By submitting a draft budget for the Iranian year starting next March 2108, the government of President Hassan Rouhani appears to be seeking to send out several messages to regional and international powers closely monitoring Iran’s compliance to the 2015 nuclear deal and the potential trajectories of its regional role in the Middle East.
This coincides with external moves made by Tehran and its allies to assert its influence in crisis-hit countries. Tehran reiterated support for Yemen's rebel Houthis, also known as Ansarullah, after they killed former president Ali Abdullah Saleh on December 3, and for the Iraqi-based Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia whose leader Qais al-Khazali recently visited Lebanon’s border with Israel to signal that the Iranian-aligned Shiite militia is fully prepared to take part in any confrontation with Israel in the coming period. These assertions came after Iran claimed that the war on ISIS has come to an end in Syria and Iraq in a bid to propagandize its self-proclaimed role in the operations against the group.
Multiple messages
Using the new budget and the said extraterritorial moves, Iran wants to send out the following messages:
1- Continued Escalation. Iran believes that the coming period will witness further escalation with involved world powers, the United States and European states in particular. Its bid comes shortly ahead of the deadline the U.S. Congress will determine the best option for dealing with the Iranian challenge and whether Tehran is in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, de-certified by President Donald Trump on October 13.
In Iran’s view, measures taken by Washington indicate that diligent efforts are being made to drop, or at least amend the nuclear deal in response to several reservations on some of its terms. However, what blocks these efforts is the Trump Administration's reluctance to shoulder its international responsibility for any consequences of withdrawal from the nuclear deal, as it did with other international agreements, especially under pressure from European states that continue to be interested in keeping the deal in place.
2- Military Confrontation not Ruled Out. Iran no longer rules out a potential military confrontation with the United States and Israel, that can be triggered either by their reservations about the nuclear deal, or by Iran’s incessant attempts to establish a military presence inside Syria near the border with the Jewish state.
Within this context, Iranian media reported that in the new budget, the government allocated about US$7.5 billion for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC or Pasdaran) alone, about $1 billion for the Basij volunteer forces, and only $2.7 billion for all the regular armed forces. This draws attention to the fact that Iran counts on indirect military confrontations or proxy wars. To avoid direct clashes, Iran pushes its allies to conflicts to serve its own interests and calculations.
This can explain why al-Khazali recently visited southern Lebanon with militants from the other Iranian-aligned Hezbollah. The visit sends a direct message to Israel that its frequent threats to conduct military strikes against the Iranian military presence in Syria can push Tehran to order its militias to conduct counter-strikes inside Israeli territory.
Moreover, Tehran sought to use al-Khazali’s visit to suggest that it is capable of controlling the pace of the political crisis in Lebanon by threatening the policy of staying out of regional conflicts that the government led by Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri seeks to keep in place after he rescinded his resignation. Al-Hariri resigned in protest against Hezbollah’s continued involvement in the war in Syria and its backing for the forces of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and militias trained by Iran.
3- Defying International Pressure. Iran is denying the international community’s demands to halt its ballistic missile development program which violates the terms of the nuclear deal. Because conducting ballistic missile tests is no longer enough for it, Iran increased the IRGC’s budget and Quds Force, its special forces unit responsible for extraterritorial operations. This indicates that Iran is likely to make more escalatory measures, especially after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the government and the IRGC to continue the development of the missile program in defiance of pressure from the international community demanding a halt to the program.
The Iranians used Khamenei's orders to reject calls and initiatives from some world powers such as France to reach settlements that can increase the chances of keeping the nuclear deal in place in the coming period.
4- Keeping Pace with Pasdaran’s Escalatory Policies. The new budget shows that President Rouhani has taken a new step to support his relations with the IRGC, marred by tensions during his first presidential term. His new approach became even more evidenced by his deliberate support for the escalatory measures taken by the ideological army to deal with the various regional crises.
Interestingly, Rouhani was keen on delivering statements backing the rebel Houthi militia’s firing a ballistic missile from Yemen towards the Saudi capital of Riyadh on November 5. His move is aligned with the support being provided to the rebels defying the constitutional legitimacy in Yemen. Undoubtedly, the development is in part spurred by a decline in Rouhani’s ambition for more benefits from the nuclear deal due to the widening disagreement between Iran and the involved world powers, as well as the United States’ insistence on taking stricter measures to counter Iran’s incessant violations of the deal.
In light of this, it can possibly be argued that Iran is currently making early preparations for escalation with the world powers involved in the nuclear deal and its expansionist role in the Middle East. Escalation between Iran and the world powers in the coming period has become even more likely due to Iran’s insistence on supporting terrorist organizations operating in crisis-hit countries, spreading chaos, exacerbating instability and threatening the security and interests of regional countries.
