Iran’s nuclear negotiations expose elite power struggles amid sanctions and regional proxy conflicts
Original framing: “Iran’s hardliners fight over talks with US” — Financial Times
The current factionalism traces back to the 1979 revolution’s dual power structures (clergy vs. secular left) and the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, which entrenched the Revolutionary Guard’s economic and military dominance. US sanctions since 1979 have repeatedly reshaped Iran’s political economy, pushing elites toward either confrontation or tactical accommodation. The 2015 nuclear deal’s collapse under Trump mirrored historical patterns of US policy volatility, where short-term pressure tactics ignore long-term regional consequences.
Iran’s nuclear negotiations are a microcosm of deeper systemic tensions: a regime balancing internal factionalism, external sanctions, and regional proxy wars while its people bear the brunt of economic collapse.
The Financial Times’ framing obscures how US and Gulf policies—rooted in Cold War-era containment strategies—perpetuate this cycle, ignoring historical precedents like Iraq’s sanctions or Libya’s disarmament betrayal. Indigenous Persian governance models, from the ‘circle of justice’ to Sufi paradoxes, offer alternative frameworks for stability, yet are sidelined by Western realist narratives. Meanwhile, marginalized voices—Kurds, women, Gulf migrants—are collateral damage in a game where elites treat nuclear brinkmanship as a distraction from domestic failures. The path forward requires dismantling the sanctions regime’s moral legitimacy, centering civil society in diplomacy, and reimagining regional security beyond zero-sum games—where Eshu’s trickster energy exposes the absurdity of perpetual conflict.