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bne December 2018
Opinion 53
a few months, there is a strong risk that there will be shortage of medicine in Iran if we don’t do something positive.”
Official line
The official line from the Trump administration is that this toughest ever sanctions assault has not been engineered to deliver regime change in Iran, but it’s common knowledge among diplomats that White House National Security Advisor and uber-hawk John Bolton believes the regime will collapse.
That, however, is highly debatable. US officials spend a lot of time making the case that the Iranian people are biding their time awaiting outside assistance that will enable the toppling of the powers that be. But if great swathes of the population are so deeply unhappy with the system – a parliamentary democracy vetted and supervised by a theocracy headed by an unelected supreme leader – why is it that the Iranians show such immense enthusiasm come general election time (in the May 2017
poll, centrist and pragmatic President Hassan Rouhani was re-elected with a landslide on a turnout of more than 70%)?
Indeed, so out of touch with the feelings of ordinary Iranians is the Trump regime (apologies for that slip of the key) that its Iran strategy has even included aligning with the cult-
like Islamic-Socialist Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e- Khalq (MeK). The MeK has no support of significance in Iran. It is a fringe group which lost out on the spoils after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and achieved deep unpopularity among the Iranian people by taking Iraq’s side in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. The last most people had heard of it before Trump’s surrogates started appearing at its rallies was that it had gone into exile in Albania.
Whipping boy
But why dwell on such distractions? One thing is clear right now and that is that Iran has become America’s number
one whipping boy (the egregious sins of other players in the Middle East, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, be damned) and it has a bully pulpit list of 12 demands from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that it must comply with – or else.
The list – which is in fact by design clearly a non-starter for Iran – includes tighter restrictions on nuclear and ballistic missile development and the reversal of decades of foreign policy underpinned by financial and logistical support for US-designated terrorist groups and regional allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias instrumental in defeating ISIS in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen and President Bashar Assad in Syria.
In Washington’s eyes, even though Iran is in the Middle
East it is not allowed to defend its interests in the Middle
East. Perhaps it should start taking more of an interest in Venezuela? “They are maximalist demands and no Iranian government would be willing or able to accept them,” Robert Einhorn, a former US official now at the Brookings Institution, told Reuters on November 1.
Trump wants Iran’s government to capitulate or collapse, Einhorn reportedly added, saying: “They are not going to knuckle under. But if the administration began to signal some flexibility ... it’s possible the Iranian regime would agree to enter into talks.”
EU’s collective resolve “unwavering”
On November 2, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini issued a joint statement with the British, French and German foreign ministers in which they stated how they “deeply regret” the reimposition of the US sanctions and would continue working on ways of keeping legitimate trade with Iran going.
“Our collective resolve to complete this work is unwavering,” the statement added.
President Rouhani, while pledging that Iran will show resilience, patriotic spirit and ingenuity in resisting the US economic attack, has also spent the past couple of days bracing Iranians for hard times. The Iranian lira has already collapsed and runaway inflation is taking hold. “I cannot even buy rice
“They are maximalist demands and no Iranian government would be willing or able to accept them”
to feed my children or pay my rent,” elementary school teacher Pejman Sarafnejad, 43, a father of three in Tehran, was quoted by Reuters as saying on November 2.
Unmistakably, the immediate horizon looks perilous for Iran, but while Trump may have the whip-hand at this moment
in time, analysts question whether, longer term, the US will emerge the victor having shown such disparaging disdain for multilateralism.
The sanctions, runs the theory, have potentially opened the way for a historic change in the global financial system. If Europe succeeds in creating a financial mechanism for trade with Iran that is separate from the US dollar, other states can start using euros for trade with the Iranians, dealing a blow to US domination of global markets.
Not only that, but Trump’s scorning of international agreements such as the painstakingly negotiated nuclear deal might prompt a shift in international power politics, with other major nations moving for a switch from an American-led system to a multi-polar world. Trump might end up laughing on the other side of his face. At that point, of course, he should be presented with a courtesy copy of Game of Thrones for Dummies. Or Cruel Bastards, whichever is thought more apt.
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