ANKARA – Iranians quickly closed ranks against a hawkish new U.S. approach to Tehran, but Iran’s powerful hardliners are set to exploit the latest dispute with Washington to weaken domestic rivals who are open to the West, analysts and insiders say.
President Donald Trump’s warning on Friday that he might ultimately terminate a landmark 2015 nuclear deal sets the stage for an eventual resurgence of political infighting within Iran’s complex power structures, officials said.
If the accord signed by Iran and six major powers does start to fall apart, anyone who strongly promoted it, such as pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, could face a career-damaging backlash.
That could leave Iran’s security hardliners unchallenged at home, enabling greater Iranian assertiveness abroad that could worsen tensions in the Middle East, analysts say.
For the moment, solidarity within the Islamic Republic’s faction-ridden political elite is the priority.
“What matters now is unity against the foreign enemy,” a senior official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, like other figures contacted within Iran because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“Our national interest is a priority for all Iranian officials.”
But Rouhani and pragmatists and reformist allies who promoted the deal, which lifted sanctions in return for Tehran rolling back technologies with nuclear bomb-making potential, may become increasingly politically vulnerable at home.
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