As Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in New York determined to forge better relations with the West and key Arab states, his hardline opposition back in Tehran fomented angrily against him, with a wave of attacks across conservative media warning Rouhani from considering fresh proposals in the nuclear talks and any chance encounter US President Barack Obama.
In 2013 Iran’s visit to the United Nations General Assembly proved diplomatically ground-breaking, and dramatically boosted Rouhani’s popularity back inside Iran. The president was seen to be edging Iran out of its international isolation, and his phone call with Obama signaled to Iranians a promising new era in their country’s dealings with the West. For hardliners, the Iranian delegation’s success was decidedly unwelcome, a dangerous slip away from policy—enshrined hostility to the West made even more troublesome by widespread public support.
This week, the finger wagging started at Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, which ran a series of negative pieces challenging various aspects of the president’s trip. Fars quoted Hossein Sheikholeslam, international affairs advisor to the speaker of parliament, as calling the new American proposal around Iran’s centrifuges "ridiculous."
“If such a proposal has been officially put forward by the Americans then it shows their childish view of the negotiations or maybe they think that the Iranian side is stupid,” he said. “Such a proposal is an insult to the Iranian nation and mocks the dignity of our country.”
Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, accused the US of trying to deadlock the negotiations. “Disconnecting the conduits among centrifuges means ignoring [our] right to enrichment which has been recognized in the Geneva Agreement,” he said.
Saving Face, Minus Enrichment
Two other members of the committee described the American proposal, described in the US press as ‘face saving,’ as a ruse to change the Iranian nuclear program into window decoration, by effectively stopping uranium enrichment. Another hardline MP, Moussavi-Nejad, called the proposal a "political swindle."
Hamid Reza Taraghi, a senior member of the Islamic Coalition Party, reminded Rouhani that during his presidential campaign he had promised that the Iranian centrifuges would not stop spinning. Now, said Taraghi, Rouhani should "not be fooled by the West’s new sophistry.”
The website Nuclear Iran, managed by Mehdi Mohammadi, a nuclear negotiator under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, added its voice to the hardliner uproar. Describing the negative effects of the reported proposal on the volume of the enriched uranium and the future difficulties in reconnecting centrifuges should the parties fail to reach a final agreement, he called the proposal “a kind of sabotage” not a technical change. “It seems that the Americans want Iran to save face without enrichment capability,” he said.
“Accepting [to limit] the centrifuges to 6,000 and disconnecting the connections between them is the same ‘showcase enrichment’ which we have been warned about for months,” wrote the hardliner newspaper Vatan-e Emrouz. The only difference is that “the showcase is now bigger. It would inflict other damages as well and in the coming days we should expect the experts to warn us against them.”
Displeasure With ‘Dear Brother Dr. Zarif’
The newspaper also attacked Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif under the headline “Beating Ourselves in New York.” The government strategy has failed, it wrote. “It is not yet clear whether the two sides can come to a conclusion in New York. What is certain is the unsatisfactory conduct of the government in its diplomacy, especially where the US is concerned.”
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the hardline bullhorn newspaper Kayhan, warned of the new American scheme in his Monday editorial. He rejected the idea that Rouhani’s government would lose public support if it failed to secure a nuclear deal, and then attacked Zarif, declaring that “in the nuclear challenge the enemy is not only confronting the honorable administration but also a great nation which follows [the Supreme Leaders’] commands. They are bound to fail in their trickery as they have failed in dozens of more complex ones.”
Shariatmadari lectured Zarif and the Iranian delegation on their moral duties to the Islamic Republic. “In the meantime to prevent the enemy from becoming more greedy the honorable president and the nuclear team must be more in sync with the teachings of the Islamic Revolution. For example while the United States loses no chance to show its enmity and vindictiveness and to ignore its commitments, it is not proper for our dear brother Dr. Zarif to declare that ‘if Obama promises, we will trust his promise’!”
The Shoe Flingers Meet
A group of MPs attended a news conference organized by the Committee to Safeguard Iranian Interests. Formed on September 28, 2013 after the news of the phone conversation between Obama and Rouhani emerged in the media. The group is mostly composed of Basij students who staged a protest rally at the airport upon Rouhani’s return, pelting a shoe at the president.
Today’s gathering focused on what Rouhani should or should not do while in New York. The MP Hamid Rasaei referred to the Rouhani-Obama phone conversation and said that “Rouhani told us that ‘I noticed that I have embarrassed Obama because I did not answer his requests for a meeting. To save him further embarrassment I had a telephone conversation with him.’ In the past year [the Supreme Leader] has taken tougher positions against America. This time we expect Rouhani not to pity the devil because they do not pity us. We hope that Rouhani starts and ends this trip by ‘God save us from the accursed Satan’.”
In an open letter the committee members warned against any meeting between Rouhani and Obama. “Any action by him that harms national interests or endangers the dignity of the Islamic Republic would lead to a proportionate reaction against him by people, organizations and MPs who care about this country,” it read.
Raja News, a website close to the hardliner Endurance Front, ominously mocked Rouhani. “In the world of politics everything is possible,” Rouhani had said about the possibility a meeting with Obama before departing for New York. “If every action is possible then every reaction is possible too,” wrote Raja News.
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