In Iran, Rosy Reactions From Nearly All

News of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group has led to various reactions inside Iran. President Hassan Rouhani’s smart tactics have largely forestalled the anticipated hardline opposition: a press conference featuring families of nuclear scientists assassinated in recent years, letters to the Supreme Leader and Khamenei’s prompt response. But along with the multitude of positive reactions to the agreement, threads of opposition can still be detected.

The importance of correspondence between Rouhani and Khamenei was clearly described by the former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He mentioned Khamenei's previous support of for the nuclear negotiators and praise for the negotiations, Khamenei’s response to Rouhani’s letter and his compliments for the job that the negotiating team has done. Rafsanjani concluded that this ends some of the domestic “ifs-and-buts.”

The most notable reaction against the deal occurred in parliament on Sunday. Three representatives close to the hardline faction, Hamid Rezai, Mehrdad Bazrpash, and Ali Asghar Zarei, declared that public statements by Iranian and American diplomats were  incompatible and asked for more details. Of the three, Bazrpash was more critical and questioned whether this agreement would get Iran anything. He also criticized the agreement as not including Iran’s “red lines,” including the right to enrich uranium domestically.

An Escape Clause

But some other hardliners, including Gholam Ali Haddad Adel and Alireza Zakati, tried to give the agreement a positive spin by highlighting the role of Khamenei in providing guidance for the Geneva talks and portraying it as an introductory and positive step. At the same time hardline fundamentalists kept referring to this statement by Khamenei that “I don’t interfere in the details of the nuclear case.” This is actually an escape clause so that if some negative points are detected in the agreement, the Supreme Leader will pay no price and Rouhani’s administration becomes the culprit.

“The mere fact that Netanyahu considers the Geneva agreement a bad one,” wrote Mohammad Kazem Anbarlui, an analyst close to hardliners, in the site Jahan News, “and says that Iran got everything it wanted from the negotiations, shows that the achievements of Geneva 3 are positive and praiseworthy.”

But among the hardliners more forthright views have been expressed as well. Mohammad Sadegh Koushaki, a hardliner theoretician, quipped in the site Mashregh News about Rouhani’s nuclear negotiators: “Friends who have hastened to translate the Geneva agreement in a way that it would appear as the victory of victories know very well that there are other people in this country besides them who know both international law and the English language! Then finding inconsistencies between what they say about the text of the Geneva agreement the original text would not prove to be very difficult.” He also said to Foreign Minister Zarif that “when in our friends’ current agreement we have given the other side five concessions and have received only one, then what is the point of calling it a win-win negotiation and agreement?” He also suggested that when you have exchanged a pearl for a bitter candy it is unseemly to call it victory of victories. (When the current president, Rouhani, was responsible for the nuclear negotiations, Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament, had compared his approach to exchanging a priceless jewel for a candy.)

A similar conclusion was reached by the site Nokat Press, run by the supporters of former president Ahmadinejad: “The pressure of sanctions at last broke the Iranian resistance and forced them to a negotiating table that has resulted in the suspension and the cessation of a major part of the country’s nuclear program.” Another site, Dolat-e Bahar, which also supports Ahmadinejad has a different tack: it criticized the fundamentalists, including the managing director of the national daily Keyhan, for preventing talks between Ahmadinejad and the United States.

Websites close to the fundamentalists displayed sharp reactions. They compared the agreement to the humiliating colonial agreements of the past and accused the foreign minister of stopping Iran’s progress in exchange for $4 billion. Some compared it to a similar agreement by Rouhani, when he was the chief nuclear negotiator under former president Khatami, and called it a catastrophe after ten years of resistance.

For Domestic Consumption

Some prominent figures in the parliament, however, expressed their support for the negotiators. Ahmad Tavakoli, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, Gholam Reza Mesbahi and Mohammad Hassan Abu Torabi were four representatives who endorsed the achievements of the nuclear negotiators in their entirety and by referring to the support of Khamenei asked the parliament to refrain from reacting negatively to the Geneva agreement. This group cautioned that statements by Barack Obama and John Kerry on the Geneva agreement should not be taken as very reliable because these statements are for domestic consumption or are aimed at appeasing Israel. The chairman of parliament’s National Security Commission, Broujerdi, also criticized Kerry and Obama for saying that the sanctions brought Iran to the table and claimed that since the Americans were defeated, they had to leave confrontation for accommodation.

Both the president and the foreign minister are scheduled to appear before the parliament in the near future and explain the details of the agreement to the representatives.

Outside the parliament, the International Affairs Advisor to the Supreme Leader, Ali Akbar Velayati, praised the performance of Foreign Minister Zarif and by underlining the central role of Khamenei spoke hopefully about the future of Iranian nuclear program.

On the reformist side, the media and websites cheered unanimously. Reformist newspapers put out extras to broadly welcome the events and the achievements of Rouhani’s nuclear team. Some reformists mentioned the previous agreement outline under former president Khatami which achieved similar goals but due to the speedy intervention of Khamenei got nowhere. The main point these papers pursued editorially was who was responsible for saddling the country with the cost of a 10-year delay in accepting a similar agreement. Other reformist comments compared the conduct of the negotiating team under Ahmadinejad’s chief negotiator, Said Jalili, condemning the “resistance” discourse, and scolding the fundamentalists for sabotaging the work of the reformist government.

Another positive reaction from the Iranian social media on Sunday was the virtual campaign to organize a ceremony in the airport to welcome the foreign minister. Despite the frenzy of excitement on social media and the jubilant crowd at the airport,  there is no shortage of opposing views in the cyberspace.

Those against the agreement cite concessions given by Iran and argue that calling this agreement an achievement is a diplomatic shenanigan.  But at the same time,its noteworthy that opponents haven't managed to field any serious critical arguments. They neither explain how Iran might have rescued its economy with brokering a deal, nor do they contemplate the costs of continued isolation or the prospect of war.

What is most interesting, perhaps, about the Iranian reaction is how well coordinated it has been, how cleverly managed, from Rouhani's letter to Khamenei, and the accompanying response that set the note for the hardline response, to parliament's muted whinge and media's robust coverage. The Rouhani government, it is clear, had prepared as much for the aftermath of the deal as for the deal itself.