Zarif leak reveals who really wields power in Iran nuclear deal

Mohammad Javad Zarif may be the public face of Iran’s nuclear deal but a devastating leak this week has made clear that the military wields the most power in Tehran and that the foreign minister sometimes found out about their decisions from the US — his supposed nemesis.

A leaked recording of an interview with Zarif, who is also the Islamic republic’s chief nuclear negotiator, has revealed the extent of the divisions between the political and military elite in Tehran and the depth of the power wielded by the Revolutionary Guard.

Zarif describes being told by John Kerry, then US secretary of state, that Iranian involvement in Syria had been stepped up, recounts his difficult relationship with Moscow, tells of the Iranian military lying to him about the real reason for a devastating plane crash and recalls how he realised President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was in Tehran only when he turned on the television, an exclusion that prompted him to tender his resignation.

The recording’s release comes at a sensitive time. Talks with global powers on the resumption of the nuclear accord are taking place in Vienna. Donald Trump abandoned the 2015 deal, under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of US sanctions, in 2018 and imposed tough sanctions. President Joe Biden is willing to return to the deal provided Iran also goes back to full compliance. With centrist Hassan Rouhani set to step down as president after two terms, Zarif is seen as a possible reformist candidate in crucial June 18 presidential elections.

“This file . . . will surely bar the potential candidacy of Mr Zarif,” wrote Abbas Abdi, a reformist commentator, in the media on Tuesday. But with its portrayal of hardliners as irresponsible and reformists as weak, ultimately, analysts say, the leak benefits no one. “This tape also shouts: Messrs! This is not the way to rule,” Abdi added.

It is not clear who leaked the confidential interview, recorded by the Iranian president’s office as part of an “oral history” research project and not intended for publication. It was broadcast by Iran International, the London-based Persian-language television channel. Zarif’s office confirmed the interview took place but said parts of the seven-hour interview had been taken out of context. The Financial Times listened to the three hours made available. The US declined to comment on the “purportedly leaked” material.

In the recording, Zarif recounted anecdotes that illustrated how much power the guards have amassed and how even senior government ministers can be left out in the cold. Six months after the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal, Kerry told Zarif that Iran Air flights to Syria had increased sixfold, a clear indication they were being used by the military to support Damascus in its conflict with opponents of the Assad regime.

Iran Air ultimately confirmed Kerry’s information. When Zarif asked Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the elite force later killed by the US in a drone attack in Iraq, he “said: ‘Iran Air is more secure[than other airlines]’”. The 61-year-old career diplomat’s conclusion was that the military must always come first. “If Iran Air is 2 per cent more secure than [another airline], Iran Air must be used even if this inflicts 200 per cent costs on diplomacy.”

Even Rouhani was at times unaware of their decisions, Zarif said, repeatedly stressing that “the [military] field decides”.

Moscow, a signatory to the deal, sought to scupper it, Zarif said, as it wanted to keep Iran in Russia’s sphere of influence. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, told Zarif to refer to his superiors in Tehran, an intervention Zarif found humiliating.

“I impolitely told him: ‘It’s none of your . . . business’,” Zarif said. Such was Lavrov’s pique after the deal had been agreed, he refused to wait for the group photograph, Zarif said.

After the deal was signed, President Vladimir Putin persuaded Soleimani to put Iran’s ground forces in Syria, Zarif said. Russia had by then intervened to back Assad and wanted to increase Tehran’s role in regional conflict, he implied, thus damaging the nuclear deal. The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment.

Again, Zarif said it was Kerry who told him of Israeli attacks on Iranian forces in Syria. It is not clear when these attacks took place and Kerry has on Twitter dismissed the claims in the recording as “unequivocally false”. While the guards had told the Iraqi prime minister — who told the US — about the attack on a US military base in Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of Soleimani, they did not tell Zarif.

The foreign minister did not realise Assad was in Tehran on February 25 2019 until he saw him on television. “That day I realised that if I don’t resign . . . nobody in the world will [even] give me broad beans to carry let alone negotiate with me.” Rouhani did not accept his resignation.

The guards also denied to him that they had shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet in early 2020, killing 176 people and sparking huge protests. The military later admitted that they had accidentally shot it down.

The military’s anger at the nuclear deal was made clear by Islamic vigilantes’ attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and a brief seizure of two US navy command boats in early 2016. “All happened to make the nuclear deal fail,” Zarif said.

In the interview, Zarif committed himself to the survival of the theocratic state and professed his “very good” friendship with Soleimani and his “special” relations with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Yet, the Islamic regime, he said, saw international relations “from the cold war lens”. That means “the one who is strong in the [military] field is also strong in the international scene. We still pursue the policy of [having] gunboats,” he added. “We do not yet believe that the economy can also increase power . . . as does diplomacy . . . and national solidarity. The power [structure] is single-sided.”

It is unclear what impact the leak will have on the Vienna talks. A senior western diplomat in Tehran questioned Zarif’s claim that Moscow opposed the nuclear deal but overall doubted it would affect the talks unless “Zarif really gets hurt” at home.

Since its release on Sunday night, Zarif has not commented. But in a post on Instagram on Tuesday, he included a link to the last seconds of his interview, with the words: “I believe . . . we should not worry about history . . . We should worry about people and God.”

Additional reporting by Katrina Manson in Washington and Henry Foy in Moscow