It was not Rouhani, It was Khamenei!

The US-Iran nuclear deal has paved the way for some pos­i­tive devel­op­ments in the Mid­dle East. How­ev­er, at the same, it might result in a spillover in the US rela­tions with Sau­di Ara­bia and Israel. For Iran, the deal will change and bring pros­per­i­ty. Inter­na­tion­al com­men­ta­tors are prais­ing the pos­i­tive atti­tude and efforts of new­ly-elect­ed Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Has­san Rouhani for his flex­i­ble and refor­ma­tive approach plus, he is now receiv­ing appro­ba­tion for nuclear deal. I believe that this deal is not the out­come of the new polit­i­cal lead­er­ship but is actu­al­ly the out­come of supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s chang­ing approach and stance towards the west­ern states.

If we exam­ine Iran’s polit­i­cal struc­ture then we can say that the supreme leader has com­plete author­i­ty over state insti­tu­tions. He con­trols and has influ­ence over elec­toral and non-elec­toral insti­tu­tions. More­over, he also con­trols four impor­tant insti­tu­tions name­ly, mil­i­tary, judi­cia­ry, expe­di­en­cy coun­cil and guardian coun­cil. Iron­i­cal­ly, super­vis­ing assem­bly of experts which choos­es and removes supreme leader and mon­i­tors pres­i­den­cy also comes under his domain of exces­sive pow­er.

Most impor­tant­ly, supreme leader enjoys sub­stan­tial influ­ence over state’s for­eign pol­i­cy. Even though, Min­istry of For­eign Affairs comes under the domain of the Pres­i­dent. Con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly, supreme leader is not allowed to inter­vene in cab­i­net appoint­ments. But, we had wit­nessed inter­ven­tions on few occa­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly, when Ali Khamenei gave two options to ex-Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad in 2011; either to accept his inter­ven­tion in cab­i­net appoint­ment or he should resign. Saeed Kamali Dehghan writes in The Guardian that:
‘An unwrit­ten law requires all offi­cials to always abide by the supreme leader with­out show­ing any oppo­si­tion’.

How­ev­er, Iran­ian con­sti­tu­tion allows supreme leader to inter­fere indif­fer­ent state affairs. Chap­ter VIII, Arti­cle 110 of Iran­ian con­sti­tu­tion talks about the pow­er of supreme leader:
‘Delin­eation of the gen­er­al poli­cies of the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran after con­sul­ta­tion with the Nation’s Exi­gency Coun­cil. Super­vi­sion over the prop­er exe­cu­tion of the gen­er­al poli­cies of the sys­tem….’
Based on above facts, it is evi­dent now that for­eign pol­i­cy can­not be for­mu­lat­ed with­out the approval of supreme leader. If it goes with­out approval, then one has to take his deci­sion back or resign. Such pow­er and author­i­ty leaves no room of a sec­ond thought.

After the Iran­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, the US and Iran expe­ri­enced major set­backs in their rela­tions. For supreme leader to Pres­i­dent, anti-Amer­i­can­ism and Zion­ism have remained favorite top­ics in their speech­es to appeal the mass­es with rhetoric. Khamenei was a close man of Iran’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary leader Ruhol­lah Khome­i­ni and both shared same views about the US. Khamenei stat­ed:

“We regard the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca as an untrust­wor­thy government…which is com­plete­ly under the influ­ence of the inter­na­tion­al Zion­ist net­work”.

Rouhani has been a good friend of Khamenei since Iran­ian rev­o­lu­tion. So what exact­ly had hap­pened which forced Iran to go for talks with the US? In 2006, Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil sanc­tioned Iran for ura­ni­um enrich­ment. With the pas­sage of time, more severe sanc­tions were imposed on Iran till 2012. Con­se­quent­ly, infla­tion increased by 40%, high rate of unem­ploy­ment and rapid dec­li­na­tion in liv­ing stan­dard. Its frag­ile econ­o­my and scarci­ty of basic resources led Iran in severe cri­sis. Arguably, these fac­tors forced Khamenei to revise his poli­cies towards West and the US.
It’s a good sign for Iran that Khamenei has real­ized that Ira­ni­ans are suf­fer­ing on behalf of his rigid poli­cies and deci­sions. Recent agree­ment between Iran and the US proved it as well.