Iran Digest Week of March 10- March 17
/AIC’s Iran digest project covers the latest developments and news stories published in Iranian and international media outlets. This weekly digest is compiled by associate Samuel Howell. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
US-Iran Relations
State Department Says Success Of Iran Policy Was Uniting Allies
US State Department’s outgoing spokesperson Ned Price says the major success of the administration regarding Iran has been forging unity with allies.
Asked by Iran International’s correspondent how he judges US policy on Iran after no diplomatic successes in two years, Price argued that Iran poses “a number of challenges, and we’ve always been clear-eyed that those challenges are difficult – they are complex; they cross into many different realms.”
Price claimed, “when you take a look at each one of those realms, you have seen us work with allies and partners in ways that meaningfully protect our interests and promote our interests.”
Women of Iran
Women across Iran are refusing to wear headscarves, in open defiance of the regime
You see it as soon as you land at the airport: posters telling women to keep their headscarves on. They're everywhere in Iran; in malls, restaurants, billboards above main highways, and even rest stops in between cities. The hijab remains the official law in Iran.
But these days, all around the country, many women are going about their business hair uncovered. It's a vivid reminder of the public uproar and anti-government protests that erupted after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was killed in police custody in September. She was allegedly arrested for improper wear of her headscarf.
The government brutally cracked down on those protests, killing hundreds of people and jailing thousands, according to rights groups.
(NPR)
Inside Iran
Iranians urge their children to flee: ‘I want them to be safe’
Lida never wanted her children to leave Iran. Even as the 52-year-old retired schoolteacher watched the country’s moribund economic prospects spur more and more young people to leave, she still hoped to spend her retirement years with her son and daughter as they finished their education, got married and started families of their own.
But between Tehran’s brutal clampdown on anti-government protests and a sanctions-crippled economy that continues to crater, she now feels she has little option but to help her children escape the country.
“What if my son is killed in the protests like the others? What if my daughter was arrested? I now have nightmares thinking about them staying,” said Lida, who, like others interviewed, gave only her first name to avoid reprisals.
Regional Politics
Senior Israeli official: Saudi-Iran deal result of U.S. "weakness" on Tehran
The agreement between Riyadh and Tehran to resume diplomatic relations is the result of "weakness" toward Tehran by the U.S., the West and the previous Israeli government, a senior Israeli official told reporters on Friday.
The big picture: The agreement, announced Friday, came after mediation efforts by the Chinese government — an
achievement that sends a signal to the U.S. about China's role in the Middle East.
What they're saying: “There was a feeling of U.S. and Israeli weakness and this is why the Saudis started looking for new avenues. It was clear that this was going to happen," the senior Israeli official told reporters traveling with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his trip to Rome.
(Axios)
Answers to 7 Key Questions on the Saudi-Iran Deal
The announcement by Iran and Saudi Arabia that they are re-establishing diplomatic ties could lead to a major realignment in the Middle East. It also represents a geopolitical challenge for the United States and a victory for China, which brokered the talks between the two longstanding rivals.
Under the agreement announced on Friday, Iran and Saudi Arabia will patch up a seven-year split by reviving a security cooperation pact, reopening embassies in each other’s countries within two months, and resuming trade, investment and cultural accords. But the rivalry between the two Persian Gulf nations is so deeply rooted in disagreements about religion and politics that simple diplomatic engagement may not be able to overcome them.
Détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia raises hopes for steps towards peace in Yemen
A renewal in diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia has raised hopes of an end to fighting in Yemen, where the two regional powers have been locked in a proxy war for eight years.
The deal renewing diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran had barely been signed on March 10 in Beijing when all eyes turned to Yemen, where the two rival powers have been in indirect confrontation since 2015.
The surprise agreement between the two Middle Eastern powers may have its most concrete impact in Yemen, which has been ravaged by a war between its government, supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, and Houthi rebels supported by Iran.
(France 24)
Global Relations
China, Russia, Iran hold joint naval drills in Gulf of Oman
Naval forces from China, Iran and Russia — countries at odds with the United States — are staging joint drills in the Gulf of Oman this week, China’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
Other countries are also taking part in the “Security Bond-2023” exercises, the ministry said without giving details. Iran, Pakistan, Oman and the United Arab Emirates all have coastline along the waterbody lying at the mouth of the strategic Persian Gulf.
“This exercise will help deepen practical cooperation between the participating countries’ navies ... and inject positive energy into regional peace and stability,” the ministry statement said.
(AP News)
Iran and Belarus sign cooperation roadmap in Lukashenko visit
Iran and Belarus have signed a cooperation roadmap document during a state visit by President Alexander Lukashenko to Tehran.
Lukashenko arrived in the Iranian capital late on Sunday and was officially received by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday. The visit comes as the two countries mark 30 years of official diplomatic relations.
The two presidents and their delegations held talks, at the end of which they signed eight agreements on trade, mining and transportation, among other things.
Analysis
With the Saudi-Iran deal, Beijing shows there’s a place for its less judgmental, see-no-evil diplomatic approach.
By: Howard W. French
When the news emerged last week of a resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, most immediate Western commentary focused nervously on how this reflected China’s growing global ambitions.
Because China had brokered the agreement, U.S. and European commentators were quick to see any putative advance for Beijing as a loss for Washington. For well over a decade already, this has been a familiar refrain about China’s relations with other parts of the world, particularly Africa. There, the common logic suggested that with Beijing solidifying its trade, investment, and political relationships on that continent, it must be because Washington’s relevance was fading.
For the U.S. foreign-policy establishment, this was only tolerable to the extent that Africa had scarcely ever ranked high in its scheme of things. News about China’s growing influence in the Middle East, though, was taken as something much more portentous because in the postwar era, the Middle East has always occupied a central place in U.S. conceptions of global power.
Why the Iran-Saudi agreement to restore ties is so big
By: Daniel Larison
Iran and Saudi Arabia concluded a deal Friday to restore normal diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies within two months. The agreement came at the end of a week of Chinese-brokered negotiations in Beijing, which brought an end to the rift between the two governments that has existed ever since Saudi Arabia broke off relations in 2016.
If the agreement holds, it will be an important step forward in regional diplomacy, and it may help in facilitating progress towards a more lasting truce in Yemen. The resumption of normal relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the result of their recognizing that the earlier intense animosity between these countries was mutually undesirable. Restoring diplomatic ties is not a panacea for all regional tensions, but it should have a stabilizing effect that is very much needed as U.S.-Iranian tensions are on the rise.
