The first thing Iran needs at this critical juncture is to reconcile with itself. I mean here the ruling groups that contest decision-making, and that the world cannot possibly deal with as a single voice. No mediator, however skilled, can produce a stable agreement with a party whose negotiator does not know the limits of his own authority, and whose counterpart cannot be confident that its signature will bind the rest of those in power. I see this knot as the root of the "Iranian problem."
Last week, the Iranian foreign minister spoke of Tehran's readiness to open the Strait of Hormuz within a week, through an initiative conveyed to Washington by mediators. News of this kind is welcome, and on the face of it whoever objects bears responsibility for the crisis continuing. But it is followed by impossible conditions.
A deadline of just seven days to open a strait that is no longer fully closed. And what of the nuclear file, the ballistic missiles, and the armed "arms" beyond the borders? Negotiations may begin with a partial arrangement, but it is a mistake to market it as a solution to the root of the dispute. And if the conditions include protecting the military relationship with Hezbollah and the Houthis, the question becomes more pressing: is the aim to calm the region, or to guarantee the survival of the instruments that helped set it alight?
The neighbors have a direct interest in knowing the answer. Lebanon and Yemen are homelands with interests of their own, and they cannot be reduced to Iranian negotiating cards. Any settlement that grants Tehran the right to decide the future of armed groups in either country, behind the backs of their state institutions, defers the problem and widens it. Iranians have the right to seek security, and so do their neighbors. But making Iran's security conditional on others remaining exposed is a recipe for perpetuating the conflict.
The memorandum of understanding mediated through Islamabad was signed by the Iranian and American presidents, and was followed immediately by an attack on a ship in Hormuz. What is a commitment worth if an armed apparatus has the capacity to disable it? A signature is not tested in the meeting room. Its real test begins when the instructions reach those who carry the weapons, and they are required to comply.
Another example in circulation is the contradiction over the powers of the Iranian delegation to New York: talk of a full mandate, followed by objections to the negotiations and demands that the foreign minister be held to account. Announcing powers is no substitute for clarity about the reference authority that grants them and protects them. A negotiator who fears his adversaries at home may spend his effort shoring up his own position more than closing the distance with the other side.
Mohammad Javad Zarif's book The Resilience of Diplomacy- he had wanted, as he says in its introduction, to call it Smiling Lips and a Bleeding Liver, but backed away for fear of being attacked- is useful for understanding this side of the internal struggle. The train of Iranian politics, as the introduction puts it, has no guaranteed seats. Its author spent eight years at the foreign ministry and set out his experience of the complexities of domestic politics and diplomatic work in Iran. The value of this testimony is that it comes from inside the ruling establishment. But in my estimation it also invites us to be wary of interpreting every Iranian contradiction as a finely crafted negotiating ruse, as some analysts tell us. Sometimes we overstate the intelligence behind conduct that is explained by rivalry and an inability to agree.
I believe part of the crisis lies in the way power is distributed. The multiplicity of institutions designed to protect the system has become an obstacle, governed by no known rules, especially in the absence of a charismatic Supreme Leader. With many bodies able to object and responsibility for outcomes obscure, any decision can be blocked. The overlapping of powers, conceived as a pluralism that would prevent a monopoly of force or a threat to the system from within, has become a path to weakening the system itself. What serves the survival of the ruling groups turns out to damage the state's capacity to take the decisions the country needs.
Nor is it right to reduce the scene to a diplomatic team that wants peace and a military team that rejects it. Within a single institution, interests and assessments may diverge, and the same person's position may change as his place and his calculations change. That is why the phrase "Tehran has decided" is sometimes broader than reality. Which body decided? Who agreed? And who holds the means of implementation? These are practical questions for any mediator, not an academic luxury or a pretext for closing the door to dialogue. We need not pretend to know what the mediators are saying behind closed doors. It is enough to look at what they need for their mission to succeed: a party able to make a commitment and carry it out. As for the neighbors, they cannot suspend their security and development while waiting for the end of an internal conflict they have no power to influence. Economic pressure may push the decision-makers to settle their differences, or the opposite may happen: the outbidding increases, the rivals trade accusations of having given things away, and the cost passes to the Iranian citizen. There is no guaranteed result from sanctions, just as there is no guarantee that time alone will mend this defect.
What can be said is that the continuation of the crisis makes a settlement more necessary, but it does not automatically bring it closer. We face years of conflict, and the reconciliation required among the Iranian factions is not near; it will pass through an internal struggle for one group to prevail over the rest, and through agreement on a national interest that weapons outside the public decision do not override. That begins with the rulers' acknowledging that the cost of their quarrel is no longer an internal affair, now that it has reached the region's interests and the lives of its peoples. Then the Iranian will know what his state wants, and his neighbor will know with whom to come to an understanding.
To conclude: so long as every commitment remains liable to be overturned from within, the political horizon stays narrow, however many the initiatives. The beginning is an Iranian agreement with Iran.
