'US, Iran principally willing for negotiation but it has to be unconditional & unprovocative'

For decades Iran has been grappling with a plethora of challenges whether on a domestic or at a global level. The ongoing crisis, in the Middle East, or the West Asia, has hit Iran from two sides. On one end, Israel’s attacks on Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have weakened its so-called “Axis of Resistance,” and on the other end, the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad in Syria has left the country with little to no allies in the region.

For years, Tehran has been navigating an array of sanctions introduced by the US and with the current President Donald Trump tightening his noose around the country to sign a nuclear deal, Iran seemed to be getting cornered from all sides.

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On the domestic front, Iran saw a new president taking over the reins and initiating reforms in the country. However, the West Asian nation often comes under the radar of international organisations for some of its policies.

In an exclusive conversation with Firstpost, Seyed Emamian, Assistant Professor at Tehran Polytechnic University of Technology, and Co-founder of Governance and Policy Think Tank, elucidated the challenges Iran is currently facing and gave an insight into a side of Tehran which is rarely talked about.

Following are the excerpts from Prof Emamian’s conversation with Firstpost:

Given the ongoing crisis in West Asia, with Israel’s conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah and the downfall of former President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, do you think Iran’s influence in West Asia has weakened since its key allies are getting weaker? 

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Prof. Emamian: The situation now is tense, dynamic and fast-changing. Of course, Iran’s influence in the region has experienced ups and downs in the last few decades. Just recently, post-October 7th, there have been several very important and historical events that have happened which impacted Iran’s influence in the region.

What happened in Syria was very crucial. I think it happened due to several issues in the region. Part of that was the failure of the Iranian policy in Syria. Because Iran successfully defeated Al Qaeda and then ISIS in Syria in 2014-15. In 2017, the war was over and it was a huge victory for everyone in the region, including Iran. But then there was an opportunity for Iran to open up the political situation in Syria and to get involved with more diverse voices inside Syria, including the opposition groups. So, I think just relying on Assad as the only political actor inside Syria, was one of the political mistakes that Iran made, particularly post-ISIS defeat in Syria.

But what happened recently was also a kind of opportunism that Turkey, particularly, is very well prepared and is very well experienced in doing that. Turkey knew that everyone now in the region had been very much affected by the Gaza War. Once there was a war between the axis of resistance supporting Palestinians against Israel, Turkey used that opportunity to expand its influence in the region, while at the expense of more open hand for Israelis to get a lot of territories in South Syria.

At the end of the day, we need to wait and see who is going to finally change the balance in favour of itself. Whether it would be Israelis, whether it would be Turks, whether it would be Iranians or any other important actors in the region, it’s a very dynamic and very fast-changing situation right now.

What is your take on the United States’s recent attack on Houthis and President Trump’s two-month deadline for Iran to sign a nuclear deal? How is Iran planning to reconstruct its relations with Washington? 

Prof. Emamian: Both Iran and the US are willing, in principle, to talk to each other. Even Trump’s withdrawal in 2018 from JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] was not a sign of the end of the agreement and negotiation between Iran and the US. Trump’s personality is very unique. Even in 2018, Trump wanted something to be signed in his name, not in the name of the Democrats. I think there is a principle willing for negotiation and for coming to a kind of agreement.

What’s important is that there are some negative factors between Iran and the US. One, I think, is a very long and deep mistrust, particularly about Trump himself, because he has shown someone that is going to simply withdraw from anything that has already been signed between the US government and others.

The second thing is that I think the importance of the language, humiliating language, talking under what’s called maximum pressure and with a kind of the imposition of the talks rather than having meaningful talks, bilateral talks. It’s something that Iranians have been traditionally resistant to.

The third issue is the whole US policy of maximum pressure. It’s a sign of conditional talks, not unconditional free bilateral talks. So, I think in principle, if once everyone wants to talk to each other, we need to come up with an unconditional, unprovocative, and also meaningful context for the bilateral negotiation.

Last but not least, is that the Israel lobby and Netanyahu [Israel’s prime minister] himself have tried long, to bring the US to a direct conflict with Iran. Iran and the US need to be well aware of what Netanyahu has planned for a long time. They have been successfully convincing US policymakers and US presidents, since George Bush won, until now, to follow the plan that the Israeli lobby has thought about. We don’t know what would happen for Trump, because Trump is much more intelligent. He knows the complexities of policymaking very well, and he has tried to be very much anti-establishment.

Last year, Iran saw a new president coming to power in the face of Masoud Pezeshkian. What is he bringing to the table and how do you think he is different from the former President, Ebrahim Raisi, who passed away in a tragic helicopter crash?

Prof. Emamian: Based on the democratic rules here in Iran, every president has their own, flexibility in terms of its policies. We don’t have such kind of official political parties in Iran, and that’s one of the problems that I have written a lot about. That I call it weak political institutionalisation. But at the same time, there are important camps, at least reformist camps versus conservative camps.

Pezeshkian has been in politics for a long time as MP, I think more than 20 years, and also he had once been Minister of Health in one of the reformist governments before. But he personally has never been known as a political leader. What’s important is that he has been supported officially and very clearly by the whole reformist camp. So, it’s a lot of political capital supporting him.

He is personally different from late President Raisi. The former president was part of the establishment. He has been inside the public departments for his whole official life, and he has been very well-trusted within the judiciary system. So, President Raisi was not a normal politician.

President Pezeshkian is very much well supported by political camps. From his point of view, I think his personality is very popular. He is very open to public attitudes. President Pezeshkian is going to deliberately go beyond the political polarisation, something that has affected Iranian society, and most of the societies in the world in the last few years or decades.

How do you look at the evolution of Iran-Israel ties over the years?

Prof. Emamian: Iran-India relations have been politically very good, and at one time it was even economically flourishing. We had almost a $30 billion trade, both in energy and other sectors, through some mediatory countries and trade hubs like UAE. But since the last years of the first Trump administration and the imposition of the sanctions on Iranian oil, I think there has been a sharp decrease in Iran-India trade.

I have always talked about how we could find some solution to overcome such unilateral coercive measures from the US. Some say that it’s India’s over-compliance to the US sanctions that have created such a sharp decrease. What is important is that there is a huge willingness on both sides to continue working together very closely, because of the historical and civilisational ties between two societies that have never been far from each other.

Both trade sectors need to find some solutions to continue working together. I’m sure that Indians are very well experienced of keeping working with Russian industries and Russian businesses during the sanctions in the last few years. So we could find a way. Iranians are very much well experienced. Even Russians came to Iran to learn how to deal with the sanctions because Iran has been living with sanctions for several decades.

What’s very important, we call it intellectual diplomacy, something that my think tank, Governance and Policy Think Tank and myself as an academic have tried as well to reach out to our Indian colleagues, think tanks, research institutions and academia. I think it’s something we are lacking. We should be aware that our new generation, they are not thinking about the Iran-India relationship as important as the previous generation. We need to revive our society-to-society relationship as it was very strong historically with the new generation.

What is your take on the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)? 

Prof. Emamian: It is a controversial issue in Iran. Some think about IMEC as an alternative to INSTC [International North-South Transport Corridor]. They are very critical of India’s policy to have another corridor or trade route through the South Persian Gulf.

Particularly, with regard to the involvement of the Israelis in the IMEC, it’s very concerning from the point of view of Iran. There’s a lot of suspicion coming. But there are also more optimistic views inside Iran that they say that whilst yes IMEC would be an important if it goes ahead, it won’t be an alternative to INSTC. In any case, India thinks about INSTC and particularly Chabahar Port as a gateway to Central Asia. That is a very important region for India historically and business-wise.

With regards to particularly Putin, Trump’s deal or likely settlement will be an opportunity for India and Russia both together to push for bringing about some kind of sanction exemption for INSTC that is in favour of both India, Russia and Iran. The rising India-Israeli relationship is always concerning from the Iranian point of view.

Now let’s talk about Europe, recently Iran released a French citizen detained in the country. Do you see the diplomatic move as a sign of warming up ties with Europe and France specifically?

Prof. Emamian: I don’t have any information behind the scenes regarding what is happening between Iran and Europe. We know that Iran and Europe both are thinking about their relationship, as I said, another historical relationship. Iran and Europe have been in touch with each other for centuries. The role of Europe in the first Trump administration was to some extent constructive. They kept committed to the JCPOA.

The sanction relief was the essence of the JCPOA. But during Trump’s first administration, there was no such sanction relief happening on the ground, and Europeans were not able to bring about the results that were expected from the Iranian side. But at the same time, there was a lot of political cooperation between Iran and Europe.

However, since the beginning of the Ukrainian-Russian war, there have been huge controversies. I’m sure that there were a lot of controversies also between Europeans and Indians, why Indians are also keeping their ties and historical relations with Russia still alive.

But there was kind of a misunderstanding between Europe and Iran during the last three years of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Iran always has denied that it had military involvement in the war. Europeans were very much keen to always accuse Iran of being involved directly in the war. So Iran, as you know, has always publicly denied that.

What’s important is that with the prospect of a settlement between Russia and Ukraine, I think there would be a new phase also in the Iranian-European relationship.

While Iran worked on making technological advancements within the country, it has been often accused by international actors of using it for surveillance of its citizens. There have been reports of an app called ‘Nazar’ where people can report women for not following the country’s stringent dress code. What is your take on that?

Prof. Emamian: Concerning the accusation that you mentioned, I would say that Iran has been like other sovereign governments and has been trying to keep its digital sovereignty. So every national government, every sovereign government, is tackling how to preserve their digital sovereignty. We don’t call it surveillance. If we call it surveillance, the main aggressive surveillance government would be the US and Israelis and their allies.

With regard to the woman, I think there are a lot of misunderstandings. There have been some political controversies about whether or not we should impose an Islamic dress code as a hijab on women in society. Something has happened in 2022. There was a huge social unrest in Iran that happened because of that policy.

We as an independent country think that we have our views. We have published about that policy. But in practice, what is happening now on the ground is that there is no such restriction for the woman. If you are just walking in the main central streets of Tehran, and in the middle of Tehran, you won’t find any such kind of imposition. But at the same time, you know that Iranians are like Indians. They are traditionally very different from the Western societies. They have been culturally rich. They have been religiously committed in general. I’m talking about the majority.

In every Islamic country, we have such kind of principles and social expectations. However, I am not in support of the government intervention in imposing a specific restrictive dress code on women. In my personal view, what is happening on the ground is that there is nothing, at least since 2023, nothing is happening on the ground. And the women in Iran are mainly free, even in the very central streets of Tehran, where you could easily walk and see what is happening. I have written about, how the think tank has played some role in convincing policymakers that it won’t be a good policy to have government direct intervention into the social norms.

Whenever Iran’s nuclear program is discussed at a global level, people tend to focus on the military aspect of it. Could you throw light on why Iran’s nuclear program is crucial for the country? 

Prof. Emamian: From an energy point of view, because I have been involved in some energy policy issues, Iran is tackling the shortage of the electricity supply. It’s part of it, it’s because of the failure of energy efficiency policies. But part of it is natural because society is growing, the economic growth is happening. So every year we have more increasing need for the supply of electricity. And you know that some neighbouring countries are also relying on electricity supply from Iran, including Iraq.

Without Iranian electricity, most of the Iraqi cities will be shut off from the grid. So there’s a huge increasing need for electricity supply. Hence, nuclear power stations are one of the reliable and viable options for everyone. Last decade, it was more than 90 pwer cent of some European countries, including France, have electricity from nuclear electricity power stations. So the role of nuclear in energy, from the energy point of view is very crucial.

So being self-sufficient, being to some extent technically sovereign in terms of the nuclear energy power station is one of the main important reasons that Iran is following its civil nuclear policy. Iran has always been very clear and outspoken about its rejection of any kind of military nuclear state, or nuclear policy. I think it’s one of the reasons that I think there is a lot of hope between Iran and U.S. negotiation because Iran has been clear that I’m not going to access to implement any military nuclear project on the ground.

But there are some other, economic and technical and scientific by-products of the nuclear policies, nuclear advancement, new technological advancements in medicine. Iran has been open to any kind of international supervision on its not going towards any kind of military project, nuclear military project.

We are living in a world where sometimes you need to redefine modify or shift your policy. And I think it’s on particular US and other international powers to what extent they are going to respect Iranian sovereignty and to protect Iranian security. In other cases, I think every country may think about the deterrence policy.