Barack Obama’s acceptance of the JCPOA followed his earlier reconciliation initiatives including a personal letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, unfortunately at a time of brutal suppression of election protests in Iran. In justifying the deal, then-president Obama drew an analogy with presidents Kennedy’s and Reagan’s talks with Soviet leaders to avoid war. What was overlooked, however, was that America’s several previous attempts at engaging Iran had invariably failed.
President Jimmy Carter’s hope of constructive relations with a religious, presumably anti-communist regime was dashed by the US Embassy hostage episode while Ronald Reagan’s success in resolving the crisis by threatening decisive action was marred by a botched push at reconciliation. President Clinton’s bid, including an apology for America’s alleged part in the 1953 coup against prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh’s nationalist government, was derided by Khamenei as proof of Americans’ desperation. (Ironically, Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, had explicitly excommunicated Mossaddeqh and his sympathizers, and Iran’s demand for apology was probably intended as victim playing.)
Not unexpectedly, Obama’s show of goodwill and the best effort of US nuclear negotiators to fraternize with their Iranian counterparts met with a particularly frosty response. No sooner had the JCPOA been announced than Khamenei, who according to President Rouhani had “close supervision over the talks,” claimed he had reluctantly consented to it and forbade further talks with the “enemy” who, he said, was going to make such outrageous demands as ending animosity to Israel and upholding “Western” human rights.
Toward the end of Obama’s presidency, Khamenei kept threatening to abandon the JCPOA, expanded missile tests with Israel specified as a main target, sent speedboats to harass US naval ships in the Persian Gulf, and decorated captors of US Navy personnel captured during a mistaken incursion into the Iranian waters for humiliating their captives. Even Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Abbas Araghchi claimed that his team’s signatures on a leaked copy of the JCPOA were only keepsake autographs and not endorsements of an “agreement” with Americans. Meanwhile, with billions of dollars in hand, Iran managed to consolidate its presence in Syria and Yemen, equip Lebanese Hezbollah with a formidable missile arsenal, empower its militia and political proxies to take over Iraq, and intensify suppression of dissidents at home.
Khomeini came to power promising Iranians both “material and spiritual prosperity” before he realized that his clerical oligarchy was unable to effectively govern a modern state, let alone bring it prosperity. To justify his theocratic rule, he renounced his earlier promises as “religious tactical deception” (khoda’a) and declared that the “real” objectives of the revolution were establishment of the universal rule of “true Islam,” defeat of “global arrogance” headed by America, destroying Israel and replacing world political and social value systems with his own.
Moreover, to acquire religious legitimization and justify all its actions, the regime highlighted and quietly revised the precept of “Reappearance” in the 12-Imamite Shi’ite doctrine, an Islamic sect to which more than 90% of Iranians belong. In the traditional narrative, Mahdi, the absent savior, reappears when all nations of the world, Muslim or “infidel,” under unjust governments, have sunken to the depth of depravity. Accompanied by a few hundred virtuous companions, Mahdi wages war against all nations to establish his millennial rule of perfect justice. According to tradition, in the year of the Reappearance, the “Master of Khorasan” rises to power in Iran, and helped by Al-Baghdadi and Al-Yamani, his loyal counterparts in Iraq and Yemen, overthrows Al-Sufiyani, the deceiving ruler of Hejaz (present-day Saudi Arabia), and make the necessary preparations for Mahdi’s coming.
Throughout the ages, Shi’ite clergy had avoided involvement in state affairs on the premise that until Mahdi’s reign, all rulers, no matter how virtuous, are essentially usurpers. Now, having come to power, the ruling clerics in Iran adapted the “Reappearance” narrative and claimed that the Islamic Republic was, in fact, the precursor of Mahdi’s government, its leaders and supporters his soldiers, and their opponents his foes. More importantly, noting that Khamenei was born and bred in Khorasan Province, the Master of Khorasan does not necessarily rise in the year of the Reappearance to join Mahdi’s on horseback with drawn swords. More realistically, Mahdi’s companions prepare the world for his government by eliminating the infidels and with the latest weaponry and military technology, defeat corrupt powers by war (fath) or intimidation (nars be al-ro’ab).
The revised narrative, its detail and chronology of events are never expounded in full, not so much for the fear of counterarguments by traditionalists, but because ambiguity gives it a mystical aura of authenticity. The story, however, can be easily surmised from official slogans and occasional hints and comments by Iranian ideologues and officials, such as Khamenei’s prediction that Israel, as an archenemy, will not exist in 25 years.
JCPOA places Iran’s nuclear activity, or at least the overt part of it, under international supervision until it expires in 2030, probably with little prospect of another international consensus to extend the deal. Meanwhile, America’s return will give billions of petrodollars to Iranian leaders to pursue their policies at home and abroad, create a lucrative export market, including in arms, for Russia and China, and open oil and gas investment opportunities for Europeans. For America, it means implementing President Joe Biden’s election promise and probable release of some Americans from the Islamic Republic’s jails in exchange for money and release of Iranian prisoners in the US. Achieving more than that requires more than simple diplomacy.