Iran poll contains different messages for Biden and Raisi
By James M. Dorsey
“It’s the economy, stupid.” That is the message of a just-published survey
of Iranian public opinion.
However, the substance of the message differs for newly
elected hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the Biden administration
as Mr. Raisi toughens his negotiating position and the United States grapples
with alternative ways of curbing the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme
should the parties fail to agree on terms for the revival of the 2015
international agreement.
Iranians surveyed last month by Iran Poll and the
University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies were
telling Mr. Raisi that they are looking to him to alleviate Iran’s economic and
other problems and have little hope that a revived nuclear agreement will make
the difference, given lack of trust in US and European compliance with any
agreement reached.
The Iranians polled seemed in majority to endorse some
form of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s notion of a “resistance
economy” as a way of blunting the impact of the US
sanctions imposed by former President Donald J. Trump after he walked away from
the nuclear agreement in 2018. Some 65 per cent of the responders said they
favoured a self-sufficient economy; 54.2 per cent expected the economy to at
least improve somewhat in the next three years.
A large number expressed confidence that Mr. Raisi would
significantly lower inflation and unemployment, increase Iran’s trade with
other countries, control the pandemic and root out corruption.
Meanwhile, 63 per cent suggested that Iran’s economic
situation would be the same, if not better, if there were no return to the
agreement and the government continued to pursue a civil nuclear programme. The
figure seemed at odds with the 80 per cent who said Iran’s economic situation
would improve if Iran and the United States returned to the agreement and both
fulfilled their obligations under the deal.
The divergence may be a function of the fact that the
poll, unsurprisingly, indicated that Iranians (64.7 per cent) had little trust
in the United States living up to its commitments even though they expected the
Biden administration to return to the deal (57.9 per cent). As a result, 73.1
per cent of those surveyed said Iran should not make concessions given that
world powers would not live up to commitments they make in return.
At the same time, 63 per cent blamed the troubled
state of the economy on domestic mismanagement rather than US sanctions. Only
34.4 per cent believed that the sanctions were the main cause of their economic
difficulty. Iranians pointing the finger at the government rather than external
forces was also reflected in the 60.5 per cent of those polled blaming Iran’s
water shortages on mismanagement and bad policies.
The poll suggested that by emphasising domestic
mismanagement, Iranians were going to judge Mr. Raisi on his success or failure
in countering the debilitating effect of the sanctions even though 77.5 per
cent of those surveyed said that the sanctions had a negative or somewhat
negative impact on the economy.
Implicitly, Iranians were holding former Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani responsible for the mismanagement given that Mr. Raisi
only took office in August. Rated very favourable by 61.2 per cent of Iranians
surveyed in 2015, Mr. Rouhani’s favorability dropped to 4.6 per cent in the
most recent poll. By contrast, the favourable views of Mr. Raisi soared from
38.3 per cent in 2014 to 77 per cent last month. IranPoll and the Center have
been conducting annual of surveys since 2014.
Of those polled, 66.7 per cent expected Mr. Raisi to
improve Iran’s international standing, 55.7 per cent said he would be in a
better position to negotiate with world powers, and 45.2 per cent predicted
that he would enhance Iran’s security. Those expectations may have been to some
degree validated in the public’s mind by last month’s acceptance of Iran’s application for
membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
that groups China, Russia, India, Pakistan and several Central Asian states.
The survey results seemed to suggest that ordinary
Iranians were framing their message to the United States differently from the
assessment of prominent scholars and analysts. The divergence may well be one
primarily of timing but nonetheless has implications for policymaking in
Washington. The message of the respondents to the poll was one of immediate
impact while analysts and scholars appear to be looking at the middle term.
Without referring to the poll, Vienna-based economist
and strategic consultant Bijan Khajehpour argued this week, seemingly contrary
to the poll, that “mismanagement and the Covid-19 pandemic have both
contributed to Iran’s poor economic performance in recent years, but it remains
that US sanctions…will be the key factor in
determining Iran’s future prospects.”
Mr. Khajehpour went on to say that “high inflation,
capital flight and the erosion of household purchasing power alongside
mismanagement of resources and the deterioration of the country’s
infrastructure have the potential to spark more protests and further undermine
the already faltering legitimacy of the Islamic Republic in the eyes of the
public.”
No doubt, the jury is out on how Iranians respond if
and when Mr. Raisi fails to live up to their expectations. If the past is any
indication, Iranians have repeatedly taken to the streets at often substantial
risk to liberty and life to make their discontent with government performance
evident as they did with the low turnout in this year’s election that brought
Mr. Raisi to power.
The risk of renewed protests was reflected in the fact
that responses to various questions regarding the electoral system, the limited
number of presidential candidates (because many were barred from running), and
the public health system showed that it was often a slim majority at best that
expressed confidence in the system.
Add to that the fact that 68 per cent of respondents
to the poll said that the objectives of past protests had been a demand that
officials pay greater attention to people’s problems.
Yet, at the same time, they were telling the United
States that its efforts to generate pressure on Iranian leaders to moderate
their nuclear and regional policies by imposing harsh sanctions had for now backfired.
Iranians were backing a tougher negotiating position by the Raisi government.
Ultimately that could be a double-edged sword for Mr.
Raisi. He has to prove that he can be tough on the United States and
simultaneously improve the lives of ordinary Iranians. Failure to do so could
have in Mr. Khajehpour’s words “unpredictable consequences.”
A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr,
Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon
and Castbox.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning
journalist and scholar and a Senior Fellow at the National University of
Singapore’s Middle East Institute.
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