Iranians temper cynicism with humour as nuclear deal promises change

Watch out Iranian men, American husbands are coming, reads one widely circulated joke on Iranian social media after the Islamic Republic's nuclear agreement with the US and other world powers.

The joke is a play on one made popular in recent years as western sanctions tightened. As Chinese products flooded the market, Iranian men joked that women should lower their standards or else they would marry Chinese women, who presumably wanted only a few gold bars as dowry rather than the hundreds, if not thousands, demanded by Iranian women.

Hopes are high and the mood is almost giddy after Iran reached a late night agreement on the shores of Lake Geneva in Lausanne. While once Iranians resorted to proverbs and poetry to express their anger at dictatorships, they now turn to their smart phones and social media to voice their hopes and fears about what appears to be a new era in Iranian foreign policy. "I suffer from insomnia . . . now that we have to socialise with Americans, I cannot help thinking about what should I wear?" joked one commenter on social media.

But the jokey comments also betray cynicism about what difference the deal will really make to lives battered by more than a decade of hostility with western powers and many years of economic hardship.

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Iran's defiance of western powers came at a heavy price - high inflation, joblessness and a battered economy. The agreement to run a limited programme under close international supervision is not dissimilar to a deal touted in negotiations 12 years ago. For the regime to compromise now after years of hardship underlines the futility of that resistance. "After the fall of the Berlin Wall, an old woman said 'we are the only nation who celebrates going back to decades ago'. We are now celebrating our return to 12 years ago," read one cynical comment on social media.

The agreement was made possible by centrist president Hassan Rouhani, elected after he promised reconciliation with the world. He quickly appointed a career diplomat as his foreign minister and top nuclear negotiator. After eight days of talks in Lausanne, Mohammad Javad Zarif is now celebrated as a national hero, for working through the night to seal the deal, even going without seeing his family during the Persian new year. Amid jokes about how Mr Zarif and his US counterpart John Kerry call each other in the middle of the night or of how the two first ladies plan to holiday together, there are fears the deal could yet be scuppered by hardline opposition.

Mr Rouhani and his supporters are aware that Iran's hardliners will seek any opportunity to sabotage the talks that continue until the end of June - the deadline when Iran and the six powers should turn the tentative agreement into a comprehensive final deal. There is speculation that, with this in mind, the government orchestrated some of the public celebrations. Any display of public support for the deal helps secure its future.

< > When news of the deal broke around midnight Tehran time last Thursday, people poured into the streets to dance, sing and honk car horns. The next day, to the surprise of many political observers, a bigger crowd showed up.

A message on Viber app - hugely popular in Iran - asking people to gather in the streets at 8pm went viral within hours. "There was definitely a minimum level of organisation [by moderate political groups]," said one political analyst close to the government of Mr Rouhani.

While the desire to celebrate is real, there is no doubt some bitterness remains. While ordinary Iranians have suffered, for many years, businessmen allied to the regime benefited from sanctions.

"The man who was relentlessly increasing the number of centrifuges yesterday was a nuclear hero [former fundamentalist president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad]. The man who is removing the centrifuges today is also a nuclear hero," said a cynical post. "But I am the real nuclear hero who is paying for the losses that yesterday's and today's heroes have inflicted on me."

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