Iranians pour onto streets ( t-shirt shows Minister of Foreign Affairs), July 14, 2015. Demotix/Meysam Mim. All rights reserved.Europeans hope that diplomatic success on the nuclear issue will have a spin-off effect, allowing broader engagement with Iran. For the past decade, Europe has adopted a containment policy on Iran, which has been pursued through a mixture of sanctions, threats of military strikes by the US and Israel, and a diplomatic freeze with Iran on regional conflicts. This has given Europe leverage in the nuclear negotiations, while allowing it to reduce Israeli fears and prevent the risk of a long and costly military confrontation with Iran.
But the deliberate exclusion of Iran has been counterproductive to Europe’s strategic objectives. Iran’s striking absence from the Geneva conferences on Syria has shrunk Europe’s options for constructive progress and de-escalation in Syria. In some instances, the containment policy exacerbated Tehran’s fears and paranoia about a western plot for regime change and, as a result, caused the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to intensify its anti-western regional action. Moreover, given the lack of alternatives, Europe has been forced to side consistently with its traditional regional allies, even when their proposals proved less effective than Iran’s or further fractured the region.
It has been difficult for political actors in Europe to think outside the “containment box” about a possible role for Iran on non-nuclear issues – and, in any case, it would have been futile to do so, given the nuclear-centric orientation of Europe’s relations with Iran. In formulating expectations on regional security, Europe will need to consider Tehran’s priorities as well as the current geopolitical realities. Iran’s regional priority is to create sufficient stability to prevent direct attacks at its borders from extremist groups that would threaten the Iranian state system and the country’s majority Shia population, while at the same time working to strengthen its influence abroad. Tehran is first and foremost concerned with its neighbours, Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking at a minimum that leaders in those countries are unthreatening to Iran and to some degree dependent on Tehran’s support. On its border with Pakistan, Iran is actively tackling hostile Sunni extremists and working to prevent the “Talibanisation of Pakistan”. Iran wants to preserve the Axis of Resistance against what it believes to be a US and Israeli plan for regime change in Tehran. Maintaining access routes to Hezbollah, and consequently a loyal security apparatus in Syria and Lebanon, is critical to this strategy.
