There has been a bit of a gear change in Iran since Masoud Pezeshkian took over as president. During his speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) yesterday he signalled that Tehran is prepared to resolve its long-standing nuclear dispute with Western powers in a bid to have sanctions removed.
Pezeshkian is a moderating force in the Middle East and he is holding out an olive branch to the West. We should take it. Since we opened our bureau in Tehran I’ve come to appreciate that the Persians are a much more cultured and urban people than their mullahs make them look. They would happily westernise and the people at least are liberal but they remain under the yoke of the theocracy that maintains an iron grip on power.
But that grip is slipping somewhat as the pressure for change from below is constant. The fact that Pezeshkian was elected in the first place – widely seen as a screw up by the mullahs who didn’t keep a tight enough grasp on the election process – is a sign in itself that a wedge can be inserted in the body politic.
Indeed, the lifting sanctions talks were making good progress before the war in Ukraine started. But once again the West’s hard line has driven not only China and Russia together, but now also Iran. And Tehran is much an unnatural bedfellow for Moscow as Beijing is. Yet there they are: as tight as peas in a pod, which is very clearly not in the West’s best interests. Quite the opposite.
The end of the socialist experiment in 1991 led to two decades of prosperity, until the rise of the rest put the willies up the West and we moved into the rising tensions we have now. But there is also a theocratic experiment in the Middle East that is not over, with Iran a leading example. This experiment needs to come to an end too and we should be working towards this end, but the knee jerk reaction has always been to bomb the regimes we don’t like.
The return of the Taliban to Afghanistan is another example of the theocratic experiment and is equally backward. But there the Uzbeks have taken the lead, as instability in Afghanistan is the main security issue for the region. However, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has taken a much more pragmatic approach, opening a $70mn Uzbek-Afghan trade complex this month in the border town of Termez. Afghans can cross the border visa-free to buy things they need that are not available at home, but there is also a new hospital, university and even a Hilton hotel in the complex. Several Central Asian countries are also sending Afghanistan electricity despite the fact that the Afghans are not paying for it. This is how to do it. It’s the same way that victory for civil rights was won in the 50-year fight for gay rights in the West; the way you overcome prejudice is by working cheek by jowl with the minorities so normal people can understand we are all just people. Sanctions and isolation just fuel the sense of alienation and feed the hate.
And the Taliban asked to be allowed to attend the UNGA this week but were refused by the US. In parallel, the members of the Global South are going in the opposite direction. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan has already lifted the Taliban’s “terrorism” designation and Russia has suggested it will do the same. A Taliban delegation was invited to this year’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) and several Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries have also allowed the Taliban to move into their embassy buildings, despite officially still dubbing them terrorists.
Having Iran leave the Sino-Russian axis, or at least be less keen on the alliance, would clearly improve things in the Middle East and isolate Russia and China some more. Pezeshkian also called for peace talks in Lebanon, which is close to a full blown war with Israel now. And Tehran is in a position to deliver on that thanks to its control over Hezbollah. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is following the US template and bombing the crap out of Lebanon with impunity. Even the US is powerless to stop him. US President Joe Biden would like to end that conflict before he leaves office, according to reports. Nevertheless, the US has yet to cut off Israel’s supply of weapons or money.