Just as hardliners in the United States are loathe to give President Obama his diplomatic achievement, Iranian hardliners also do not like the deal. The Blaze reports the comments of the commander of the Basij:
“Any Iranian who reads the Vienna documents will hate the U.S. 100 times more (than the past),” the commander of Iran’s Basij forces, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi said, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency.
Naqdi asserted that the U.S. would use the agreement as a pretext to continue pressuring Iran.
“The U.S. needs the agreement merely to legalize the sanctions and continue pressure against Iran,” he said. …
The Times of Israel reports the another remark from Naqdi:
The nuclear agreement reached between six world powers and Tehran treats the Islamic Republic unfairly and will only increase anti-American sentiment in the country, a top Iranian general said Tuesday, according to state-run media.
A day after the United Nations Security Council adopted the pact amid recriminations from senior Iranian hard-liners, Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi claimed Washington was using the accord as pretext for a future US military strike against Iran.
The command of the Revolutionary Guard is also upset:
Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps told the Iranian news agency Tasnim that “Some parts of the draft have clearly crossed the Islamic Republic’s red lines, especially in Iran’s military capabilities. We will never accept it.”
AL Monitor‘s Alireza Ramezani summarizes one the hard liners may really fear – the return of the Reformist movement in Iran:
“Only military figures or those close to military circles have mainly been critics of the deal so far,” a political journalist in Tehran, who asked not to be named, told Al-Monitor.
Indeed, the harsh — but apparently finely calibrated — objections to the nuclear agreement seem to be aimed more at pressuring Rouhani than at the deal itself. This is not surprising as the accord will — economically speaking — bring benefits for virtually every group and faction. The agreement has averted possible war and could bring billions of dollars in foreign investment into the struggling economy, which is largely in the hands of conservative actors.
Indeed, it appears that pressure on the Rouhani administration from rival groups will persist as long as moderates, who have obvious links with radical Reformists, are in power. However, this pressure is set to intensify in the next several months. Key elections are coming up in February, including for parliament, a significant stronghold for ultraconservatives who have anxiously been losing ground. The president and his allies need to seize enough seats in the conservative-controlled Majles or face significant challenges to his expected 2017 bid for re-election.
Not unlike our hard liners – not afraid of the agreement, but what it might do to their current positions in society.
