How Khamenei Pulled the Rug From Under Zarif

“When Mr. Zarif was appointed foreign minister, the supreme leader asked my opinion,” said Sadegh Kharrazi, a longtime Iranian diplomat, on January 31, 2015 as Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 countries entered an especially sensitive phase. “I said, ‘He would not defy your words.’ And the supreme leader agreed. ‘Yes, when he was the ambassador to the UN, he cooperated fully,’ the leader said.”

Yet 16 months later, Mohammad Javad Zarif is a more controversial figure in Iran than he would like to be. “I believe that Mr. Zarif has been frustrated over JCPOA,” said another longtime diplomat, Hossein Mousavian, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in Vienna in July 2015. “He had not expected to be accused of being a traitor and a mercenary. What is more, the factional disputes have made him wary.”

How can one reconcile these two different anecdotes? Consider the events of January 17, 2016, the day the nuclear agreement went into effect. Before returning to Tehran from Vienna, Zarif congratulated the Iranian people on his Facebook page. Upon his return to Tehran, he went directly to parliament. The MPs hugged him and some even kissed his forehead. Others took keepsake pictures with him. Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament, thanked him. President Hassan Rouhani embraced him with a wide smile on his face.

On that day in January, Zarif was a hero. He had enjoyed a heroic status in Iran throughout much of the period of negotiations. Some people described him as a social and political treasure, simultaneously trusted by the supreme leader and celebrated by Rouhani’s cabinet. Some people paired him with General Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s expeditionary Quds Force in Iraq and Syria, as one of the “two wings” – or popular national figures – which allow Iran to soar. Some saw Zarif as a sure-fire presidential candidate for 2021 or even 2017. Some people called him “the Kissinger of Iran” and others even compared him to Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who nationalized Iran’s oil in 1951. Ayatollah Khamenei called him a “son of the revolution” and the “ambassador of the Islamic Republic.”

But events would soon catch up with Zarif. On the night of January 3, 2016, 15 days before the nuclear agreement went into effect, a group of hardliners stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran and trashed it in protest against Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr the day before. On January 6, Zarif deplored the event, promising that those involved would be punished.

On January 20, however, Ayatollah Khamenei contradicted him. He defended the “revolutionary youth” behind the attack, even as he described the attack itself as “very bad.” He said that the attack must not be used as an excuse “to assail our young revolutionaries.” Khamenei’s remarks derailed all efforts to punish the instigators, undermined Iranian diplomacy and dealt a blow to Zarif personally.

“The Work of God”

The second blow came on the heels of the first. On January 12, just five days before the JCPOA was to go into effect, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps detained 10 US navy sailors after they inadvertently entered Iranian territorial waters. They were released unharmed 15 hours later following intense phone conversations between Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry, but by then the damage was done.

Opponents of rapprochement between Iran in the US used the incident to disparage the diplomacy underlying the nuclear agreement. On January 24, one week after the nuclear agreement came into effect, Khamenei met the Revolutionary Guards sailors who had detained the Americans and decorated them. “Your work was excellent and the right thing to do,” he told them. “This incident was the work of God.”

Zarif’s hopes for economic rapprochement with the West were also to be undermined. Zarif had argued that the integration of Iranian economy with those other countries would prove an important guarantee for the implementation of the JCPOA. He described visiting economic delegations as the “guarantors” of the agreement. But Khamenei considered the integration of the Iranian economy into the world economy a defeat that would result in the “Iranian economy being devoured by the international economy which is controlled by America.”

Khamenei advanced his own economic vision of a “resistance economy” instead. He denounced visits by western economic delegations as “useless” and said, “the world is not only Europe.” Khamenei favors expanding relations with Russia and China.

Khamenei’s attacks on post JCPOA diplomacy go even further. For months, Zarif and his colleagues have tried hard to explain the benefits of the agreement, but on March 1, Khamenei described the results as “a total loss.” His words were immediately adopted by hardliners and even appeared on posters with a picture of Zarif.

“Beautification Treason”

Zarif has also been the target of more oblique blows to his prestige. Last year, Khamenei identified as “traitors” those who “beautify” the image of a hostile United States through their statements. His characterization was later picked up by one of his own office’s publications, which mentioned a statement by Zarif. The article was entitled, “Beautification Treason Deciphered.”

Sometimes the supreme leader has been more explicit. On June 14, when Zarif reported to parliament that the legal and political underpinnings of the sanctions had been removed, Khamenei chided him. “Don’t say over and over again that the sanctions have been lifted,” he said. In his report, Zarif told parliament, “We ourselves must not publicize banking sanctions.” Khamenei replied that “the question of doing business with the big banks has not been resolved...this is a big problem.”

The question of “red lines” has also become another tool with which Khamenei can undercut Zarif. In his formal report to parliament after the nuclear agreement, Zarif claimed that all “red lines” set by the supreme leader had been observed. Khamenei disputed his claim. “The foreign minister has told me that on certain occasions it has not been possible to observe some of our red lines.” Hardliners frequently use this comment to prove that Zarif is a liar.

Who Runs Iran’s International Relations?

The latest major blow to Zarif has come at the hands Quds Force General Ghassem Soleimani, the other supposed “wing” of the soaring Islamic Republic and a Khamenei loyalist. In June, after Bahrain announced a plan to strip a leading Shia cleric, Sheikh Isa Qassim, of his Bahraini citizenship, Soleimani pre-empted the Iranian Foreign Ministry by issuing his own statement condemning Bahrain’s government and threatening that its actions would “set fire” to both Bahrain and the region.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a second, milder statement an hour later, calling upon Bahrain to cease its “illegal” activities. Five days later, the Khamenei tacitly supported Soleimani. “The attack on Sheikh Isa means that the heroic and ardent young people of Bahrain will have nothing to stop them from confronting the regime,” he said. “If that happens, nothing can calm them down.”

The media reported that the tensions caused by Soleimani’s statement drove Zarif to tender his resignation but Khamenei rejected his resignation. Ten days later, on July 6, Khamenei toned down his rhetoric, saying, “We did not show any interference on the issue of Bahrain and we will not do so in the future.” But Zarif’s diplomacy had been already dealt a knockout blow.

Even if Zarif has never defied Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader has repeatedly pulled the rug from under him, thus consigning many of his diplomatic aspirations to the graveyard.