Iranian nuclear energy: Raisi's government faces three options

Nothing new has happened in the country since the installation of Ebrahim Raissi's government, which has been in office for just over 80 days. Inflation has exceeded 45 per cent. Food inflation has reached 66.7%, according to the ISNA news agency.

The Iranian population has no clear vision of the future. Capital flight - citing a Central Bank report, the president of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce said that $98.4 billion had fled the country between 2011 and 2017 - and the flight of elites continues and shows that the middle classes have no hope for the country's future. And the government continues to face a crisis of legitimacy.

At present, it seems clear that the Iranian regime is incapable of economic change. The Revolutionary Guards have closed thousands of factories and businesses in order to import goods from China and elsewhere for profit. The Revolutionary Guards, who take the lion's share of the Iranian economy, have created a virtual army of the unemployed and the hungry. Embezzlement of institutional funds and the gangrene of corruption have devoured and crippled the economy. The two revolts of January 2018 and November 2019, triggered by inflation and poverty, have shaken the foundations of power.

In this explosive situation, it is still unclear what strategy the government has for negotiations on the nuclear dossier, the JCPOA. It seems that conditions are becoming increasingly difficult for Iran. Despite the explosive situation, no government strategy for negotiations is emerging.

"The convergence of views between Europe and the US in the nuclear talks has never been stronger. Some Western countries continue to use the same illusions of maximum pressure to obtain concessions, especially France," writes the daily Siyasat-e Rouz. In this context, the French foreign ministry has in recent days called on Iran to stop violating the agreement, without mentioning the West's repeated violations.

Some power circles - the IRGC (Revolutionary Guard Corps) and Saadullah Zarei, head of the Quds Force Intellectual Centre (IRGC's overseas unit) - believe that the changes on the northwest border with Azerbaijan, as well as the takeover of the Taliban, offer the possibility of exerting more pressure on Tehran.

According to an analyst close to the Iranian regime, the convergence of views between Europe and the US in the nuclear talks has never been stronger. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will soon meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to perhaps persuade him to put pressure on Iran. They will probably want to take the matter to the Security Council.

Another Iranian analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that today the country "faces a foreign enemy and serious internal threats". If the army of the hungry and unemployed goes on the march, its intensity will be much more violent than in 2019. People are in a fog," says an engineer working in Tehran. The situation in the country is like a building whose foundations are crumbling.

Confusion seems to have gripped the Iranian government, but in any case there are three options for negotiation.

Convinced of the absence of a firm European response, such as the adoption of a resolution by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Board of Governors, the Iranian regime wants to force Europe to accept a return to the 2015 agreement through "deterrent diplomacy". An agreement that allowed the Iranian regime to both sell oil and recover blocked money, and which gave free rein to its regional interference and the development of a long-range missile programme.

The second option could be to buy time to obtain the enriched uranium needed to make an atomic bomb in order to gain concessions from the Europeans. However, the information obtained shows that, given the sabotage at the Natanz facility and the elimination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of the Iranian nuclear programme, it will not be possible to acquire an atomic bomb for a long time. To buy time, Europe must be blackmailed.

And the third option, increasingly likely, is that, according to a former strategic research official under the Khatami presidency, economic collapse and the resulting crushing pressures and fear of a new uprising will lead Khamenei to conclude that there is no other way than to accept the demands of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Like the capitulation to UN resolution 598 during the Iran-Iraq war, or Khomeini's release of US hostages under international pressure.

Hamid Enayat, Iranian writer based in Paris