Iran Democracy Monitor: No. 150

RUSSIA AND IRAN: ANTI-SANCTIONS SYNERGY
The strategic partnership between Tehran and Moscow just got even stronger. Russia and Iran have preliminarily agreed upon a mammoth five year, $20 billion deal to “cooperate in the oil-gas industry” and adjacent economic sectors, Russia’s Energy Ministry announced in a formal statement. The agreement could lay the groundwork for Russia to purchase as much as 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil daily, approximately a fifth of the Islamic Republic’s total output.

The deal represents a strategic benefit for both countries. Iran remains subjected to significant economic restrictions from the West, despite its ongoing negotiations with the P5+1 nations over its nuclear program. Russia, meanwhile, is now facing widening sanctions from the United States and Europe on account of its interference in Ukraine. (London Telegraph, August 6, 2014)

IRAN’S NOTORIOUS IMAGE
Despite its increasingly prominent international profile, the Islamic Republic remains reviled throughout the region, a new study has found. According to a poll released in June by the Pew Research Center, Iran’s regional image remains profoundly negative. In fact, the Iranian regime’s popularity has declined significantly among Middle Eastern nations over the past eight years — in particular in Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. All told, a plurality of respondents in 29 of the 40 countries surveyed by Pew now harbor unfavorable opinions of Iran. (Pew Global Attitudes Project, June 18, 2014)

MORE DEMOGRAPHIC TINKERING IN TEHRAN
The Iranian parliament has passed a bill outlawing vasectomies, tubectomies, and other surgical modes of sterilization, rendering such methods of birth control punishable by between two and five years in prison. The bill, an effort to combat the country’s debilitatingly low population growth rate (1.2 percent in 2013), will be reviewed by the parliament’s Health Committee, following which it will be sent back to parliament and the Guardians Council for ratification. The measure reflects mounting concern among Iranian officials, and follows the issuance of a 14-point plan by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calling upon all three branches of government to increase the national birth rate through a variety of measures, including facilitating marriages and the provision of economic support to young couples. (Radio Free Europe, July 2, 2014)

IRAN’S PLAY IN IRAQ
Growing disorder in Iraq, and the bloody advance of the extremist Sunni group now known as the Islamic State, has prompted Iran’s clerical army, the IRGC, to exhibit a growing presence on the territory of the former Ba’athist stronghold. Although Iran has formally denied that IRGC forces are active in Iraq, IRGC commander Qassem Suleimani is known to have visited the country to coordinate Iraqi opposition to the Islamic State, and a number of IRGC officers have been killed in fighting there to date.

Politically, meanwhile, Iran appears to be rethinking its longtime support for Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki. According to one anonymous Iranian official, Tehran is working with Iraq’s disparate political factions to try and identify a replacement for Maliki. "We have reached the conclusion that Maliki cannot preserve the unity of Iraq anymore,” the official has confirmed to Reuters. The effort, however, has proven difficult so far. "There are not many candidates who can and have the capability to preserve the unity of Iraq," the official has said. (Reuters, August 3 and 5, 2014)