That is one reason that Ebadi, Tahmasebi, and other activists say what would have greater impact than a simple nuclear deal is a full normalization of ties with Iran, involving engagement with various branches of the Iranian state as well as academia and the private sector. The most immediate impact of a nuclear deal, says Shirzad Abdollahi, a Tehran-based education specialist who writes on civil society issues, would be the alleviation of economic suffering caused by sanctions, which he sees as a prerequisite to any popular focus on citizen’s rights. If more urgent daily concerns such as lack of access to medicines and spiralling inflation are eased, his thinking goes, Iranians will be more focused on rights issues, and that would, in time, create pressure on Rouhani from below. If the sense of external threat is reduced, it will create space to deal with domestic concerns, he says. People will have the chance to focus more on cultural and social issues, whether it is art or spirituality or even simply learning. For many activists who consider the erosion of Iranians’ quality of life under sanctions a human rights violation in itself, a nuclear compromise would at minimum address that concern. Beyond that, the case for a nuclear deal rests on a hope and a fear: the tentative and guarded hope that the deal would indeed give Rouhani more clout in battling the hard-liners, and that broad engagement with the West would help him use that clout; and the well-founded fear that, if there is no deal, the result could well be that the worst has yet to come. - Azadeh Moaveni
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 02:50:56 +0000
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