Friday, March 21, 2025
Mohammad-Javad Zarif has resigned his post as vice president for security issues, apparently under pressure from the Judiciary, which may have threatened to prosecute him. Zarif resigned March 3 only hours after the Majlis fired Economy Minister Abdolnasser Hemmati.
The double departure removed the two most prominent Reformists from the Pezeshkian Administration. Many saw the rapid loss of two Reformists as a purge. (Some members of the Majlis are now talking about trying to fire the other three Reformist members of the Pezeshkian cabinet.) Zarif said he resigned on the advice of the chairman of the Judiciary to relieve pressure on the administration of President Masud Pezeshkian. In a post on his X account, Zarif wrote that he had visited Judiciary Chairman Gholam Hossain Mohseni-Ejai on an invitation from Mohseni-Ejei on March 1.
During the meeting, the Judiciary chief advised that, given “the conditions of the country, I return to [teaching at] the university to avoid more pressure on the administration.” Zarif said he took the advice immediately because he had always wanted to be “of help and not a burden.”
He said he hoped that by leaving the administration, those hindering the realization of “the people’s will and the success of the administration” would be stripped of excuses. “I continue to be proud of having supported the venerable Dr. Pezeshkian and wish him and other true servants of the people the best,” he said. What he did not say was why Mohseni-Ejai’s urging prompted him to quit immediately, when he had been resisting pressure from other hardliners to resign for months.
It is noteworthy that Pezeshkian has not accepted Zarif’s resignation or even commented in any way on the matter. Since he was tapped as a vice president in August, Zarif has been under constant pressure from a group of Majlis hardliners who have argued that his appointment to any major post is illegal because at least one of his children holds US citizenship.
According to a 2022 Iranian law, individuals who hold foreign citizenship or whose immediate family members hold such citizenship cannot be assigned to government posts. The Pezeshkian Administration has forwarded a bill to the Majlis to modify the law so that it accommodates the recruitment of individuals whose children did not acquire foreign nationality by choice, as in Zarif’s case. The vice president’s children were born in the United States while he was a student before being posted to Iran’s United Nations mission in New York.
Under the 14th amendment to the US Constitution, enacted after the Civil War to prevent the former Confederate states from denying citizenship to their Black residents, anyone born in the United States is automatically granted citizenship. However, it is not forced on anyone. People can reject American citizenship, and the Zarif children have had decades in which to do so.
Iranian lawmakers may not understand that, since Iranian law does not allow any citizen to reject citizenship. The bill to change Iranian law on who can hold public office has not been acted on by the Majlis. Some speculate that Mohseni-Ejai may have threatened to prosecute Zarif if he did not resign. Many other hardliners, however, have argued that Zarif does not need to resign they say he does actually not hold a vice presidency because the citizenship of his children made him ineligible to be appointed. In that case, he would not be subject to prosecution.
