Over the past two weeks, both Israel and Iran have gone through political changes, with heads of government who had been in power for long, giving way to new faces, politics, and personalities. From a regional perspective, this change of guard in both Jerusalem and Tehran takes West Asia (Middle East) into a new phase of uncertainty and opportunity, as covert wars, diplomacy, and domestic politics of these individual states along with their relations with international powers like the US, Russia, and China step into a new phase.
In Israel, after a 12-year current run, and 14 years as Prime Minister overall, now former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave way to the Jewish state’s new leader, Naftali Bennett, who has served multiple ministerial positions previously as part of Netanyahu’s government, before coming forward and stitching together a fragile coalition of right wing, left wing, and Arab political representation to form a government. The road for Israel till this juncture has not been easy, with four general elections leading to repetitive stalemates, and Netanyahu, through each poll, managing to hang on to power till the next election was set. In between Israel’s political fracas, came the Gaza war, another opportunity for Netanyahu to rally support behind him. However, despite his avatar as that of a cold strategist and politician, Bennett, politically and publicly supported by a common fear of a looming and embarrassing fifth election on the horizon, managed to cross the finish line against his former boss.
In between Israel’s political fracas, came the Gaza war, another opportunity for Netanyahu to rally support behind him. However, despite his avatar as that of a cold strategist and politician, Bennett, politically and publicly supported by a common fear of a looming and embarrassing fifth election on the horizon, managed to cross the finish line against his former boss
On the other side of the West Asian fold, Iran also went to polls, getting ready to choose a replacement for President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate politician who took charge in 2013 on the back of a reformist agenda of bringing Iran out of economic destitution, international sanctions, and returning the Shia seat of power to mainstream international politics and systems; the driving agreement of which was tediously negotiated and signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries (P5+1 are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and Germany). However, the US unceremoniously exiting the deal in 2018 under then President Donald Trump, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), designed to construct checks and balances around Iran’s nuclear programme, threw a ner into not just the entire international diplomacy process, but domestic politics in Iran as well.
The conservatives in Iran that had warned of attempts to engage with the US were vindicated in their stance, and with domestic economics still in the doldrums, the divide of Iranian systems, sandwiched between a marketable republic and a fledging theocracy, came into play with the theocracy assuming the upper hand. Rouhani came to power on the promise of hope for the Iranian people, however, two terms later, the desired reforms were not achieved, specifically in the field of fighting rampant corruption. In midst of his efforts to bring in reforms, Rouhani also had to spend a lot of time and energy balancing interests. For example, his efforts for having to constructively engage the US during nuclear negotiations while also criticising the US to make sure the narratives of the powerful conservatives and the Ayatollah are not ignored. An excellent example of this complex power play was visible in Delhi when Rouhani visited India in February 2018. During one of his more prominent public engagements in the Indian capital, he spent nearly an hour chastising the US and its policies in West Asia, hardly mentioning India or the India–Iran bilateral ties, a speech almost fully tailored for domestic consumption back home. This was a time when India was also attempting to gain concessions with the Obama administration for sanction waivers so that it could continue a level of oil trade with Tehran, and Delhi becoming a platform for such anti-US tirade assumingly was not helpful.
During one of his more prominent public engagements in the Indian capital, he spent nearly an hour chastising the US and its policies in West Asia, hardly mentioning India or the India–Iran bilateral ties, a speech almost fully tailored for domestic consumption back home
The path for an Iranian election victory was cleared for controversial ultraconservative jurist Ebrahim Raisi, who will take over from Rouhani in August as not only Iran’s eighth president and a potential contender to succeed the Iranian Supreme Leader, 82-years old Ayatollah Khamenei, but Raisi will be the first president to take over the role while also being sanctioned by the US, potentially complicating the path to successful resumption of the JCPOA agreement. While Raisi is expected to continue on the path of nuclear negotiations with the West, his government is expected to be much more compatible with the Ayatollah and the conservatives than the divergences Rouhani lobbied for within Iran. The 2021 Iranian election saw a turnout of 48.8 percent, reportedly the lowest ever in the country’s history, a significant loss of electorate considering more than half of the country’s population is below the age of 30.
Both Iran and Israel have been fighting an informal war for years. Under Netanyahu, Israel was vehemently against any kind of nuclear deal with Iran which would allow it to empower itself with Western investments. While Israel lobbied hard with then US President Barack Obama against such a mainstreaming of Iran, the Iranian system itself struggled with the republic attempting to reset its relations with the West, while in parallel, the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which directly reports and operates under the auspice of the Ayatollah and its powerful generals, expanded its reach via funding and development of militias in Syria and Iraq, often under the umbrella of fighting the terror group ISIS. In fact, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, in a leaked interview criticised the IRGC for interfering in diplomacy, and blamed the military group for colluding with Russia to undermine the JCPOA. These manoeuvres, which were presumably beyond the mandate of Rouhani to control, were often at odds with what the Iranian government was trying to achieve with the West, and beyond.
For Israel, itself largely accepted as a yet unofficial nuclear weapons power, a nuclear-armed Iran would be an extremely difficult ask to deal with, pushing Jerusalem to operationalise covert wars at the same time as JCPOA was being discussed
For Israel, itself largely accepted as a yet unofficial nuclear weapons power, a nuclear-armed Iran would be an extremely difficult ask to deal with, pushing Jerusalem to operationalise covert wars at the same time as JCPOA was being discussed. For a decade, Israeli intelligence has targeted Iranian nuclear scientists inside the country, and last year, the killing of prominent Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran was also widely pinned on Israeli intelligence. The scope of Israel and Iran’s covert wars are not restricted to inside Iran, Syria, or Iraq, but also the high seas, with some incidents against Iranian ships being attributed as the handywork of Israel. The recently retired chief of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, Yossi Cohen, explained in uncharacteristic detail how a heist was conducted in 2018 inside Tehran to bring back hundreds of documents that detailed the expansiveness of Iran’s nuclear programme despite the JCPOA. The documents were made public in late April 2018 by Netanyahu, and Trump withdrew the US from the deal a few days later. Israeli pressure and urgency against Iran’s nuclear programme is expected to remain undiminished.
Finally, the developing diplomatic thaw between Iran and the Arab world is also a space that worries Israel, despite the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020 that normalised relations between Jerusalem and some Arab states, led by UAE and Bahrain. With the likes of the UAE already having a decent outreach to Iran, and now Saudi Arabia also initiating limited but significant channels of discussion with Tehran, how the new leaderships in Israel and Iran approach each other for the moment remains a work in progress as both Bennett and Raisi flesh out their foreign and regional policies in the months to come as Iran and US reconciliation on the JCPOA becomes a matter of ‘when’, and not ‘if’. This is the case even though Raisi’s conservative stamp became visible a day after his victory as Iranian negotiators in Vienna demanded binding guarantees from the Biden administration that the US will not exit the JCPOA or reinstall sanctions again. The longer it takes, the more difficult it would get for the US as decision-making in Iran arrives exclusively in the lap of the ultraconservatives.
The change of guard in both Iran and Israel also resonates beyond the West Asian geography, with those such as India that maintain a delicate balance between the three poles of power in the region (Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel) also watching closely as the new leaderships announce their policies.
The change of guard in both Iran and Israel also resonates beyond the West Asian geography, with those such as India that maintain a delicate balance between the three poles of power in the region (Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel) also watching closely as the new leaderships announce their policies.
From an Indian perspective where it maintains a healthy relationship with all interests in the region, there will be minute adjustments to be made with diplomacy patterns largely remaining unaffected. On India’s relations with Israel, much over the past few years was shaped by personality politics between Netanyahu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, both prominent faces of a global shift towards right-wing politics. India, no stranger to fragile coalition politics itself, will have to deal with a coalition Israeli government and its kaleidoscope of political representation, potentially taking a step away from the exclusivity of the Netanyahu–Modi bonhomie. Meanwhile, in Iran, there are no major shifts expected within the scope of the India–Iran bilateral as Raisi takes over. The challenges and opportunities alike remain pertinent, with large sections of economic and investment relations stranded on neutral, while expectations off the relationship continue to soar on paper. However, the Iran question will become strategically more important to India in the coming months as the US completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan and China operationalises its 25-year long strategic partnership, estimated to be worth nearly US $400 billion with Tehran.
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Kabir Taneja is a Fellow with Strategic Studies programme. His research focuses on Indias relations with West Asia specifically looking at the domestic political dynamics ...
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