Iran's Pivotal Elections: The Nuclear Deal, the Supreme Leader, and the end of Sanctions

On the 26th of February, the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran head to the polls to elect two different legislative bodies-the Islamic Consultative Assembly which is usually known simply as the Parliament or Majlis, and the Assembly of Experts, an upper house of sorts which is tasked with choosing the Supreme Leader of Iran, a post currently held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The election comes at a pivotal time in the Islamic Republic's existence. After months of negotiations, Iran's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammed Javad Zarif, emerged exhausted but triumphant, nuclear deal in hand. The agreement was a landmark one which seeks to curb Iran's nuclear program to exclusively pursue energy purposes. Substantial sanctions relief came months later and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promptly headed to Europe and hammered out billion-dollar trade agreements with France and Italy.

Iran is both a dictatorship and democracy. Iranians may elect the President, the Parliament, and Assembly of Experts, and they do so in large numbers. The 2013 Presidential Election saw 72.77% of registered Iranians head to the polls, where Hassan Rouhani was elected in a landslide. In 2009, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected president in an election that was likely subject to government tampering, Iranians poured into the streets, furiously asking where their votes went.

However, the elections and candidates are subject to strict scrutiny by the Guardian Council, an organization with close ties to the Supreme Leader, and reformists who seek to gradually change the country are often disqualified by the Council. The Guardian Council raised some eyebrows when they disqualified Hassan Khomeini, grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, from running for a seat in the Assembly of Experts, as Khomeini is the father of the Islamic Revolution and his likeness is still ubiquitous around the streets of Iran's cities.

Some of those disqualifications have been repealed, but many still stand. The elections are ten days away, and are widely seen as a public referendum on whether the Iranian people desire to see Tehran continue its negotiations with Western countries and entities such as the European Union and United States.

Most countries in the European Union already have relations with Iran, but the United States does not.

The history of US-Iranian relations is a complicated one and there aren't many clean hands.

Iran still harbors anger towards the United States for three reasons. In 1953, a coup d'etat was engineered by the US and UK, replacing Iran's constitutional monarchy with an absolute monarchy and deposing the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. The coup was directly cited as a reason to distrust the United States by the Islamic Republic government when it came to power and overthrew the Shah.

In the 1980s, two more events further pushed Iran and the United States apart. The United States directly supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War which lasted from 1980 to 1988. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians perished in that war and many met death because of poison gas used by Saddam Hussein's regime. Very little was accomplished by the war. In 1988, as the war was drawing to a close, the USS Vicennes accidentally shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 civilians. Vice President George H.W. Bush declared he would not apologize for America many times after the accident occurred, which enraged Iranians.

Tehran's hands are not entirely clean either. The government of Iran sponsors Shi'a militants in Lebanon such as Hezbollah and has supported terrorist groups like Hamas in the past as well. When a large wave of fundamentalist Iranian students stormed the American Embassy in Tehran they took dozens of embassy employees hostage for 444 days.

Hard-line rhetoric still flourishes on both sides. After the nuclear deal was struck, Ayatollah Khamenei forbade negotiations between the United States and Iran (which didn't actually end), and multiple senators and representatives from the United States have said without flinching that they will do all in their power to end or undermine the deal. Many presidential candidates such as Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio have promised to tear up the nuclear deal "on day one" if they are elected president. Real estate mogul Donald Trump has called it one of the worst deals ever negotiated.

Talking tough doesn't mean that deal is doomed, however. GOP Senator Rand Paul, a presidential candidate who dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucus known for his more cautious approach to foreign policy, stated that tearing the deal up on day one was unrealistic. Fellow GOP presidential candidate and Governor of Ohio John Kasich agreed, stressing the impetus should be focused on enforcing the deal rather than abruptly ending it. Independent-turned-Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders even called for full normalization of relations between the United States and Iran.

     Full normalization of relations is probably not going to happen right away even if Sanders is to shock the world and snag the nomination for president from Fmr. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and go on to win the presidency. Unlike the problems between the United States and Cuba which have mostly faded into the back of people's minds, the adversarial relationship between the US and Iran is still being steadily dismantled. A reformist or even moderate victory in the legislative elections, however, could clear the road for that in the future. It could send the message that the democratic elements of the Iranian government are slowly but surely strengthening and the authoritarian elements are on the defensive.

Even if the United States does elect a candidate that desires to end the nuclear deal, it may be a toothless promise on their part. This deal was not enacted exclusively by Washington and Tehran-the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China were all involved in its negotiations. The United Kingdom, one of the main actors behind the 1953 coup, restored full diplomatic relations with Iran last August. Iran enjoys stable relations with both Russia and China. France recently signed a trade deal with Iran, which happened not long after sanctions relief took place. The point here is that ending the nuclear deal would only achieve the desired goal for hawkish politicians in the western countries if Iran committed a serious provocation. If Tehran doesn't directly provoke the countries it just negotiated with, any new sanctions would be much less powerful in isolating the regime.

The wild card in all of this is the health of Supreme Leader Khamenei. Ayatollah Khamenei is 76 years old and rumored to be ailing. While the successor to Khamenei is not yet known and has not yet been decided, it is almost certainly being discussed behind closed doors. If the moderates and reformists in Iran manage to pull off an election victory in both the Majlis and the Assembly of Experts, which they very well could, it would represent a substantial boost in power and influence for the democratic elements of the Iranian government. A moderate or reformist Supreme Leader would represent a sharp contrast to the hard-liner Khamenei and could bode well for future relations between the United States and Iran.

This isn't 2009 and the Iranian government does not look like it's going to come crashing down to the sound of thousands of green-clad Iranians in the streets chanting "Down with the Dictator!" to President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei. But it could be the best chance for the "Republic" part of "Islamic Republic of Iran" to become a bigger player in Tehran, and that can and will benefit both Iran and the countries it wishes to become directly involved with again.

Don't Have to Live like a Refugee: Europe and the Assimilation Problem

For the last year, the news in Europe has turned from tensely watching Greece, Russia, and Ukraine to the shores of the continent, where millions of refugees from Syria's bloody civil war are crossing over the borders.

Some come because they yearn to be free.

Some come for economic opportunity.

And some are coming to do evil deeds in the name of a perverted and twisted version of one of the most widely practiced faiths.

The rhetoric on both sides has been frightening and led to frightening consequences.

On New Years' Eve, many of Europe's cities were shocked as hundreds of cases of sexual violence were committed and then covered up by news agencies for fear of appearing racist or prejudiced.

Hate crimes and vigilante groups have sprung up all over the European Union as ethnic nationalist and neo-Nazi parties gain in the polls.

Political polarization is at best frustrating and at worst terrifying. Much of Europe's political discourse has become extreme.

On the left, some have become so zealous to defend their narrative of building a multicultural and inclusive society that they cannot admit the problems that can and have arisen, instead retreating and making accusations of racism.

On the right, populism, nationalism, and hatred are rising and fast. In Sweden, the far-right Sweden Democrats are leading the polls with slogans like "Keep Sweden Swedish". 

It is beyond a reasonable doubt that Europe did not prepare adequately to take on the difficult task of accepting, settling, assimilating, and providing for millions of people.

The main problem to solve, however, may not be who's coming in or even how many are coming in. 

The United States of America has had an immigration debate going for most of its history as a sovereign state. Despite the overall success of assimilation in the United States, the history of immigrants coming to America is fraught with prejudice.

Before the Civil War, Irish immigrants fleeing British persecution, religious division, and famine came en masse to the United States. Most of them were poor and Catholic, stereotyped as rubes who did nothing but drink and fight. Back in those days, anti-Catholic sentiment was also strong in the United States. Irish were barred from many job opportunities, which stated in plain terms "No Irish Need Apply".

Decades after the Civil War, President Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act into law. All Chinese laborers were restricted entry into the United States.

During World War I, German-Americans were subject to widespread mistrust and hatred. Speaking German was severely discouraged, German-American businesses were attacked in hate crimes, and names were changed en masse to hide identity.

A similar wave of prejudice occurred against Eastern Europeans with the communist takeover of Russia and again at the beginning of the Cold War in the 1940s and 1950s.

Japanese Americans also suffered racism during World War II when they were kept in internment camps as a national security precaution. The Supreme Court upheld this decision in Korematsu v. United States and even Bugs Bunny cartoons were quick to paint the "Japs" as sniveling, deceitful and bloodthirsty.

The issue of assimilation may turn out to be the most important problem to solve both for the present and the future. Margaret Thatcher once said that "Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."

That Thatcher quote brings to light a very important difference between the United States and Europe. Nationalism thrives in the United States, but for the most part it is a civic nationalism rather than an ethnic nationalism, meaning it is based in the ideas that make up the country. In the United States, that means the ideas put forth in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Despite a history fraught with institutionalized racism, a theme that the United States is still trying to shake off, there is a sense and a belief in the United States that "Anyone can be an American". It's not uncommon to see Americans describe themselves as their heritage followed by "-American". Politicians in the United States proudly proclaim the country a "nation of immigrants". Indeed, in the United States there are large communities of immigrants who retain their culture while adopting American ideals and beliefs. In the United States there are Lebanese-Americans, Syrian-Americans, Russian-Americans, and so on. These are people who adopt American ideals, culture, and customs but also retain parts of their own cultures. The city of Chicago is famous for its huge Polish-American population and to this day, Polish is the third most widely spoken language in Chicago behind English and Spanish.

Europe's problem is not where the refugees are coming from. Even though Islamic fundamentalism is definitely a serious security problem for the western world,  the faith most of the refugees practice isn't the problem either.

What Europe needs to focus on is assimilation. In European countries, ethnic identity is more a part of nationalism than it is in the United States.

This isn't to say there aren't assimilated immigrants in Europe, there are many. Britain has large populations of Poles, Romanians, and Bulgarians. France has a large population of Africans, especially Algerians. Germany is home to millions of Turkish citizens.

Firstly, Europe must publicly and vigorously embrace what makes it free. The United States is no longer an outlier when it comes to democracy. The vast majority of European countries are vigorously democratic and free. Turnout is often higher in European countries and this is certainly a strength the EU can boast. If immigrants are actively taught the benefits of the process they can feel motivated and included in that  process. Participation in the process has to be valued across all communities and it must extend to truly make the immigrants a vital part of society as Germans, French, and British rather than Turkish, Algerian, and Polish.

Secondly, civic nationalism must be promoted in the face of ethnic nationalism. Europeans have every right to feel proud of where they come from. Unfortunately, displaying flags in many European countries often have counter-demonstrations of  acceptance and inclusiveness. Of course this is a good thing, but in order to beat ethnic nationalists at their own game, you have to provide an alternative which retains the ability of the nationalists to remain proud. The embrace of an active civic nationalism could hurt the rising popularity of ethnic nationalist political movements and civic nationalism by definition is open to anyone, further promoting inclusion.

And thirdly, perhaps most obviously, concrete and comprehensive immigration policies must be hammered out with the cooperation of the countries where the refugees and migrants are coming from. If systems are set up to let people come across, the flourishing human smuggling industry that has popped up can be fought against and ultimately beaten.

Comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Turkey's Kurdish Question

Ever since its formal establishment in 1948, the State of Israel has been involved in a back-and-forth border dispute with their Palestinian neighbors.

The conflict is a nasty, bloody tornado of terrorism, poverty, extremist ideologies, and violence on both sides.

Hamas lobbing rockets into Israeli territory.
Fundamentalist Palestinians stabbing and killing Israelis without provocation.
Pizza places and buses blown up in Tel Aviv.

And on the other side, similar atrocities.

Fundamentalist Israeli settlers torching Palestinian homes.
In the 1990s, Baruch Goldstein, the butcher of the Cave of the Patriarchs, went on a murderous rampage in a mosque which only ended when worshipers overpowered him and beat him to death.
Yigal Amir, a Haredi fanatic whose cold-blooded murder of revered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sent Israel into mourning at a time peace looked like it could finally happen.

Some miles northeast, violence continues in southeastern Turkey, eerily similar to the continuing strife in Israel and Palestine.

Turkey, in the Treaty of Lausanne, officially recognizes three ethnic/religious minorities. They are Armenians, Greeks, and Jews. One minority is suspiciously missing from this list, however, and that's the Kurds. For many years, Kurds were referred to as "Mountain Turks", a symptom of Turkey's strong sense of nationalism. In 1978, a militant left-wing terrorist group called the Kurdistan Workers' Party was formed, and they have been fighting Turkey since their creation and into the present.

The PKK uses many of the same methods as Islamic fundamentalist groups such as suicide bombings and most of their victims are Turkish soldiers, but atrocities are committed in both attacks and counterattacks.

Both Palestinians and Turkish Kurds cite the opponent's stubborn nationalism as a main cause for armed struggle and terrorism.

Israel is defined in its law as a Jewish, democratic state. Its national anthem, a haunting, solemn tune called Hatikvah (The Hope), speaks about the Jews' desire to "be a free people in our own land...the land of Zion and Jerusalem."

Zionism is by definition a nationalist ideology that calls for a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land, and it has both religious and secular components just as the religion it comes from. Benjamin Netanyahu is a member of the secular center-right party Likud. Likud, the largest party in Israel's Knesset (Parliament) is a secular Zionist party, while its coalition party The Jewish Home is a religious Zionist party which sits to the right of Likud on the political spectrum.

 Zionists defend their ideology as a simple and reasonable idea that Jews should be able to have a Jewish state in the region of the Middle East known as Israel. Its critics claim it to be a prejudiced and colonialist ideology that discriminates against Palestinians and other Arabs, some going as far as to say that Israel's government is as discriminatory as South Africa's was under apartheid.

The Republic of Turkey is not much older than Israel. It was founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as the Ottoman Empire collapsed. The new country embraced Kemalism, a political ideology that serves as the foundation of modern Turkey.

Kemalism is made up of six different ideas, known as the Six Arrows, which today adorn the crimson banner of Turkey's secular, social democratic Republican People's Party.

The first is carved into the halls of Turkey's Grand National Assembly. "Sovereignty unconditionally belongs to the nation." In other words, the people of Turkey are to be the only entity to be tasked with the governance of the Turkish state. Ataturk did away with the slogans of the Ottoman Empire and replaced them with a new identity based on the idea of civic nationalism. "Long live the Sultan/Sheikh" was gradually replaced by "How happy is the one who says 'I am Turkish.' "

To the Turkish people, this national identity is cherished and touted. It has played a large role in Turkey's development into a regional power and one of the most democratic, free countries in the Middle East. Ataturk's face is everywhere in Turkey.

Unfortunately, many Turkish Kurds do not share the same glowing view when it comes to Turkey's national identity. Turkey's lack of recognition of Kurds as an ethnic minority, even calling them "Mountain Turks" instead of Kurds, has isolated them within the Turkish borders and caused them to take up Kurdish nationalism rather than to embrace a Turkish identity that they feel is forced upon them. After 1980, Kurds were forbidden to speak their native tongue. Although this has changes considerably (state run broadcaster TRT now broadcasts some programming in Kurdish) many Turkish Kurds still support the efforts of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the left-wing terrorists mentioned before.

The Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK as it is often known, is considered a terrorist group by the United States and Turkey. It primarily wages its war against Turkey in the form of suicide bombings (primarily in the 1990s) and attacks on Turkish soldiers. On paper, the PKK fights for the rights and self-determination of Turkish Kurds. At one time they supported independence, which if it ever happened, would mean a significant loss of territory for Turkey.

Poverty also plays a role in these conflicts. Like much of Palestine, the Kurdish areas of Turkey are poor and conflicted.

Israel does not have a national identity comparable to Kemalism in Turkey, but it does have some ethnic tension. About 20 percent of Israelis are Arabs, and they lead conflicted lives to say the least. While some have accepted Israeli citizenship and assimilated into Israeli society by participating in learning Hebrew-both Hebrew and Arabic are official languages in Israel but Hebrew is more widely spoken-many refuse, seeing that action as a betrayal towards the Palestinian struggle.

In order to find permanent solutions, there will have to be concessions on all sides.

Israel does some things well. It is always quick to condemn act against Jewish extremists when they rear their head. When an atrocity is committed in Israel in the name of Judaism or Zionism, even Israel's far-right nationalist political parties speak with contempt and disgust about it. Demonstrations against the atrocity occur. And perhaps most importantly, the perpetrators don't get far. The Jewish Underground, a terrorist group in the 1980s, was only able to carry out one act of brutality before the Shin Bet (Israel's equivalent to the American FBI), with the help of an informant, caught a large number of the terrorists planting bombs on buses and sent them all to prison-the group is now defunct. In a more present-day example-suspects thought to be the arsonists that killed Palestinians have also been taken into custody.

One of the biggest problems in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in the settlements. After the Six Day War in 1967, Palestine's borders were pushed back to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel's isolation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since then has exacerbated tensions, and the settlements have pushed the borders back even further.

Immediate withdrawal, however, isn't quite the instant solution some may believe either. Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in 2005 under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and tensions have not ended in that area.

Israelis deserve to live in peace and they have the right to defend themselves. However, the two-state solution often considered the best way forward, does not seem to be much of a priority under the current government.

Unfortunately, the solution likely does not lie with the Palestinian Authority either. The Palestinian Authority is entirely corrupt and ineffective. Hamas is a terrorist group that embraces Islamism and anti-Semitism and rules Gaza with an iron fist.

While Palestinians have the right to live in their own country, the power structures within their borders offer no help to their cause when they scream wildly anti-Semitic rhetoric and cheer terrorists who kill Jews as martyrs.

If there is a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will likely require some land concessions from Israel and a major overhaul of Palestinian civil society away from Islamic fundamentalism.

Since the PKK is not an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization, it does not inspire the same fear that groups like Da'esh do. However, just as groups like Hamas will never solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with their methods, it's unlikely the PKK will achieve their goals for the Kurdish people with theirs. Kurds in Turkey can be and often are subject to repression that Turks don't face, but killing Turkish soldiers is fighting fire with fire.

Turkey's governmental structure is faulty as well. In order to get into the Turkish Parliament, a party needs to get 10% of the popular vote. This makes it a nail biter every time the Kurds try to send a party to parliament-even in Turkey, where turnout is very high in elections, the most recent Kurdish party (the People's Democratic Party) considered 13% of the vote to be high. That's only 3% away from the threshold. Lowering that threshold would allow Turkey's democracy to diversify and cement Kurdish representation, though this is unlikely to happen in the current political climate with President Erdogan's Justice and Development Party in power.

The chances of Turkey finding a permanent solution might be a bit more likely than that of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and that's because Turkey's nationalist spirit is in many ways rooted in ideas rather than religion. Turks and Kurds are both predominantly Muslim. If Ankara was to concede minority representation (official constitutional recognition, language representation at the regional level, a lower threshold to get into Parliament, perhaps cultural exchanges) to Turkish Kurds, it could undermine the radical Kurdish groups such as the PKK.