South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Barbara Slavin writes for Al Monitor on Iran’s regional policies, quoting Brent Scowcroft Center Resident Senior Fellow for Middle East Security Bilal Y. Saab on the perceptions of Iran’s neighbors and announcing Nasser Hadian’s report on Iran’s engagement in the region to be presented at the Atlantic Council:
Now that the Iran nuclear deal appears to have survived congressional efforts to derail it, a key question is what impact it will have on Iran’s regional policies.
Contrary to the impression many in Washington seem to have that Iran will inevitably double down on intervention in regional conflicts, some members of the Iranian policy elite are advocating retrenchment to focus on repairing Iran’s sanctions-battered economy, according to Nasser Hadian, a Tehran University professor of political science who is close to the government of President Hassan Rouhani.
In a new paper to be presented Sept. 14 at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, Hadian wrote that a “pro-minimal engagement” camp is arguing that Iran should reduce its intervention in neighboring states to “a bare minimum.”
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A less-interventionist Iranian stance might make it easier for President Barack Obama’s administration to sell the Iran deal to supporters of Israel and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Bilal Saab, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, told Al-Monitor that what Iranians regard as “stabilizing, their neighbors think the opposite.”