1. A critical line in Rouhani's latest speech:
"We may be able to survive without engagement and relations with the world, but how will we attain growth and development? If exports cease, if banks are blocked, if we cannot communicate, we will be unable to attain development."
"We may be able to survive without engagement and relations with the world, but how will we attain growth and development? If exports cease, if banks are blocked, if we cannot communicate, we will be unable to attain development."
2. Rouhani spoke to university students to mark the beginning of the academic year. It is a reminder of the political vision that got him elected, and which he has largely failed to realize because of internal opposition and the reimposition of sanctions.
president.ir/fa/111831
president.ir/fa/111831
3. But the reason this line is important is that it gets at the fundamental political debate in Iran today. Sanctions don't pose an existential threat for the regime, rather they impose an opportunity cost: forgone development.
4. What the political establishment in Iran can't decide is exactly how much development is being foregone, to what extent development matters, and to what degree there should be a tradeoff between security and development. They aren't worried about survival.
5. American policymakers often crudely claim that sanctions are forcing upon Iran a choice between feeding their people and funding proxies. But that's not a real tradeoff. Iran is doing both today and can continue to do so for years to come.
6. The weakness of sanctions is that economic pressure needs to compound over time to be felt, as Iran falls behind its peers in its level of development. But this means that sanctions impacts are out of sync with electoral politics in both the US and Iran.
7. The American administration can't impose the full sanctions costs in the time it has in office. By extension, the Iranian administration does not need to bear the full cost.
8. What ensues is a politically challenging debate over how "things would be better" if the sanctions were removed. That seems pretty obvious.
But the very question of development becomes securitized, because it becomes beholden to the tradeoffs defined by the sanctions.
But the very question of development becomes securitized, because it becomes beholden to the tradeoffs defined by the sanctions.
9. That Iran is forced to perceive some potential tradeoff between its missile program and economic development, for example, has a perverse effect in the political discourse. After all, military threats feel inherently urgent, especially in the Middle East.
10. So while Rouhani argues that engagement must resume today to achieve a brighter future in the coming years, his political opponents argue that strategy must remain steadfast to prevent conflict at any moment.
11. This brings me to this tweet. Let's say the Iranian leadership takes steps to mitigate the sanctions harms and determines the economy is not collapsing.
12. The failure of sanctions to change Iranian behavior is actually a persistent argument in Washington for pursuing the military option. Arguably, Iran's successful resistance of sanctions pressure exacerbates the military threat.
13. The only way for Iran to get out of this bind is to also respond to the military threat. This helps explain why Iran has engaged in a more aggressive posture since May. Today, the threat of conflict seems lower because Iran has made the likely costs clear.
14. But the success of the recent military actions, such as shooting down a US drone with a domestic air defense system, serve to justify tradeoff made between economic development and military advancement over the last decade.
15. It will be interesting to see how this debate plays out in the forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. What we do know is that the Iranian public continues to address the tradeoff by betting on economic self-sufficiency + calling for means of self-defense.
16. Basically, Iran has successfully withstood sanctions pressure for long enough to incur the compounded cost of forgone development, but success in staving economic collapse necessitated military escalation that in turn appears to have justified the forgone development anyway.
17. Rouhani was asked by a student whether Iran's "future and advancement are overshadowed by confrontation with the world."
The president responded:
"It is a strategic question for which we have not reached a clear and definitive answer in 41 years."
The president responded:
"It is a strategic question for which we have not reached a clear and definitive answer in 41 years."
