Zaidabadi: Hardline Conservatives Opposed to the JCPOA are Raisi’s Biggest Challenge
Although practical actions and even stances against the agreement have significantly subsided compared to Rouhani’s administration, radical factions of conservatives still remain opposed to the agreement.
In this context, Ahmad Zaidabadi believes that Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi has emerged as the common point among various conservative factions and the symbol of their consensus for participating in the elections. Mr. Raisi’s heterogeneous and fragmented cabinet composition was in fact a display of this relatively superficial consensus.
He continued, in the short term, the biggest factor of disagreement among the different parts of conservatism is the revival of the JCPOA and how to confront this phenomenon.
Zaidabadi added that for the government to effectively implement the JCPOA and benefit from its advantages, it is forced to separate its path from the conservatives who oppose this agreement. This is indeed the most significant internal challenge facing Mr. Raisi’s government in the future. This segment of conservatives might attempt to prevent this process by reviving the narrative of the reformists’ threat as a unifying thread for their faction’s elements and may resort to creating tensions in this regard.