Iran’s hardliners threaten to spoil the regime’s victory lap

By Leila Gharagozlou, CNN

(CNN) — As details of the agreement between the United States and Iran were beginning to emerge last week, a powerful Iranian politician stepped before a crowd in Tehran and read aloud what he claimed was the final text of the memorandum.

Mahmoud Nabavian, vice chairman of the parliament’s National Security Commission, warned that the agreement would turn the Islamic Republic into a “colony of the United States” and open the Strait of Hormuz even to Israel.

The speech, broadcast live across the country, helped ignite a backlash. Supporters rallied outside Iran’s foreign ministry and launched a “we will not accept” campaign, denouncing what they saw as a humiliating capitulation to Washington.

The pact that Washington and Tehran ultimately signed has been widely described as highly favorable to Iran. Iranian officials and state media have celebrated it as a triumph for the Islamic Republic and a defeat for the United States. But not everyone in Iran sees it that way, and many of the deal’s critics are both influential and well-connected. The Nabavian episode and the backlash that followed underscore the challenge facing the regime as it seeks to sell the agreement at home while navigating a broader struggle over who gets to shape Iran’s postwar future.

The war effectively gave the Iranian government a new lease on life, said Dina Esfandiary, Middle East geoeconomics lead at Bloomberg Economics. It allowed “a government weakened by demonstrations of discontent and crisis to regain their hold on power.” But that doesn’t mean the government has the support needed for the deal to succeed, and the government, she says, will still have to contend with the myriad of domestic problems that existed prior to the war.

Before the war, containing anti-government dissent was among the regime’s chief domestic priorities. Now, it faces a different challenge: managing opposition from within its own ranks. According to Vali Nasr, author of “Iran’s Grand Strategy,” the supreme leader and those around him will first have to look inward to a hardline faction known as the Jebhe-ye Paydari, which Nabavi is close to.

“For this agreement to work, (Supreme Leader) Mojtaba (Khamenei) and the (Revolutionary Guards) have to control the very forces that they helped create,” he said. The hardline faction has tried to sabotage the deal with the US throughout the negotiations process. They see such an agreement as capitulation and appeasing them is more critical than appeasing anti-regime groups in Iran, he said.

A message posted Thursday purportedly by Khamenei confirmed that he authorized the deal while stressing that its architects had accepted responsibility for it, an apparent effort to distance himself from any fallout should the agreement unravel.

“As a matter of principle, I held a different view. However, in light of the commitment given to me by (top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf), on behalf of himself and the other members, to safeguard the rights of the Iranian nation and the Resistance Front – and given his explicit acceptance of responsibility for doing so – I authorized it,” the message read.

Hardliners retain street power

Part of what makes the Paydari faction critical to the acceptance of a deal is its influence on the streets. The group has shown its ability to mobilize ordinary citizens – organizing supporters throughout the war to take to the streets. According to Vali Nasr, the Paydari faction has found a receptive audience among poorer, religiously conservative Iranians who have felt the war most acutely. Those sectors of the Iranian population will be the key to selling peace at home.

Much of the success of the agreement will hinge on the economic relief promised to Iranians, according to experts. While the opening of the strait is a key element of the agreement, what Iran and its government need is immediate economic and sanctions relief. Iran’s economic situation is dire, and to address the concerns that have led to economic and anti-government protests, the government must show a tangible benefit to not only its previous policies, but also of this deal.

The US-Iran agreement reduces Tehran’s external military threats, but it “does not resolve Iran’s domestic economic, political, or social grievances nor does it guarantee lasting peace,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at London’s Chatham House think tank.

Ultimately, she said, public support of the pact will depend on whether “the agreement improves daily life.”

According to Nasr, support for the deal will depend on whether it can lead to cultural freedoms and economic benefits at home, something he says the new supreme leader and the IRGC are acutely aware of.

“They don’t want to be back where they were in January with the public. During the war, there is a honeymoon, – they can control the streets, people may accept certain sacrifices, but that’s not indefinitely sustainable, and so if the agreement does give them some economic leverage, and then the question is, how long can they sustain it, and can they expand it,” he said.

Meanwhile, ordinary Iranians like Reza, 45, say that they are exhausted.,

“Sure, a deal sounds good, but I honestly don’t have the energy for any of this. First the massacre, then war, now they’re friends?” he said, referring to Iran and the US.

Reza’s sentiments are echoed by other Iranians who spoke to CNN. A feeling of whiplash, disillusionment, and hopelessness seems to permeate conversations.

Fati, a Tehran resident, says she hopes that a deal will lead to some change.,

“If we can make money, run our businesses, and live a life that is not just survival, then fine. I’ll take it,” she says.

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