May 10, 2018
Greg Curnoe, America, 1989, Lithograph

Iranian Nuclear Agreement and a Non-American Vision of the World*

Should we be afraid of the unilateral departure of the United States from the international nuclear agreement with Iran and passively wait for the horrendous results of this warmongering decision, or should we take advantage of this opportunity with the help of other countries party to the agreement? Is this a curse or an excuse to circumvent the US Government’s hegemony? Can we imagine a world which no longer allows the interests of the US Government to be the decisive parameter in international relations, in which relations between neighboring countries with a long history of peaceful coexistence is not subject to the calculations of American arms and energy dealers?

The US exit from the nuclear deal is the decision of a selfishly autonomous political system to abandon a historic agreement. Inside Iran, except for a minority of hardliners and extremist secular nationalists in the diaspora, the agreement was unequivocally supported by a diverse spectrum of political leanings, from the liberal and left positions and oppositions to the families of the Iran-Iraq War martyrs. Even political prisoners from within their confinement supported the agreement. In a dangerous political moment, Iranians, despite their disagreements and while fighting for democracy at home, agreed on helping the nuclear deal, because they viewed the lifting of international sanctions from the outside as a way of rationally resolving the political dead-ends inside. Such a consensus was the outcome of Iranians’ long experience of participating in political struggles.

This densely historical experience is not limited to the last four decades after the revolution and the people’s tumultuous relationship with their government. The history of parallel struggles against tyranny and colonialism is chiseled in the most in-depth memories of every Iranian, not through official narratives and school history books, but with poetry, images, and stories moving from mouth to mouth and house to house.

Iranian’s loyalty and pride towards the nuclear agreement is not merely praise for Iran’s popular foreign minister but is for a history of negotiations and peacemaking by politicians who struggle to open the road of dialogue to improve and secure people’s lives. These sages were able to find a way to negotiate with Mongol rule in the ninth century, turning vicious armies into dignified citizens of the country. Average Iranians have memorialized and repurposed these legacies in their everyday struggles with the authorities.

In addition to damaging Iran’s economy, the US exit from the nuclear agreement also has the potential to damage Iranian’s self-confidence. Iranians and those upholding the deal should patiently protect our self-esteem and peaceful policies and not fear the path ahead of us. The real division in the world is not between Iran and the west but between warmongers and those who seek peace.

Let’s not forget that Iran’s unique geographical borders were not drawn by colonizers. The unique diversity of its people and its independence itself is an exceptional example of cohabitation of people together. This cohabitation is the result of a long-lived faith in diplomacy. Elections in Iran have taken place even under the most profound internal rifts and with a security state overshadowing citizens’ rights.

The post-Revolution experience of life in Iran wasn’t necessarily that of isolation from the rest of the world, but of living in a country whose name for years was on the headlines of world news which never provided an accurate picture of its millions of inhabitants. Instead, the picture of Iran was a vague but fixed image resonating with the old texts of post-Cold War politics: an abstract country whose imaginary dictatorship would remind us of our free world. This unfamiliar picture was broadcast every day to millions around the world. Those trying to undermine this image themselves created upside-down reflections of the country that would be appealing to a western audience, helping them recognize the unknown opposition in Iran. Some Iranian artists unconsciously reacted to this exaggeration through an accentuation of the ordinary in representations of Iran.

Nonetheless, Iran is an exception in the current world order for it undermines the good-evil dichotomy of the post-Cold War years. Iran was a country which was included in George Bush’s Axis of Evil and designated as the focus of constant threats by American politicians. However, over the last 12 years, Iran has emerged as the first country in the history of the United Nations that was able to lift international sanctions through negotiations and didn’t end up in a war.

The preservation of a contested democracy in Iran is the result of a political maturity forged under many years of external threats; a maturity passed down from generation to generation. Today, this politics, more than ever, desires dialogue with the world it faces and has shown itself willing to shape a new internationality driven by the imagination of peaceful political forces in different geographies. This is why the most important catastrophe is not the US exit from the international nuclear agreement with Iran but the loud and willful rejection of this imagination by the official voice of American politics. To protect this imagination, we must get closer to each other more than ever to make possible one more time a vision void of the absolute reign of American hegemony.

*Translated by Mohammad Salemy & Sam Samiee

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