Middle East

The Quiet Fight for Iran's Future

Iran watchers have puzzled to assess whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that Iran and the international community agreed to on July 14, 2015, would lead to a fundamental reorientation in Iran’s foreign policy.

After taking power in 1979, the revolutionary regime adopted an international posture that combined the export of the Islamist revolution, a quest for regional hegemony, defiance of international norms and, most consequentially, the search for an atomic arsenal. Over the years, these policies turned Iran into a virtual pariah state—a process made unbearable when the United Nations imposed heavy sanctions to force the regime to roll back its nuclear project.

Form the onset of his presidency, Hassan Rouhani and his supporters considered the JCPOA to be a first step in a grander plan to normalize Iran’s international relations and reintegrate it into the community of nations. But opposition to normalization has not disappeared, because important elites have objected to the conditions that would make Iran a member in good standing of the international community.