Iran had a busy day on Tuesday trying to build a strategy for Iraq, balancing between Moscow and Washington in the midst of a nuclear negotiation, and mourning the death of a top cleric while pondering the future of the Islamic republic under a new supreme leader.
After a sit-down in the holy Shiite city of Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi spent Tuesday in Tehran meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Baghdad's next steps toward managing the threat from the Islamic State. It is important to Iran to maintain its foothold in Iraq through the country's large but highly fractured Shiite majority in the face of a persistent Sunni jihadist threat. The Iraqi prime minister outlawed the possibility of foreign ground troops in Iraq — exactly what Tehran wanted to hear. He had also just put the finishing touches on his Cabinet, sealed with a stamp of approval from both Iran and al-Sistani.
The selection of Iraq's interior and defense ministers after weeks of debate was indicative of the pragmatism with which Iran is trying to manage Iraq. Khaled al-Obeidi, a Sunni lawmaker and former military officer from the besieged city of Mosul, was given the sensitive post of defense minister in the hopes that he would bring the credibility to convince marginalized Sunni fighters to separate themselves from the Islamic State.
The equally sensitive post of interior minister went to a Shiite lawmaker, Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban. It was important to Iran to ensure that whoever controlled the Interior Ministry carried enough weight with the various Shiite militias that have given new life in the fight against the Islamic State. Al-Ghabban hails from the Badr Organization, the Shiite militia most deeply integrated into the formal Iraqi security apparatus with the tightest links to Iran. Since al-Ghabban is lower profile than the other candidates, his selection was palatable, but his links to the Badr Organization are critical. Iran knows the risk of redeploying Shiite militias in Iraq to manage the Islamic State threat. If sectarian killings spiral out of control, then all hope of using the Sunni community to undercut the group's support base will be lost. Al-Ghabban, who will be under the control of Badr chief Hadi al-Amiri, has been tasked with keeping a tight leash on these forces.
Nuclear Negotiation Tightrope
Al-Abadi was not the only important official hosted in Tehran on Tuesday. In a much lower-profile event, Russian Security Council Secretary and former intelligence chief Nikolai Patrushev traveled to the Iranian capital to meet with his Iranian counterpart, Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, to discuss the ongoing nuclear negotiations, which are approaching their Nov. 24 deadline for a resolution. Just a few days earlier, Nikolai Spassky, the deputy director general of Russia's state-owned nuclear company, traveled to Tehran to meet with the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also took time to meet with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, in late September on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Russia, a member of the P-5+1 group steering the negotiations, is not investing time in these meetings with the Iranians to facilitate a deal that would normalize relations between Tehran and Washington. On the contrary, Russia is likely trying to incentivize Iran to hold out in its demands with the promise that Moscow will help maintain and develop the Iranian nuclear program. Tehran has little interest in tethering itself to Moscow while maintaining an ambiguous confrontation with Washington, but the Iranian negotiating team is also operating within tight political bounds in the concessions it makes to the United States. Even as Iran tries to use Russian offers to coax the United States into easing up on its demands, it will ultimately have to decide in the coming weeks just how much it can afford to sacrifice on the nuclear front to ease its economic pain when a drop in the price of oil is already putting additional strain on its finances.
Leadership Question Continue
Iran's attention span to negotiate a deal with the United States is in danger of dissipating with time as questions grow over the health of the 75-year-old supreme leader. There was a new twist in the quiet political jockeying over the succession on Tuesday, when 83-year-old Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani passed away after falling into a coma in June. Kani was the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, the powerful institution charged with selecting and dismissing the supreme leader. Kani's death was expected, but the vacancy of his position will only heighten internal competition and questioning over the supreme leader's inevitable transition.
Between managing multiple crises in Iraq and Syria, negotiating with the United States and preparing for the eventual succession of the supreme leader, Iran has multiple issues it is trying to juggle. Add the fact that the price of oil dropped again today, continuing to eat away at Iran's revenue stream, and we can see what will drive Iranian behavior for the rest of the year.
