme with the IMF– its 24th bailout package– and ideates on project proposals to entice Chinese and Saudi investment, there is the potential that Iran’s tenuous position with a discontented populace and a collapsing economy could be a lever for Pakistan with the Occidental world, where Islamabad acts as a regional anchor to soften Tehran’s policies.
If Pezeshkian’s faction is more influential than currently assumed, Pakistan can lobby for phased relief from sanctions for Iran in exchange for a concrete roadmap towards compliance with international nuclear agreements. There are tangible benefits that Pakistan can help Iran with towards economic and sociopolitical stability, assisting in the establishment of humanitarian aid channels exempt from sanctions, and joint counter-terrorism initiatives to contain the influence of the Afghan Taliban as well as military-to-military dialogue on non-combat operations like disaster response. Developing confidential backchannels for discussions between the USA and Iran can facilitate a path towards more ambitious endeavours, like trilateral infrastructure and trade agreements involving Turkey and securing energy cooperation agreements that can funnel Iran’s excess energy production to help with Pakistan’s pressing power crisis.
That is not to say that this could not turn out to be a more woefully misread situation– it is entirely sensible to assume that supporting Pezeshkian’s government in stark historical contradiction to the Revolutionary Guard and the Supreme Leader could backfire. It was only six months ago that Iran fired a missile into Balochistan, and skilled diplomacy prevented an escalation of the incident.
If Pezeshkian is a genuinely antagonistic figure towards the Iranian establishment, then Pakistan risks an increase in insurgency in Balochistan, as well as potentially alienating the USA at a critical time if diplomatic efforts are not cleared through official channels beforehand. However, this seems arguably unlikely, given that Oman is already initiating the facilitation of talks between Iran and the U.S. not one week after Pezeshkian’s election, lending credence to the idea that Iran’s plight is genuine and Pakistan’s opportunity ascendant.
Raisi’s visit so evidently laid bare that Iran is truly alienated and looking for all avenues of support, and only an increase in contact surface within our relations with Iran will clarify what spine Pezeshkian stands on. Start small: cultural and educational exchange programmes, technology partnerships, and the like. Maintain an open dialogue with Washington on potential policy initiatives, and treat the project with cautious optimism. Only time will tell whether Pezeshkian can lay a golden egg, after all.
