Contact Christy Hicks, The Century Foundation, 212-452-7723, hicks@tcf.org

NEW YORK, Dec. 20 /Standard Newswire/ -- Current debate on the Iranian nuclear issue tends to overlook the vital role of Iran's domestic politics, according to Gareth Smyth, Tehran bureau chief for the Financial Times, in a revealing report published this week by The Century Foundation. In "Fundamentalists, Pragmatists, and the Rights of the Nation: Iranian Politics and Nuclear Confrontation," Smyth argues, "A general level of support within Iran for the nation's 'right' to a nuclear program sits alongside a healthy level of skepticism about Iran's rulers."

A military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would, he says, rally all the country's political factions behind those rulers, Smyth points out. "If there were to be confrontation with the United States, the leadership would prefer that the conflict turn on the nuclear issue, 'where they have public support,' than on issues such as 'human rights or democracy, where they don't.'"

Iran's position on nuclear enrichment cannot be understood without first grasping the fluid and often opposing factions within the Iranian political system, Smyth says. In his taxonomy of domestic political factions in Iran-fundamentalists, traditionalists, reformists, reformist pragmatists, conservative pragmatists, the Leader, and the Leader's loyalists-few see the acquisition of nuclear weapons as a top priority.

"It can be difficult to locate the center of gravity within Iran's political establishment," Smyth observes. He cautions, however, that these groups and their alliances are fluid: "Political groups in Iran are not political parties in any meaningful sense, and therefore lack institutional means for resolving disagreements."

Drawing on extensive interviews with Iran's political insiders, Smyth places the nuclear issue in the historical context both of Iran's efforts to modernize, and of interference by outsiders-especially the United States-in Iranian politics.

"Just as some in the United States have characterized Iran as part of an 'Axis of Evil,' with whom no compromise is possible," Smyth reports, "so there is a current in Iran convinced that the United States is a 'Great Satan,' and correspondingly unwilling to negotiate." The rhetoric of hardliners within the United States is heard in Iran, and has the adverse consequence of suggesting to Iranians that overtures from the U.S. are a mere pretext for regime change.

The space for an international agreement may be shrinking, Smyth warns. Foot-dragging by China and Russia, and America's failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, have emboldened Iranians and made them less amenable to compromise with the United States. While the Iranian leadership was apparently ready this past summer to compromise with the West on the nuclear program, provided they could maintain a limited enrichment program, this window of opportunity may have closed.

A senior Iranian diplomat insisted to him that "the leader's view is that we should negotiate if our dignity is respected." Today, Smyth relates, "it is also the majority position within Iran's collective leadership group."

Gareth Smyth is the chief Iran correspondent of the Financial Times. Before moving to Iran in 2003, he was based from 1996 to 2003 in Lebanon, and has also reported widely from Syria and Iraq.

Fundamentalists, Pragmatists, and the Rights of the Nation: Iranian Politics and Nuclear Confrontation, by Gareth Smyth, Tehran Bureau Chief, Financial Times. Other reports in the series include:

Dealing with Tehran: Assessing U.S. Diplomatic Options toward Iran by Flynt Leverett, senior fellow and director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative in the American Strategy Program, New America Foundation.

The End of the” Summer of Diplomacy”: Assessing U.S. Military Options on Iran , by Sam Gardiner, Colonel, USAF (ret.)

Nuclear Armed Iran: A Difficult but Not Impossible Policy Problem, by Barry Posen, a Ford International Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sanctions Against Iran: Key Issues, by Bruce Jentlesson, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Studies, Duke University (forthcoming)

The authors are available for interviews. Contact Christy Hicks hicks@tcf.org or 212-452-7723.

The reports can be downloaded from The Century Foundation Web site at http://www.tcf.org/.