More than two decades after Iran’s nuclear weapons programme first grabbed global attention, it continues to shape the country’s domestic politics as well as its relationship with the rest of the world.
It has served to undermine Tehran’s relations with the international community, particularly the West; led to crippling sanctions against it; and culminated in a military conflict involving Israel and the US.
This month, Tehran suffered its latest blow in relation to the programme.
Failing to come to an agreement with the three major European powers – Britain, France and Germany – over its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran saw the return of the UN-imposed sanctions that the landmark deal helped to lift a decade ago. The European troika, which was party to the agreement alongside China, Russia and the US, activated the so-called “snapback” mechanism that restored the sanctions.
This means that the six resolutions that were passed in the UN Security Council between 2006 and 2010, aimed at curbing the programme, are back in full force. This has already led to the imposition of new sanctions and further limits on the Iranian economy. Japan, for example, has moved to block the accounts of 78 Iranian companies and 43 Iranian citizens.
China and Russia, partners to Iran, strived to avoid the re-imposition of the sanctions by introducing a resolution in the Security Council. But, with only Algeria and Pakistan joining the two superpowers in voting for it, Tehran’s diplomatic isolation is evident.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have since attempted to downplay the effects of these sanctions.
Mr Pezeshkian claimed that Iran’s commitment to diplomacy was not matched by that of their western counterparts, pointing to Washington’s unrealistic demand that Tehran cease uranium enrichment completely in return for sanctions relief for three months.
The Iranian President said his country will cope with the latest crisis as it sets out to build robust ties with its neighbours as well as with non-western partners in the Brics grouping of nations and the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.
For his part, Mr Araghchi defended Iran’s conduct and said his country isn’t afraid of sanctions. He added that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was right all along in asserting that negotiating with the Americans would lead to a dead-end.
Nonetheless, the re-imposition of sanctions is likely to exacerbate Iran’s economic problems, with the US dollar currently worth a whopping 1.1 million rials. It has already ignited a political firestorm inside the country, including a fierce debate over the JCPOA’s legacy and the potential ways forward following its demise.
The man in the middle of this firestorm is Hassan Rouhani during whose presidency the deal was struck a decade ago (and in whose administration Mr Araghchi served as deputy foreign minister). Largely supported by the country’s reformists at the time, it was vociferously opposed by a number of hardliners, including Saeed Jalili, Tehran’s former nuclear negotiator.
Mr Jalili recently launched a tirade against the JCPOA and its backers in the erstwhile Rouhani administration, including the former president himself. This is unsurprising, given Mr Jalili’s penchant to take on the country’s reformists.
Not long after his defeat to Mr Pezeshkian in last year’s presidential election, the former diplomat pledged, rather controversially, to run a shadow government. He is now training his rhetorical guns at Mr Rouhani, to whom he lost in the 2013 presidential race, criticising his former rival’s conviction that Tehran should engage with the West despite long-held misgivings.
Mr Rouhani’s media team returned the compliment by re-publishing a video message from last year in which the former president calls Mr Jalili’s tenure as chief negotiator disastrous and massively costly to Iran, and asks him to “come debate me if you have the courage”. Mr Rouhani originally released the video after Mr Jalili attacked him during the latter’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Clearly, there’s no love lost between the two men. Speaking last week in Shiraz, at an event commemorating Tehran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, Mr Jalili said even a primary school pupil could defeat Mr Rouhani in a debate.
This exchange has led some local media outlets to offer to host an actual debate between the two figures. It has also rattled Iran’s political class. A newspaper aligned to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has otherwise been critical of the JCPOA, called out Mr Jalili for engaging in partisan point-scoring during a moment of national crisis.
To be sure, the rift over the 2015 nuclear deal isn’t limited to the two influential figures; reactions for and against it have percolated through to various levels of national politics.
In Tehran’s Amirkabir University, hardliner students staged a symbolic funeral for the JCPOA, complete with cardboard cut-outs representing Mr Rouhani and former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. These students said the deal did little other than to pave the path to Iran’s “economic backwardness”, undermine its nuclear advancements and lead to the assassination of its nuclear scientists.
Mahmoud Nabavian, a hardliner Tehran MP, went as far as claiming that the re-imposition of sanctions was preferrable to keeping the deal alive. The sanctions “will have almost zero effect, except for psychological effects”, Mr Nabavian said.
The question being asked right now is, should Iran return to the negotiating table or take other actions?
The reformists, meanwhile, continued to defend the JCPOA’s legacy. Azar Mansouri, who heads the Iranian Reformist Front, criticised the hardliner daily Kayhan for attacking the deal, saying that the hardliners have no regard for Iran’s national interest.
Javad Emam, a spokesperson for the IRF, said the country’s “domestic extremists” appear to be happier about the collapse of the deal than the “extremist supporters” of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Iran’s domestic extremists and its foreign enemies are two sides of the same coin,” Mr Emam added.
Such debates, heated or otherwise, are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. They are, after all, not simply arguments over country’s recent past but also deliberations over the course of action the country will eventually have to take – whatever that course might be.
The question being asked right now is, should Iran return to the negotiating table or take other actions?
Several MPs have introduced a bill in Parliament seeking to pull their country out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, a measure that the international community would perceive as a first step towards building a nuclear bomb. Iran’s leaders, including Mr Khamenei and Mr Pezeshkian, vociferously deny this.
Their statements don’t necessarily clarify the direction the country will eventually take. But sooner rather than later, Iranians will need to get over the past and find a new path forward.
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Barbie
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
RESULT
Leeds United 1 Manchester City 1
Leeds: Rodrigo (59')
Man City: Sterling (17')
Man of the Match: Rodrigo Moreno (Leeds)
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
The biog
Name: Mohammed Imtiaz
From: Gujranwala, Pakistan
Arrived in the UAE: 1976
Favourite clothes to make: Suit
Cost of a hand-made suit: From Dh550
Conservative MPs who have publicly revealed sending letters of no confidence
- Steve Baker
- Peter Bone
- Ben Bradley
- Andrew Bridgen
- Maria Caulfield
- Simon Clarke
- Philip Davies
- Nadine Dorries
- James Duddridge
- Mark Francois
- Chris Green
- Adam Holloway
- Andrea Jenkyns
- Anne-Marie Morris
- Sheryll Murray
- Jacob Rees-Mogg
- Laurence Robertson
- Lee Rowley
- Henry Smith
- Martin Vickers
- John Whittingdale
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Baby Driver
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Lily James
Three and a half stars
What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
The bio
Job: Coder, website designer and chief executive, Trinet solutions
School: Year 8 pupil at Elite English School in Abu Hail, Deira
Role Models: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
Dream City: San Francisco
Hometown: Dubai
City of birth: Thiruvilla, Kerala
The specs: 2019 Mini Cooper
Price, base: Dh141,740 (three-door) / Dh165,900 (five-door)
Engine: 1.5-litre four-cylinder (Cooper) / 2.0-litre four-cylinder (Cooper S)
Power: 136hp @ 4,500rpm (Cooper) / 192hp @ 5,000rpm (Cooper S)
Torque: 220Nm @ 1,480rpm (Cooper) / 280Nm @ 1,350rpm (Cooper S)
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 4.8L to 5.4L / 100km
The Vile
Starring: Bdoor Mohammad, Jasem Alkharraz, Iman Tarik, Sarah Taibah
Director: Majid Al Ansari
Rating: 4/5
Schedule:
Friday, January 12: Six fourball matches
Saturday, January 13: Six foursome (alternate shot) matches
Sunday, January 14: 12 singles
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
Famous left-handers
- Marie Curie
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonardo Di Vinci
- David Bowie
- Paul McCartney
- Albert Einstein
- Jack the Ripper
- Barack Obama
- Helen Keller
- Joan of Arc
What vitamins do we know are beneficial for living in the UAE
Vitamin D: Highly relevant in the UAE due to limited sun exposure; supports bone health, immunity and mood.
Vitamin B12: Important for nerve health and energy production, especially for vegetarians, vegans and individuals with absorption issues.
Iron: Useful only when deficiency or anaemia is confirmed; helps reduce fatigue and support immunity.
Omega-3 (EPA/DHA): Supports heart health and reduces inflammation, especially for those who consume little fish.
Company%20profile
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