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.
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 IslamicRevolutionary 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.
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