Iran’s Nuclear Program

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In The Media

Iran’s Nuclear Program

The ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran face significant obstacles, including domestic politics in Iran and the opposition of the hardliners.

By Karim Sadjadpour

Published on Mar 31, 2015

Source: Charlie Rose

Speaking on Charlie Rose, Carnegie’s Karim Sadjadpour explained that in the ongoing nuclear negotiations, Iran feels confident that the United States wants the deal more and if there is an impasse, Iran will not be blamed for it. Instead, Netanyahu and the U.S. Congress are likely to be blamed.

Still, he said, the negotiations are likely lead to “some type of a framework agreement,” but it will not be as concrete as some may hope for. While the negotiations are on technical issues, the result will come down to a political decision by Iran’s Supreme Leader. He added that it is an “economic no brainer” for Iran to sign the deal, but as the Supreme Leader has been saying for decades that American cannot be trusted, the deal will represent a political risk to the Iranian leadership.

Sadjadpour statated that the challenge in dealing with Iran “is that those Iranian officials who are accessible to us … are not powerful and those Iranian officials who are powerful are inaccessible to us.” He explained that there is a division within the Iranian leadership. Pragmatists want to model China: they do not want to relinquish power but instead open the country up economically. Hardliners, on the other hand say, look at what happened to Gorbachev when he opened up the Soviet Union. When one abandons their ideals, the worry, the entire house could collapse. Sadjadpour concluded that while most of the Iranian public would support the pragmatists, the hardliners have the ability to coerce the population and they feel threatened by opening up the country as they believe it is easier to run Iran in isolation.

This interview was originally aired on Charlie Rose.

About the Author

Karim Sadjadpour

Senior Fellow, Middle East Program

Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East.

Recent Work

Q&A
Iran Wanted to Survive the War. Now What?
- Suzanne Maloney, Aaron David Miller, Karim Sadjadpour
Q&A
What’s Keeping the Iranian Regime in Power—for Now
- Aaron David Miller, Karim Sadjadpour, Robin Wright

Political Reform Foreign Policy Nuclear Policy Middle East Iran

Carnegie India does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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