What awaits Iran and its foreign activities could have significant consequences not only for tens of millions of Iranians, but additionally for Ukraine, Russia, much of the Middle East and the foreign policy of Western governments.
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi greets Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 19, 2022. Putin probably wanted to point out that Moscow remains to be vital in the Middle East by visiting Iran, said John Drennan of the American Peace Institute.
Sergey Savostyanov | AFP | Getty’s paintings
“2023 will probably be a breakthrough 12 months for Iran,” Ali Vaez, director of Iran’s project at the nonprofit Crisis Group, told CNBC. “The economy is in additional trouble than ever, the public is more discontented than ever, and the country is more isolated than ever.”
“The Islamic Republic is where the Soviet Union was in the early Nineteen Eighties, not in the late Nineteen Eighties.” Vaez said. “It is a regime ideologically bankrupt, economically and politically paralyzed.”
“Nonetheless,” he added, “he still has the will to fight.”
The Nuclear Deal: Has It Gone Too Far?
As early as 2021, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, told reporters that “the only bomb-producing countries” are enriching uranium at Iran’s 60% level – only one technical step away from a category of weapons that’s 90% pure.
Under the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal – which involved the US and other powers and lifted economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for curbing its nuclear program – Iran’s uranium enrichment was capped at 3.67%, enough for a civilian nuclear power program .
A photograph taken on November 10, 2019 shows the Iranian flag at Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant during the official start ceremony for the facility’s second reactor.
ATTA KENARE | AFP via Getty Images
“The prospects for a JCPOA recovery for 2023 are dim,” said Henry Rome, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, referring to the agreement by its official acronym, which stands for Joint Comprehensive Plan of Motion.
Slightly than cancel it outright in response to Iran’s apparent support for Russia and a brutal crackdown on protesters, “the ‘delay and fake’ attitude towards the nuclear deal is prone to proceed for a while,” Rome added. Negotiations have stalled since September.
The Trump administration pulled the US out of the deal in 2018, reimposing harsh sanctions on Iran that each hurt its economy and encouraged its government to speed up its nuclear development. And the prospects for the Biden administration to revive the deal are dwindling fast.
Furthermore, time is running out to avoid wasting anything – the deal’s key nuclear restrictions will expire at the end of 2023 when “sunset clauses” come into effect.
![Reviving the Iran nuclear deal will not be a 'silver bullet', says a senior colleague](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107107766-16612397611661239758-25046966973-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1661239761&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
“The actual JCPOA will turn out to be increasingly obsolete in 2023,” said Ryan Bohl, senior analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at Rane. He added that “neither Europe nor the United States are willing to supply sanctions leniency to a regime actively cracking down on protesters.”
Negotiators can have to begin from scratch, and Western signatories to the deal will likely need to see a resolution to the protest movement first, some analysts say.
Meanwhile, the West broadcasts latest sanctions while Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons, making a growing rift between the two sides.
“Iran is prone to proceed making quantitative and qualitative progress in its nuclear program while reducing international monitoring,” warned Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
“Along with stockpiling more uranium for the bomb and developing the machinery needed to complement uranium with a smaller footprint and larger rates,” he said, “Iran is prone to come near being a threshold nuclear power.”
What next for the Iranian protest movement?
The nationwide protests, which began in mid-September and quickly spread to dozens of cities across Iran, were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly breaking Iran’s strict headscarf rules. The riots was a full-blown movement demanding the removal of the Islamic Republic, Iran’s hardline theocratic government.
But after nearly 4 months and a campaign of bloody repression and executions by the state, the query stays: how long will the protests last?
A protester holds up a portrait of Mahsa Amini during an illustration in support of Amini, a young Iranian woman who died after being arrested in Tehran by the morality police of the Islamic Republic, on Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul, September 20, 2022.
Ozan Kose | AFP | Getty’s paintings
“The 4 forces to look at out for in 2023 for the Iranian protests are the streets, strikes, sanctions and security forces,” said ben Taleblu. He expects protests against the Islamic Republic to proceed in 2023, although the government has an amazing advantage with regards to the use of force.
“The regime retains all the tools of repression and will use them more and more,” he said, but added that the Iranians’ demands for political change inevitably mean more internal instability.
Most Iranian analysts interviewed by CNBC expect the demonstrations to proceed in some form, but forecasts for their intensity and effectiveness vary.
While protests may proceed to take unexpected turns, “demonstrators have yet to realize significant, lasting support in key sectors of the economy or attract security defectors,” Rome noted.
![Iran protests 'turning point' but unlikely to escalate into civil war, analyst says](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107128658-16648497741664849771-25809867405-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1664850325&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
As for Rane’s Ryan Bohl, the more than likely final result is that the protests “will eventually be quelled and dispersed.” The second result, he said, is that the movement becomes institutionalized, turns right into a viable opposition movement, and is capable of extract concessions from the regime.
The third and “least likely” – but still not inconceivable – final result next 12 months is that “the protest movement escalates to other segments of Iranian society and causes rifts in the regime that will actually threaten its survival,” Bohl said.
Weapons for Russia
The newest conflict between Iran and the West got here during the Russo-Ukrainian War in the type of deadly Iranian drones utilized by Russian forces to attack Ukraine.
This has already prompted further US and EU sanctions against Iran – however it is unlikely to stop the growing cooperation between the two increasingly isolated countries.
“Iran cannot afford to alienate Russia,” said Vaez of the Crisis Group. He said that “the West could have to get creative find a way” to decelerate and limit the forms of weapons it might probably ship to Russia. reportedly working to dam access to Iran to foreign weapon components.
Ukraine has accused Iran of supplying Russia with drones that were used to attack Kyiv.
Sopa Images | Light Rocket | Getty’s paintings
Still, “more drones and missiles and technical cooperation on military matters seems likely,” Bohl said, along with deeper trade links to create a “sanctions-resistant trade network.”
This may come at a diplomatic cost, which Tehran seems willing to pay, though it isn’t clear what it should get in return – money, weapons, technology, or a mix of those.
Either way, “Iran will probably proceed to play hard in 2023,” said Ben Taleblu, adding, “I fully expect Russia and Iran to proceed to strengthen their security, political and economic ties in 2023.”
“The political elite, which is increasingly tolerant of risk, may feel unstoppable abroad when faced with challenges at home,” he said. “If Iran distributed ballistic missiles, not only drones, to Russia for use in Ukraine, it will be further evidence of this perception.”