For Iran, Exerting Force While Making Nice Is Part of the Plan

By THOMAS ERDBRINK OCT. 25, 2016

TEHRAN — Just as conservative opponents of the nuclear deal with Iranhad warned, Tehran seems to be moving aggressively to expand its regional influence while working to counter American interests throughout the Middle East.

Yet, just as proponents of the deal had promised, Iran is also slowly opening up, cutting deals with Western businesses, establishing phone links with the United States, speeding up the internet, welcoming hordes of European tourists and relaxing some social restrictions on its own people.

What would seem to be a puzzling contradiction is in fact a carefully thought-out, two-track policy being pursued by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the circle of leaders around him.

Iranian generals are directing the ground war in Syria. Iranian advisers aretraining Shiite militias fighting in Iraq and Syria. Iranian arms and othersupport help the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In addition to sanctioning the country’s more aggressive military footprint in the region, Ayatollah Khamenei regularly issues broadsides against the United States, promising there will be no softening of Tehran’s stance against the Great Satan, while quietly opening the door to Western capital and expertise.

And yet, when President Hassan Rouhani faces attacks from hard-liners, Ayatollah Khamenei almost always has his back, at least in private.

“Yes, it is part of our new policy to show our strength, but also to reach out to the West,” said Saeed Laylaz, an economist and political analyst close to the government of Mr. Rouhani. “Both are aimed at strengthening our country and increasing our influence. A contradiction? We are doing exactly what America has been doing for decades.”

There is little doubt that Iran is exerting greater force in the region. On the battlefields of Syria, Iranian advisers and “volunteers” — often Afghans and Shiite militias — are fighting and dying alongside Syrian government troops to drive rebels out of Aleppo. Near Mosul, Iraq, the Popular Mobilization Forces, another name for dozens of Shiite militias, are taking cues from other advisers, usually associated with the elite Quds Force of theRevolutionary Guards.

With the region in such turmoil, this might seem like an inopportune time to soften restrictions on business dealings with the West and personal freedoms at home. But that seems to be exactly what is happening. The changes are incremental and can be turned back at any moment, but they are unmistakable, analysts say.

The most obvious change is in politics. After dominating for 15 years, Iran’s hard-line faction — a conservative elite of clerics, military leaders and politicians — has suffered a string of defeats.

Their figurehead, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president, became the symbol of a nation refusing any form of compromise. “Never, ever will Iran compromise on its nuclear program,” Mr. Ahmadinejad often promised.

But in 2012, a year before Mr. Ahmadinejad’s term ended, Ayatollah Khamenei allowed his representatives to contact the United States to discuss exactly such a compromise.

Since then, the hard-liners have lost battle after battle to a group of technocrats and moderates who were the only ones in the country’s small establishment able to talk to the West.

During the 2013 elections, the hard-liners lost to Mr. Rouhani, a moderate. Recently, Ayatollah Khamenei ruled out any prospect of a comeback for Mr. Ahmadinejad, still the only conservative with a strong following.

For two years during the nuclear talks with the United States and other world powers, the hard-liners spoke out against any compromise. They lost. Parliamentary elections? Lost.

The hard-liners spoke out against foreign investment, internet freedoms, more visits by foreigners, concerts and fewer morality police on the streets. On all those issues, they lost or were largely ignored.

And that is no accident, analysts say.

It stems from Ayatollah Khamenei’s decision to ease Iran away — for now, at least — from a rigid interpretation of its revolutionary ideology and end the isolation that has hampered the economy and frustrated young Iranians yearning to live in a “normal” country.

At 77, and with at least one hospitalization in recent years for prostate cancer, Ayatollah Khamenei appears determined, while he still has full power, to make the changes essential for Iran to realign relations with the world, analysts say.

“In Mr. Khamenei’s view, we should be like China,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, an analyst with close ties to the hard-liners. “Have economic relations with the West, but without their political influence and neo-colonization.”

Thus, visa restrictions have been eased and foreign investment policies relaxed, while Iranian diplomats are spreading a message of Iran as the last major untapped market in the world.

“We need Western know-how and Western investments,” said Mr. Laylaz, the economist. “Now that the sanctions no longer stand in our way, we are reaching out to the West for their money and knowledge. But, of course, we do not want their politics.”

Rene Harun, a German expatriate and the managing director of the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, speaks of “a new era” in the Islamic republic. “The government is taking big steps in order to improve business,” he said.

In recent months, average Iranians have noticed some welcome changes, too. The internet, long kept at a snail’s pace by the authorities, is noticeably faster — enough to watch videos online, something that never had been possible. State television has created new digital channels, introducing more comedies and even a Persian version of Netflix’s “House of Cards.”

Parliament, free of domination by hard-liners for the first time in over a decade, has asked for restrictions on capital punishment, more press freedoms and the reinstatement of a reformist female politician who was barred after appearing in pictures without the obligatory Islamic head scarf.

“Over all there is hope, and while we should see how that plays out and how much time it will take, people are looking towards the future more than before,” said Nazanin Daneshvar, the female chief executive of Takhfifan, a discount shopping website.

At the same time, Ayatollah Khamenei goes out of his way in public pronouncements to reassure his hard-line supporters that their vision of a conservative Islamic theocracy in opposition to America and the West still holds sway. In a speech last week, for example, he said that “problems between Iran and the United States will never be resolved.”

Ayatollah Khamenei also issues frequent warnings about the Islamic State, at its core a violent Sunni insurgency that poses a threat to Shiite Iran. Either fight the militants in Syria, he says, or fight them in the western Iranian cities of Kermanshah and Hamadan.

While the country’s military adventures seem far removed from daily life for many Iranians, they do align with the public’s often nationalistic views. “Iran should be strong and influential,” said Mohammad Heydari, a former journalist. “Just look at the map, see where we are located and how large our country is, and you’ll understand.”

The wars may also serve as a distraction, perhaps placating hard-liners at a time when ideological red lines are being crossed and events once thought impossible — like buying American planes — are now taking place regularly.

Publicly, Ayatollah Khamenei often criticizes the nuclear agreement, but the most influential hard-liners understand that he was the architect of the pact. He also did not stop discussions between Boeing and the national carrier, Iran Air, even though the deal that is emerging will mean large-scale business relations with the United States.

“A lot of things in Iran are said for domestic consumption,” said Amir Kavian, a political analyst close to Iran’s reform movement. “We should not take everything seriously. Actions speak louder than words.”

Both Iran’s partial opening up to the West and its involvement in Middle East conflicts are directed by Ayatollah Khamenei, analysts say.

“All top foreign and domestic policies are commanded by the leader,” said Mr. Taraghi, the hard-line political analyst. Still, he said, Westerners should not hold out hope of deep and significant changes in Iran.