BY Hamid Bahrami
Two years have passed since the signing of the
ineffective nuclear agreement between world powers and Tehran, officially known
as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).For those who are familiar
with the theocracy in Iran, it is a known fact that all foreign policy in Iran are decided by the
Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. This is even true in the case of the highly
promoted nuclear deal.
It is worth noting that before and during the
negotiations, Khamenei, said that Oman had a key role in breaking the ice between Iran and
the US.
Thus, it is naive to think that the new president,
Hassan Rouhani, was the one who changed the 10-year-long stalemate. Iran has an
abundance of oil, gas and others natural resources, hence, using nuclear energy
is both expensive and
controversial.
Independent experts acknowledge that Iran’s goal
of maintaining a nuclear program is to produce nuclear weapon. However, Iran
has consistently refused these views and claims that its program is of a
peaceful nature.
Regional hegemony
It is worth pointing out that having a nuclear
warhead will guarantee Iran’s regional hegemony. Therefore, Iran has
consistently tried to achieve it. Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian
president and one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic who died last year, said that
Iran was trying to make nuclear bomb.
“When we first began, we were at war and we sought
to have that possibility for the day that the enemy might use a nuclear
weapon”, he said in an interview. Consequently, the regime in Tehran sought nuclear weapons in
order to tilt the balance of power in the region in its favor.
The West imposed comprehensive sanctions against
Iran targeting its finance sector and its selling of oil. These intelligent
punitive measures exacerbated the Iranian economy that already suffered greatly from decades of
economic mismanagement and widespread corruption, to the point of destruction,
according to statistics from Iran’s own Central bank. The inflation was over 30
percent in 2013.
Iranian authorities confess that the greatest threat to theocracy is not a
foreign enemy, like the US, but popular protests, especially by the
disenfranchised poor people and youth
Economic poverty put immense pressure on the
Iranian middle class, the Iranian government even tried to redefine the base basket of food (government
subsidies to the Iranian middle class) to control the inflation. Rouhani's
government even started to distribute especial food baskets. The regime’s
National Security Council warned about hungry rebellion. Salaries of labors was
unpaid and economic deadlock brought the government to its knees.
Although, Iran’s goal of making nuclear weapon was
in reach and Tehran increased its intervention in the region, the economic
crisis threatened the theocracy's very existence. Consequently, the Supreme Leader ordered his
officials to start the negotiation with the West. This was president Obama
giving artificial respiration to Tehran.
After the agreement
The sanctions aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear
program. According to
the JCPOA, Iran must redesign and rebuild its heavy-water reactor in Arak. It
means that Iran’s abilities to develop and produce nuclear weapon is
intensively limited for years. Some experts, diplomats and government officials
argue that the sanctions achieved their goal.
But at that time, the JCPOA did not include the
rest of Iran’s threatening and destabilizing activities such as its ballistic
missile program, dispatch of tens of thousands of militias and paramilitary
forces to Syria. The JCPOA did neither addressed the appalling human rights situation in
Iran.
Iran and violation of agreement
A conditional approval was published by the
Supreme Leader Khamenei with regard to Tehran agreeing to the JCPOA. The
document contained several conditions.
One of the conditions was about new sanctions
after signing of the agreement, it said that “Any sanctions against Iran at
every level and on any pretext, including terrorism and human rights
violations, by any one of the countries participating in the negotiations will constitute a
violation of the JCPOA, and a reason for Iran to stop executing the agreement.”
Considering that US has imposed several sanctions
on Iran after the deal, one must ask the following question, why has Iran not
stopped executing the
agreement?
The Iranian regime is besieged by extensive social
discontent. Over 10 millions are unemployed and many ordinary Iranians are
forced to live a life below poverty-line.
Not a foreign enemy
Indeed, Iranian authorities confess that the
greatest threat to
theocracy is not a foreign enemy, like the US, but popular protests and
anti-regime demonstrations, especially by the disenfranchised poor people and
youth, breaking the current status quo.
The reality is that the regime has always been at
war with the young
generation over individual liberties and social freedoms, which challenged the
foundation of the regime’s theocracy. That is why Iran’s answer to new US
sanctions has been merely rhetoric.
Due to the theocracy’s weak position in the
society and its
faltering economy, if Tehran abandons the nuclear agreement, all sanctions will
be re-imposed. That will led to an economic and political collapse of the
ruling theocracy.
Consequently, if president Trump orders to
renegotiate the JCPOA, or impose new effective sanctions such as designation of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, Iran is not able
to play its enrichment card.
These were the reasons sanctions forced the
Iranian regime to come back to the negotiation table, and it will do it again.
______________________
Freelance journalist Hamid Bahrami has served as
political prisoner in Iran. He is a human rights and political activist living
in Glasgow, Scotland. His works covers Iran’s destructive actions in the Middle East and social
crackdown in Iran. He tweets at @HaBahrami & blogs at analyzecom.
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