Writing in Foreign Affairs, Zarif said Iran should offer to limit its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a comprehensive lifting of U.S. sanctions, a proposal he said Washington had previously rejected but might now consider under changed circumstances.

The remarks come as the United States has put forward a 15-point ceasefire framework that includes restoring maritime access through the Strait of Hormuz, though there has been no indication of progress in negotiations.

Zarif, who played a central role in negotiating the 2015 nuclear agreement, no longer holds an official government position but remains an influential figure. Analysts note that such proposals are unlikely to be published without at least informal alignment with senior leadership in Tehran.

Iranian officials have repeatedly pointed to past instances in which negotiations with Washington coincided with military action, including the current conflict, as a source of distrust.

Zarif also criticized previous U.S. negotiating representatives, including Jared Kushner, questioning their expertise in geopolitics and nuclear policy.

The proposal underscores tentative signals of diplomatic maneuvering amid ongoing hostilities, even as military exchanges and tensions in the region continue.

“By exiting the JCPOA, the United States violated the agreement and the principle of good faith. America should demonstrate its goodwill and determination,” Raisi said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Tehran and six world powers.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump reneged on that deal in 2018, arguing it was too generous to Tehran, and restored harsh U.S. sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to gradually violate the agreement’s nuclear limits.

After taking office in January 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden tried to negotiate a revival of the nuclear pact under which Iran had restricted its nuclear program in return for relief from U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions.

But months of nuclear talks have stalled since last September, with both sides accusing each other of demanding excessive concessions.

“America must build trust to demonstrate its good intentions and genuine willingness to fulfil its commitments and conclude the path,” Raisi said.

U.S. and European officials have been searching for ways to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities since the breakdown of indirect American-Iranian talks a year ago.

To cool tensions, Tehran and Washington reached a Qatar-mediated deal last month, which resulted in swapping five detainees each on Monday and involved releasing $6 billion of Tehran’s funds in South Korea.

Further straining already difficult ties, the United States and its Western allies have imposed sanctions on Iran over its handling of months of protests sparked by the death in custody of young Iranian Kurdish women Mahsa Amini.

Immediately after Iran’s Raisi began to deliver his speech, Israel’s envoy to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, marched out of the General Assembly hall while waving Amini’s picture.

“I left the speech to make it clear that the State of Israel stands by the Iranian people,” said Erdan, according to a statement sent to Reuters by Israel’s mission to the United Nations.

Iran and Israel, which Tehran refuses to recognise, have been locked in a shadow war for decades, with mutual allegations of sabotage and assassination plots

All these signs indicate that 2022 will be a crucial year for the Khamenei regime

According to all the observers on the scene, this year’s anniversary of the Iranian Revolution on February 11 was the most desolate ceremony in the last 43 years. So much so that even the regime’s televisions that broadcast scenes of rallies and so-called demonstrations had to refrain from taking wide-angle shots and resorted to only taking narrow-angle shots so that the actual number of people on the scene could not be seen.

The truth is that for several years now, the majority of Iranians have not attended the ceremony, opposing Khamenei’s dictatorship, and only government affiliates have been attending. In previous years, when there was no pandemic and the schools were open, the government forced school students to attend the event, and many government employees were made to participate in the event for fear of being fired or losing benefits. This way the government was able to hide people’s dissatisfaction of the system and government orchestrated demonstrations to certain extent, but this year none of this was possible, and as a result, marches and rallies were held in very small numbers in all cities.

But Khamenei, in a speech he gave almost a week later on February 17, said in astonishment and with Goebbels-like lies: “This year’s ceremony was strange and the crowd was bigger than in previous years. Some said the population doubled and some said 50 percent more than last year. It was the same in all cities”.

He further claimed that “in the years after the revolution, we are ahead of the rest of the world in terms of scientific progress. This is not my judgment. It is the judgment of international centers, stating that the speed and rate of our progress are many times greater than the rest of the world. Now some have said 10 times, some have said 13 times the world average”.

Hearing these claims in a situation where Iran is drowning in various crises was not only very surprising but also offensive to the people because inflation has reached over 50% and according to government officials, more than 60-70% of the population has fallen below the poverty line. About 20 million people (about a quarter of Iran’s population) have been driven to the outskirts of big cities, unable to pay the staggering costs of housing and livelihoods in cities, and are living in miserable conditions.

“It was really an admirable move”, Khamenei said. “These problems that surround the people, the pandemic on the one hand, the problems of livelihood on the other hand, the sludge dispersal of foreigners on the one hand, the help of some internal elements to the same sludge dispersal on the one hand, the siege of all obstacles and problems of the nation. In spite of all  these problems, the nation was able to have this massive march”.

By “sludge dispersion,” Khamenei meant the events that took place in Iran in the last 2-3 weeks.

First, the resistance forces infiltrated 25 radio and television transmitters in different cities in the middle of the most important programs of the day and managed to interrupt the programs and broadcast the slogan of “Down with Khamenei” and “Viva Rajavi” (the leader of PMOI) for 10 seconds by showing the leaders of the PMOI on the TV screen.

Then, by hacking the speakers of Mashhad Grand Bazaar (in north eastern Iran) and one of the main squares of Karaj (northwest of Tehran), they chanted slogans of down with Khamenei and curses to Khomeini and greetings to the Mojahedin for a longer period. These activities were welcomed by people and made them happy.

Following these events, a tape of secret talks between Mohammad Jafari, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, and his deputy was leaked, in which they spoke of $3 billion embezzlement by Qalibaf (the current speaker of parliament) and Qassem Soleimani (the commander of Qods terrorist corps, who was terminated by the United States).

Khamenei, who has long sought to obtain an atomic bomb to ensure the survival of his regime, pursued the plan secretly without informing the International Atomic Energy Agency until its revelation by the National Council of Resistance in 2002. “The world is becoming more and more dependent on nuclear energy, and sooner or later we will be in dire need of peaceful nuclear energy,” he said. “Today, if we do not plan; today, if we do not take action, tomorrow will be too late.”

He blamed the United States for the sanctions that have crippled the nation’s economy and turned Iran into an isolated country, saying: “Look at the cruel take of the enemy from the issue of our nuclear energy: sanctions because of the nuclear energy that they know is peaceful. Let them claim that we are this far from producing the bomb. This is nonsense. They know that we are not looking for a nuclear weapon. We are looking for a peaceful use of nuclear energy”.

It is clear that he would never have secretly pursued this program if he had only sought the peaceful utilization of nuclear energy. By the same token, he is not yet willing to cooperate transparently and give all his information in this regard to the IAEA.

Khamenei, fully aware of the Iranian people’s demands which are:

–        to abandon the nuclear bomb-making program and

–        interact with the world

–        and not to interfere in the affairs of other countries,

–        as well as to oppose the dictatorship of Velayat-e-Faqih

While acknowledging these demands, he justifies the current situation by saying: “Some people say the regime has moved away from the goals of the revolution. I do not accept this statement. Those who insist on surrendering to the United States cannot adhere to this revolution”.

Citing an example from Khomeini’s rule, he said, “The Imam (meaning Khomeini) created a means for the nation’s empowerment from the Iran-Iraq war… He used the war as a means to strengthen and perpetuate the revolution and to turn this threat into an opportunity”.

He theorized his interventions in other countries in the same way that “the goal of the revolution was to finally reach the new Islamic civilization and the great Islamic civilization …… In order to finally reach the new Islamic civilization, it is necessary to help the resistance centers. Those who are in the fields”.

He clearly meant the centers of resistance in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine by the terrorist forces of the Quds Corps or the militias affiliated with his regime, such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Katayeb and the Asaeb in Iraq, and the Fatimiyouns, the Zainabiyouns, and so on …

Regarding the desolation of the march on the anniversary of the revolution and people’s lack of  participation he said: “Today, just see where the enemy is moving. As I see the situation, the enemy is targeting the nation, targeting public opinion, targeting the minds of the youth… Currently, there are two means, one is economic assault to put pressure on people and separate them from the Islamic system, and one is to spread sludge.”

Then, to encourage the Revolutionary Guards commanders who were frightened by the disclosure of the audiotape, he added: “They slander those who influence the progress of the revolution. At the same time, they insult the great martyr Qassem Soleimani, and if they did not fear the anger of people and their reaction, they would also insult the Imam (meaning Khomeini)”.

Khamenei’s words, however, clearly indicate his concern about the opposition of the majority of Iranians, who, fearless of arrests, imprisonment, and even execution by his repressive forces, continue to resist and openly declare their opposition to his regime as they boycotted the presidential election extensively. On the other hand, he has noticed the infiltrating influence in all the pillars of his system. In particular, the radio and television system, which is one of the most secure organs of his regime, and its infiltration sent a great shock to Khamenei and all the mullahs and commanders of the Revolutionary Guards. All these signs indicate that 2022 will be a crucial year for the Khamenei regime, and according to many experts, the ship of the Velayat-e-Faqih regime is going down and no one can save it from sinking.

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the Middle East countries in general and Iran in particular.

After the sixth round of nuclear talks in Vienna about reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), where Rouhani’s administration and the P5+1 negotiators made positive comments about the outcome of the talks, the international community expected an agreement to be reached soon.

However, now, four months after the talks were stopped and three months after Ebrahim Raisi took office in Iran, apparently the talks are at a complete standstill, and it is not even possible to set a date for the resumption of the talks. Meanwhile, the main parties of the talks, the United States, and Iran have accused each other of stalling the talks.

On the Iranian side, although Ali Khamenei is the primary decision-maker since he does not want to take responsibility for the consequences of his decisions, he avoids making public comments on the negotiations and has left it to Raisi’s administration.

But Raisi and his negotiating team are also in a very difficult situation. On the one hand, Iran desperately needs the lifting of sanctions in order to sell oil and to get access to its blocked money to inject some kind of relief to the catastrophic economic situation that has caused inflation to rise above 50% and the majority of people to be pushed below the poverty line, causing public discontent and dissatisfaction.

On the other hand, they know any setbacks and concessions in these negotiations will lead to further setbacks not only in the nuclear program but also in long-range missile production, human rights violations regime’s terrorist activities, and adventurous interventions in the region.

Submission to any of these demands will have serious consequences and could bring the regime to the verge of collapse.

As a result, by killing time they are trying to advance their nuclear program as much as they can, and by increasing the enriched uranium stockpile well above their commitment under the JCPOA accord, as well as raising the enrichment level to 60%, and imposing various access restrictions on monitoring their nuclear activities at various sites, including on the cameras installed by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and also fostering news that the time required to build an atomic bomb has been reduced to a few weeks they want to indirectly put pressure on the United States and Europe to give in to their demands and lift the sanctions imposed by Trump without introducing new issues.

As Rafael Grossi, Director General of IAEA, in his report to IAEA Board of Governors mentions: “the Islamic Republic of Iran has refused to answer the IAEA’s questions and ambiguities, leaving the IAEA unable to carry out its mission. That is, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons”.

Meanwhile, Iran is counting on creating a rift between the United States and Europe and is banking on Europe’s desire to lift the sanctions so it can both import oil and gas from Iran and enter again in Iran’s profitable market.

To this end, each time Iran has set different conditions for the resumption of negotiations. For example, at first, they asked all sanctions to be lifted and after ‎it was verified, then ‎they would resume the talks‎.

But when the United States did not give in to this request, it dropped that condition, and the regime’s foreign minister, Abdullahian, raised the issue of releasing $10 billion of Iranian frozen assets as a goodwill sign to return to negotiations.

But when confronted again with a negative response from the United States, in order to deny responsibility for the stalemate, the spokesman for the regime’s foreign ministry said that Iran had not set any preconditions for the talks, and thus withdrew from that condition too.

Iran’s latest tactic to create a rift between the United States and other JCPOA members was to propose negotiations in Brussels instead of Vienna, where the United States is not present. But European countries, realizing that the Iranian regime is no longer able to impose its conditions on them, rejected this offer and threatened that they might consider referring Iran’s nuclear dossier to the Board of Governors if Iran did not return to its commitments to verify its nuclear program. In a way, they warned the regime that the time for negotiations was coming to an end. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called Iran’s nuclear program unprecedentedly dangerous and called the rescue of the nuclear deal a critical moment.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also said during a visit to Israel that if the talks fail, all options will be on the table, which clearly meant a military option. Meanwhile, President Biden’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, traveled to Iran’s southern neighbors and held talks on the nuclear issues and Iran’s meddling in the region with United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia representatives, then he traveled to Paris and met with representatives of Britain, France, and Germany and negotiated and discussed alternative plan B.

In other words, in the next step, Iran will be condemned for violating the JCPOA in the IAEA’s meeting of the Board of Governors, and Iran’s nuclear file will be returned to the Security Council. In that case, in addition to re-imposing all the UN sanctions on Iran under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the United States will be free to take military action against the regime’s nuclear facilities.

The question now is how to get this situation out of the impasse and prevent Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb?

Pro-appeasement politicians want to make concessions to the regime, that is, lift sanctions, in the hope that they can prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon under the JCPOA agreement, arguing that since Trump’s withdrawal from JCPOA, Iran has gotten closer to the acquirement of a nuclear weapon and if United States had not withdrawn from JCPOA, Iran would not be at this stage now to have advanced centrifuges and to store this amount of enriched uranium.

But these politicians do not pay attention to the fact that the regime is not trustworthy at all, and according to regime officials such as Ali Akbar Salehi, the former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, they secretly pursued their nuclear program even before Trump left the JCPOA. Therefore, any agreement with this regime based on trusting them is fundamentally doomed to fail, because this regime considers the acquisition of nuclear weapons as a guarantee of its survival and follows the North Korean model, and only waits for the right time to pass its final stages of atomic bomb testing.

If we proceed in the same way Iran will certainly acquire nuclear weapons, which would be a disaster not only for the people of Iran and the region but for the whole world.

The only real way to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state is to stand with the people of Iran and support their quest for regime change. A free, democratic, and nuclear-free Iran is what the people of Iran genuinely want, and expect the international community to echo their wishes and help them make it a reality.

This is the overwhelming desire of the Iranian people which was clearly and peacefully expressed by boycotting the recent sham presidential election.

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the Middle East countries in general and Iran in particular.

Iran has become one of the most isolated countries in the world.

These days, news about rising tensions between Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan and Turkey is reflected in the Iranian media and many media around the world. Especially after the recent military maneuver of the Iranian army at the border region of Iran and Armenia. Iran’s military drilling was criticized by the President of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev, and several members of Azerbaijan’s parliament.

On the other hand, several of Iran’s military army and Revolutionary Guards officials offered harsh and provocative responses to Ilham Aliyev’s criticism and implicitly threatened military actions against Azerbaijan. Furthermore, in his speech on Saturday, October 2, Khamenei offered an indirect warning to Ilham Aliyev by saying “those who rely on other countries would soon be slapped”.

Of course, no one expects a large-scale or even limited conflict between Iran and Azerbaijan because neither side is capable of carrying such a conflict. Since Russia’s influence in the countries of the region, any kind of military conflict must most likely have Russia’s green light. And since Russia has close relationships with both countries, a military conflict between Iran and Azerbaijan is very improbable.

However, the recent tension between Iran and Azerbaijan is another testimony to the Iranian’s regime aggressive and expansionist foreign policies. Iran’s meddling in the affairs of its neighboring countries is a bitter truth. Many examples in the history of four decades of the mullahs’ reign prove this point. This issue has reached an end that most countries of the region have repeatedly expressed their concerns.

This is part of the Iranian regime’s foreign policy doctrine and a path to not only spread its hegemony throughout the region but also to divert Iranian attention from internal problems. Because they have neither the power nor the intention to solve these problems.

Iran’s support of terrorism and turmoil in other countries, which by the way, has been very costly for Iranian people, has forced the regime to allocate much of Iran’s money and resources to support its proxies in neighboring countries and beyond.   

By doing so, the local economy has almost been destroyed, and despite Iran being one of the wealthiest countries around the world, (in terms of natural resources by having the third-largest oil reserves and the second-largest gas reserves), more than 80% of its people live below the poverty line. Iran’s economy is experiencing an inflation rate of more than 50% which ranks the seventh highest in the world.

If we take a brief look at Mullahs regime’s foreign policies and relations with other countries, we will see that less than two years after the Iranian revolution, because of provocations of Khomeini and his meddling in Iraq to overthrow its government, he paved the way for an eight-year war between the two countries, causing major damages and losses to people of Iran and, of course, Iraq, each of which suffered nearly one million war casualties.

The damage from the eight-year war, which Khomeini refused to stop, is estimated at more than $1,000 billion on the Iranian side alone, regardless of human casualties. Despite such a high financial and human toll, Khomeini insisted on continuing the war, hoping to overthrow the Iraqi government. In the end, he unwillingly agreed to a ceasefire because he felt the continuation of war could bring his regime to a collapse.

An early ceasefire had been repeatedly suggested by other Persian Gulf countries that included lump-sum compensation to Iran. Khomeini was by no means willing to accept an early ceasefire, but the passage of time forced him to accept the ceasefire after eight long and bloody years. Because of his ignorance and insistence on the continuation of war, the compensation idea never materialized.

In another example, some militias (so-called university students) with Khomeini’s support, contrary to all international norms, seized the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held the embassy staff hostage for 444 days. This action resulted in the isolation of Iran in the world and Billions of dollars in material damage.

In another example, the attack on the British embassy in Tehran in 2011 resulted in the severance of diplomatic relations between Iran and Britain for a while and a few million dollars damage.

The same thing happened with Sudi Arabia when some regime’s thugs attacked the SA embassy in Tehran and their consulate in Mashhad in 2015. As a result, Saudi Arabia closed its embassy in Tehran and severed all its diplomatic relations with Iran.
This story has been repeated in relation to other countries such as Kuwait, Bahrain, etc. and has led to the severance of diplomatic relations with these countries.

It is noteworthy that Khamenei and the regime officials did not learn from any of these incidents that led to irreparable damage to Iran and its people. On the contrary, they kept repeating them with other terrorist activities. As a result, Iran has become one of the most isolated countries in the world.

Currently, Iran does not have good relations with almost any of its neighboring countries. If Iran had opted to treat its neighboring countries based on mutualism, it could have benefited amply in all areas.

Case in point: The Republic of Azerbaijan because of its numerous historical, ethnic, and religious ties with Iran and the fact that the Azeri-speaking population of Iran is even more than twice the population of the Republic of Azerbaijan and that the Republic of Azerbaijan has the largest number of Shiites after Iran, i.e. more than 85% of its population are Shiites. And in fact, until the end of the nineteenth century, Azerbaijan was part of Iran, and many people there originally considered themselves part of Iran.   

With such cultural closeness, Iran could have benefited much from its northern neighbor, Azerbaijan, but unfortunately, due to the mullahs’ regime’s unwise foreign policies, they tried to advocate for a wider religious influence in Azerbaijan and lost a great opportunity.   

Taking advantage of Iran’s wrong approach, Turkey, although it did not have such historical and cultural ties with Azerbaijan, was able to gain from this.  

It remains to be seen how this tension between Iran and Azerbaijan will end to the detriment of the Iranian people. This is another reason why the great majority of Iranians want regime change and establish a secular government in Iran. They made this clear by boycotting the sham presidential election last June. But since no dictatorship is willing to relinquish power, this regime will inevitably be changed by another Iranian uprising.

United States can either force Khamenei to give up not only its nuclear activities but also its missile programs and meddling in the region.

While few politicians or governments are unaware that acquiring an atomic bomb is one of Khamenei’s strategic goals to ensure the survival of his government, there is still insufficient will to prevent him from achieving that goal.

The 2015 accord (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5 + 1 (US, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany) limited Iran’s nuclear activities for a short period (15 years). However, even after this agreement, Iran continued its nuclear activities, such as working on the production of more advanced centrifuges, either covertly and out of sight of IAEA inspectors or under the guise of research to produce isotopes and treat cancer patients.

After Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018 and re-imposed US sanctions, Iran, had already equipped itself with more advanced IR-6 centrifuges with five times the capacity of the first-generation IR-1 centrifuges and began to increase its enriched uranium reserves further than agreed in JCPOA.

Currently, Iran has begun using IR-8 centrifuges, which are 16 times more efficient than IR-1 and can shorten the enrichment time significantly. Also, by resuming enrichment at a concentration of 20% and increasing it to 60%, it has become as close as possible to producing the enrichment needed to make an atomic bomb.

According to the New York Times and the Institute for Science and International Security, it now takes just about a month for Iran to reach the enrichment level needed to make an atomic bomb.

In 2015, the Iranian regime was in a state of complete bankruptcy. Unfortunately, however, the policy of appeasement of the West and the fear that the collapse of the mullahs in Iran may lead to regional instability, the demands of the regime were largely accepted. The mullahs were allowed to limit their nuclear activities for only a short period of 15 years, instead, all sanctions imposed on the regime was lifted. Iran was allowed to sell its oil, investors were encouraged to return and invest in Iran, and billions of their frozen assets were released and flown to Tehran in cash.

Now it seems that history is repeating itself!!

Because Khamenei, who had until recently strongly opposed negotiations with the United States and had put difficult conditions on the table to return to negotiations, suddenly agreed with the visit of the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), Mr. Rafael Grossi, to Iran and gave the green light to return to the Vienna talks.

Has he given up his desire to acquire a nuclear bomb and come to the conclusion that without nuclear weapons and only with the lifting of sanctions, he could save his regime from this situation? Or maybe he was worried that the IAEA’s Board of  Governors would issue a resolution against Iran and send Iran’s nuclear file back to the Security Council, which would add the UN sanctions to the existing US sanctions and return Iran to the pre-2015 economic situation that brought his regime to the brink of suffocation!? Khamenei is therefore pursuing a well-known policy of buying time through resultless negotiations with the West and the IAEA.

Although Khamenei sees his survival in acquiring an atomic bomb by following North Korea’s example, he knows that Iran is now in the worst economic situation, with 80% of Iranians living below the poverty line, with the inflation rate generally rising over 50% and for some essential food items over 70%. Many factories and production centers have been forced to close and unemployment is such that one-third of Iran’s youths are unemployed. Nearly a third of the population of metropolises such as Tehran and Mashhad can no longer afford the high housing costs and as a result have been driven to the outskirts of cities and live in shantytowns that lack the necessary facilities such as running water and electricity.

Iran’s budget deficit is now more than 464,000 billion tomans (Iran Currency), and without the lifting of sanctions, there is no prospect of getting out of this situation. The government is forced to print banknotes without support, which will further increase inflation. The vast majority of Iranians, fed up with the corruption and incompetence of the Mullahs’ dictatorship, want regime change and a democratic government with the separation of religion and state. They express this demand despite the security forces’ brutal repression in the protest rallies and the strikes of workers and employees that we see almost every week, with slogans such as death to Khamenei and death to the dictator They also made this clear publicly with the widespread boycott of the presidential election last June. According to reliable sources, despite all the propaganda and arrangements to get people to the polls, only about 10% of eligible people went to the polls.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic is also taking its huge toll in Iran. Currently, Iran has the highest number of victims of this disease globally as per its capita. So far more than 428,000 people have died due to this disease. The people blame Khamenei for deliberately preventing the importation of the valid Pfizer, Moderna and Astrazeneca vaccines into Iran, and consider him the main culprit and perpetrator of this massacre and want him to be tried.

The situation is so bad that according to some officials of the regime, the Iranian society is like a time bomb that is getting closer to the time of the explosion, or according to the former president, Ahmadinejad, a flood is coming that will soon take everyone away.

In such circumstances, Mr. Grossi traveled to Tehran and at the end of the trip described the outcome of the talks with Iranian officials as “constructive”. He confirmed in a press conference that he was pleased to meet the new head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and confirmed that “in less than two weeks, the IAEA General Conference will be held in Vienna, which is one of the most important nuclear events in the world”.

The United States also implicitly expressed interest that Iran’s return to the Vienna talks would allow the lifting of sanctions related to JCPOA.

It is quite clear that the P5 + 1 countries will also express their satisfaction with these words and give signals to the Iranian regime of the benefits that they can get from its return to the Vienna negotiations and drafting a new agreement.

In reality, reaching a new agreement with Iran and lifting sanctions can be very beneficial for the western countries and it can open the 85 million Iranian market for investment and the export of its products.

Also, with the entry of Iranian oil and gas into the world market, the price of these products will go down, which will benefit industrialized countries.

At the same time, they think that they can prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring an atomic bomb, at least for some time. But this is the same miscalculation that could give Khamenei new strength and save him from the brink of overthrow.

While if the Western countries, especially the United States, stand by the Iranian people and put strict conditions on the table, they can either force Khamenei to give up not only its nuclear activities but also its missile programs and meddling in the region. Otherwise, the growing worsening of Iran’s economic and social situation will cause widespread social uprisings that will be destined to bring the regime down.

Khamenei knows that he cannot leave the JCPOA suddenly and completely, but he seeks to buy time and disregard the IAEA and secretly follow his nuclear ambitions. To what extent he may be able to play this game, what the international community’s response may be and how the Iranian society will react to all the economic and social shortfalls are matters worth pursuing? 

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the Middle East countries in general and Iran in particular.

The revival of the 2015 nuclear deal by the Biden administration could turn the region into a war zone.

In spite of major opposition from many senators and regional powers to the US pursuing appeasement policies toward the Iranian regime, the Biden administration is going ahead with its plan to rejoin the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, which would see it lift sanctions against Tehran.

Unofficial meetings between the regime and the P5+1 (China, Russia, the US, the UK, France and Germany) seem to be on the way in order to resurrect the nuclear deal. The Biden administration is also reversing the previous administration’s maximum pressure policy on the Islamic Republic. But President Joe Biden ought to realize that a renewal of the nuclear deal could have very different implications in the region compared to when the pact was first struck almost six years ago.

From 2013 to 2015, some governments in the Middle East were cautiously willing to give the Obama administration and the Islamic Republic a chance for diplomacy and negotiations in the hope that the Iranian regime would alter its destructive behavior in the region. After the JCPOA was agreed, former US President Barack Obama said he was “confident” the deal would “meet the national security needs of the United States and our allies.” Throughout Obama’s presidency, the White House made unprecedented concessions in an attempt to appease the ruling mullahs. It met them with generosity and flexibility every step of the way.

Soon after, it became clear that Iran’s funding of violent proxies, in the form of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, was entirely overlooked during the negotiations. This would never have been the case if the Gulf states or Israel had been at the table. The composition of the P5+1’s negotiating team completely excluded those on Iran’s doorstep, with policy set by governments thousands of miles away in an approach reminiscent of the bygone colonial era.

However, after the nuclear agreement was sealed, the regional powers came to witness its impact first-hand. As sanctions against Iran were lifted, it quickly became clear that the JCPOA gave Iran global legitimacy. This newfound legitimacy and the lifting of sanctions generated billions of dollars in revenue for Iran’s military institution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as for its proxy militia and terror groups. Tehran used this money to expand its influence throughout the region, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. Its expansionist campaign has proved to be immensely successful.

The Gulf states and Israel recognized that the threat Tehran poses was never adequately thwarted by the JCPOA. The region saw a greater propensity for Houthi rocket launches at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia, the deployment of thousands of Hezbollah foot soldiers in Syria, and the constant bombardment of southern Israel by Iranian-funded Hamas rockets.

This is why Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told AFP in December: “I think we’ve seen as a result of the after-effects of the JCPOA that not involving the regional countries results in a buildup of mistrust and neglect of the issues of real concern and of real effect on regional security.” And it is also why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out: “We have already seen the nature of agreements with extremist regimes like yours (the Iranian regime).”

Taking this recent history into account, reviving the 2015 nuclear deal would be a strategic mistake that could devastate the Middle East. By returning to a deal that brought nothing but heightened destruction and instability, the Biden administration would leave the regional powers with no option other than to take firm action against Iran without the US, in order to stop Tehran’s military adventurism in the region.

One possible repercussion of the US rejoining the nuclear deal would be that Israel may take military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities — a move that could spiral into a regional war. Netanyahu last week warned Tehran: “With an agreement or without an agreement, we will do whatever is necessary so you do not arm yourselves with nuclear weapons.” Israeli military chief Aviv Kochavi last month revealed that plans had been drawn up to strike the Iranian regime. He said: “I instructed the army to prepare a number of operational plans in addition to the existing ones. We are taking care of these plans and will develop them during the coming year. Those who decide on carrying them out, of course, are the political leaders. But these plans have to be on the table.”

In a nutshell, the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal by the Biden administration could turn the region into a war zone.

Piece was first published on Arab News.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh.

Iran regime though actually violating the JCPOA poses as the true defender of it. But it is nothing but a deceiver that is deceiving the world, or, is it the world that wants to be deceived for short term economic benefits, though I really doubt what a broke regime can offer, unless, like its deals with China, Russia, and India, it puts on auction what is left of Iran.

Some decisive facts:

Lavizan-Shian in May 2003

Lavizan-Shian June 2004; when the regime exposed it to IAEA inspectors 13 months later. Iran gave IAEA access to the site when all the buildings were razed.

But even after the razing IAEA had found highly enriched Uranium. There were tensions between IAEA and Iran regime and the regime eventually stopped responding to IAEA in 2008.

But JCPOA swept everything under the rug.

Kala Electric site

Exposed in Feb 2003 by NCRI, in the same month, the IAEA demanded access. The access was granted in March 2003 with sampling allowed only in August 2003 and though IAEA noticed considerable modifications, still traces of highly enriched Uranium were found.

And Rouhani then the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and a chief nuclear negotiator said in his book: “For a long time, they (IAEA) wanted to inspect Kala-Electric. From the time they placed the request to the time permission was granted several months passed. Kala-Electric was the first site where enrichment was carried out using centrifuges but had not been reported to IAEA…Apparently our specialists were technically unaware of the new IAEA instruments.” Confessing that they tried hard to cover their Uranium enrichment.

METFAZ site exposed in 2009 used for high explosive testing

From the experience, the regime had from its other sites it hurriedly moved some of the facility and its chores to other places such as Parchin.

Research Academy or Pazhoheshkadeh (top left) along with the high explosive chambers seen in the photo below Pazhoheshkadeh. A chamber that when the IAEA eventually was able to push to be granted access to in 2015, it wasn’t there anymore.

Other sites and their modifications

Parchin site

As of 2019 Iranian regime still razing buildings

Abadeh Nuclear Weapon Development Site where some of the activities of METFAZ was transferred to:

Late June 2019, IAEA requests to visit the site.

Looking at the pattern of cheating of the Iranian regime we can see that there has always been this trend of delay in granting access to its sites and tampering the evidence. Lying about the sites or not informing the IAEA of their existence until they are exposed. And cheating has continued even after the JCPOA.

The latest IAEA report findings suggest that there has been a massive expansion in Iran’s enriched Uranium stockpile, 10 times the legal limit set out in the JCPOA. There is also evidence that Iran has been installing new advanced centrifuges in Natanz facilities. Iran regime has also resumed its heavy water reactor activities and it is actively blocking access to IAEA inspectors. The experts now say that Iran is significantly closer to what can be a nuclear breakout* reaching a nuclear capability in a narrow window of 3.5 months.

So we can clearly see that Iran is not in compliance with the JCPOA provisions.

Now the question for the international community is: Should you tighten the tether on this regime of should you lift the Arms Embargo to give it a more free hand in obtaining whatever it needs to acquire an atomic weapon as well as other necessary arsenals for its terror activities.

*Breakout time is the time that a country will have enough enriched Uranium, weapons-grade, for one nuclear bomb.

Hassan Mahmoudi is a Europe-based social analyst, researcher, independent observer, and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iranian Politics. He tweets under @hassan_mahmou1. 

The United States on Monday will sanction more than two dozen people and entities involved in Iran’s nuclear, missile and conventional arms programs, a senior U.S. official said, putting teeth behind U.N. sanctions on Tehran that Washington argues have resumed despite the opposition of allies and adversaries.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Iran could have enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon by the end of the year and that Tehran has resumed long-range missile cooperation with nuclear-armed North Korea. He did not provide detailed evidence regarding either assertion.

The new sanctions fit into U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to limit Iran’s regional influence and come a week after U.S.-brokered deals for the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize ties with Israel, pacts that may coalesce a wider coalition against Iran while appealing to pro-Israel U.S. voters ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The new sanctions also put European allies, China and Russia on notice that while their inclination may be to ignore the U.S. drive to maintain the U.N. sanctions on Iran, companies based in their nations would feel the bite for violating them.

A major part of the new U.S. push is an executive order targeting those who buy or sell Iran conventional arms that was previously reported by Reuters and will also be unveiled by the Trump administration on Monday, the official said.

The Trump administration suspects Iran of seeking nuclear weapons – something Tehran denies – and Monday’s punitive steps are the latest in a series seeking to stymie Iran’s atomic program, which U.S. ally Israel views as an existential threat.

“Iran is clearly doing everything it can to keep in existence a virtual turnkey capability to get back into the weaponization business at a moment’s notice should it choose to do so,” the U.S. official told Reuters.

The official argued Iran wants a nuclear weapons capability and the means to deliver it despite the 2015 deal that sought to prevent this by restraining Iran’s atomic program in return for access to the world market.

In May 2018, Trump abandoned that agreement to the dismay of the other parties – Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – and restored U.S. sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.

Iran, in turn, has gradually breached the central limits in that deal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including on the size of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium as well as the level of purity to which it was allowed to enrich uranium.

“Because of Iran’s provocative nuclear escalation, it could have sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon by the end of this year,” the official said without elaborating except to say this was based on “the totality” of information available to the United States, including from the IAEA.

The Vienna-based agency has said Iran only began significantly breaching the 2015 deal’s limits after the U.S. withdrawal and it is still enriching uranium only up to 4.5%, well below the 20% it had achieved before that agreement, let alone the roughly 90% purity that is considered weapons-grade, suitable for an atomic bomb.

“Iran and North Korea have resumed cooperation on a long-range missile project, including the transfer of critical parts,” he added, declining to say when such joint work first began, stopped, and then started again.

Asked to comment on the impending new U.S. sanctions and the U.S. official’s other statements, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations dismissed them as propaganda and said they would further isolate the United States.

“The U.S.’ ‘maximum pressure’ show, which includes new propaganda measures almost every week, has clearly failed miserably, and announcing new measures will not change this fact,” the mission’s spokesman, Alireza Miryousefi, told Reuters in an email.

“The entire world understands that these are a part of (the) next U.S. election campaign, and they are ignoring the U.S.’ preposterous claims at the U.N. today. It will only make (the) U.S. more isolated in world affairs,” he said.

The White House declined comment in advance of Monday’s announcements.

‘Snap Back’ of U.N. sanctions?

The U.S. official confirmed Trump will issue an executive order that would allow the United States to punish those who buy or sell conventional arms to Iran with secondary sanctions, depriving them of access to the U.S. market.

The proximate cause for this U.S. action is the impending expiration of a U.N. arms embargo on Iran and to warn foreign actors – U.S. entities are already barred from such trade – that if they buy or sell arms to Iran they will face U.S. sanctions.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal the U.N. conventional arms embargo is set to expire on Oct. 18.

The United States says it has triggered a “snap back,” or resumption, of virtually all U.N. sanctions on Iran, including the arms embargo, to come into effect at 8 p.m. on Saturday/0000 GMT on Sunday.

Other parties to the nuclear deal and most U.N. Security Council members have said they do not believe the United States has the right to reimpose the U.N. sanctions and that the U.S. move has no legal effect.

On Friday, Britain, France and Germany told the Security Council that U.N. sanctions relief for Iran – agreed under the 2015 nuclear deal – would continue beyond Sunday, despite Washington’s assertion.

In letters to the Security Council on Saturday, China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun and Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia both described the U.S. move as “illegitimate” and said the U.N. sanctions relief for Iran would continue.

Also on Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council he cannot act on the U.S. declaration that U.N. sanctions had been reimposed because it was not clear whether they had snapped back.

“It is not for the Secretary-General to proceed as if no such uncertainty exists,” he said.

Targets include Iran’s nuclear, missile, arms groups

The new executive order will define conventional weapons broadly as any item with a potential military use, meaning it could cover such things as speed boats that Iran retrofits to harass vessels in international waters, the U.S. official told Reuters.

It would also apply to conventional circuit boards that can be used in ballistic missile guidance systems, he added.

The more than two dozen targets to be hit with sanctions on Monday include those involved in Iran’s conventional arms, nuclear and missile programs, the official said, saying some of the targets are already sanctioned under other U.S. programs.

That could prompt criticism that the U.S. move is redundant and designed for public relations purposes to look tough on Iran, a charge critics have made about past U.S. sanctions actions.

Peter Harrell, a sanctions expert at the State Department under Democratic former President Barack Obama, called the U.S. steps “a diplomatic and signaling exercise” to show Trump cared about the issue but unlikely to deter potential arms deals.

“I don’t think it’s likely to change any behavior,” he said, adding most players were likely to hold off until the Nov. 3 election to see if there is a change in U.S. administration.

The U.S. official said among Monday’s targets will be Iran’s “most nefarious arms organizations,” about a dozen senior officials, scientists and experts from Iran’s nuclear complex, members of a procurement network that supplies military-grade dual-use goods for Iran’s missile program, and several senior officials involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program.

The official declined to name the targets, saying this would be made public on Monday, and stressed that the United States wants to deter foreign companies from dealing with them even if their governments believe this is legally permitted.

“You might have a split in some countries where a foreign government may claim that the U.N. sanctions don’t snap back but their banks and companies will abide by U.S. sanctions because they want to make sure they are not a future target,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration says that on Saturday (2000 EDT Sunday) all United Nations sanctions on Iran have to be restored and a conventional arms embargo on the country will no longer expire in mid-October.

But 13 of the 15 U.N. Security Council members, including long-time U.S. allies, say Washington’s move is void and diplomats say few countries are likely to reimpose the measures, which were lifted under a 2015 deal between world powers and Iran that aimed to stop Tehran developing nuclear weapons.

Here is a look at the events leading to this showdown and an explanation of what could happen next:

Why is the Arms Embargo on Iran expiring?

The Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Iran in 2007.

The embargo is due to expire on Oct. 18, as agreed under the nuclear deal among Iran, Russia, China, Germany, Britain, France and the United States that seeks to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief. It is enshrined in a 2015 Security Council resolution.

In 2018, Trump quit the accord reached under his predecessor Barack Obama, calling it “the worst deal ever.” The United States failed last month in a bid to extend the Iran embargo at the Security Council.

What does this mean for the 2015 Nuclear deal?

The remaining parties to the nuclear deal have said they are committed to maintaining the agreement. Iran has said it would remain in place despite the U.S. move at the United Nations.

Britain, France and Germany told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that U.N. sanctions relief for Iran would continue beyond Sept. 20.

“We have worked tirelessly to preserve the nuclear agreement and remain committed to do so,” the U.N. envoys for the three countries said in a letter to the Council, seen by Reuters.

What sanctions would Snap-back?

A return of U.N. sanctions, a so-called snapback, would require Iran to suspend all nuclear enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, and ban imports of anything that could contribute to those activities or to development of nuclear weapon delivery systems.

It would reimpose the arms embargo, ban Iran from developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and bring back targeted sanctions on dozens of individuals and entities. Countries also would be urged to inspect shipments to and from Iran and authorized to seize any banned cargo.

What led to this Showdown?

The United States submitted a complaint about Iran breaching the nuclear deal to the Security Council last month.

In response to the U.S. quitting the accord and imposing unilateral sanctions in a bid to get Iran to negotiate a new deal, Tehran has breached central limits of the pact, including on its stock of enriched uranium

Under a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution enshrining the nuclear deal, the United States says that it triggered a 30-day process leading to a snapback of all U.N. sanctions on Iran. Washington argues that while it quit the nuclear deal in 2018, the 2015 resolution still names it as a participant.

Under the sanctions snapback process if a Security Council resolution to extend sanctions relief on Iran is not adopted within the 30 days, then U.N. sanctions are supposed to be reimposed. No such resolution has been put forward for a vote.

Indonesia, the president of the Security Council for August, said last month that it was “not in the position to take further action” on the U.S. bid to trigger a return of all U.N. sanctions on Iran because there was no consensus in the body.

Thirteen of the 15 council members expressed their opposition, arguing that Washington’s move is void given it is using a process agreed under the nuclear deal it is no longer a party to.

What will the United States do now?

Trump plans to issue an executive order here allowing him to impose U.S. sanctions on anyone who violates the U.N. arms embargo on Iran, sources told Reuters, in a bid to reinforce the U.S. assertion that the measure has been extended indefinitely beyond Oct. 18.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Thursday that the order was expected in the coming days and would allow Trump to punish foreign actors – U.S. entities are already barred from trading weapons with Iran – by depriving them of access to the U.S. market.

How might a Biden administration handle Iran?

Three senior Iranian officials have told Reuters that Iran’s leadership is determined to remain committed to the nuclear deal, hoping that a victory by Trump’s political rival Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election will salvage the pact.

Biden, who was vice president when the Obama administration negotiated the accord, said he would rejoin the deal if Iran first resumed compliance.

“If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement and build on it, while working with allies to push back on Iran’s destabilizing actions,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said.