Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, November 6, 2019—This week, the Iranian regime took new steps toward further endangering world peace and security by taking the fourth step in breaching the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). On Monday, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, told state news media that the regime had put 30 more advanced centrifuges into use.
On Tuesday, Hassan Rouhani, the regime’s president, declared Tehran will start injecting uranium gas into over a thousand centrifuges at Fordo, a fortified nuclear facility built inside a mountain. Rouhani said, “We are inevitably taking the fourth step tomorrow,” while at the same time being quick to state that the step is reversible. He also pleaded several times that his regime is ready to “negotiate.”
Interestingly, Rouhani’s pleads for negotiation seem contradictory to those of regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who explicitly confessed on Sunday that the regime is in a state where negotiations will only make its conditions worse.
“If we entered negotiations, the Americans would push for the issue of our missiles… If our officials accepted this, the country would receive a serious blow, and if they didn’t, the current situation would continue,” Khamenei said.
However, these contradictions are not coincidental, and they only depict the current situation of the regime. Cornered by a multitude of crises, the regime is struggling to maintain consistency in its messaging and policies. But the only consistent thing about the regime is its resorting to threats against world peace and security, one of its main tools to prolong its tyrannical rule.
The Iranian regime shoots itself in the leg
Tehran’s main goal in taking steps to breach the JCPOA was to extract concessions from the international community, especially Europe. The mullahs ruling Iran had banked on European states taking their side in their ongoing confrontation with the U.S.
And to be fair, this is a tactic that had previously worked well for the Iranian regime. In the past decades, with appeasement being the dominant policy of the international community toward Iran, the mullahs had used terrorism, hostage-taking and outright blackmailing as tools to force other states to play by their rules. This is how they managed to get a flawed deal on their nuclear program, which effectively allowed them to continue their terrorist activities, ballistic missile development and secretly continue their atomic bomb-building.
But in the past few years, with appeasement falling by the wayside, it has become extremely difficult for the Iranian regime to put its outdated tactics to good use.
No to war.
No to appeasement.
There is an alternative for #Iran.https://t.co/MFnRHKCCAb— People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) June 24, 2019
Following the regime’s declaration that it would be taking the fourth step in breaching the JCPOA, officials from European countries that are party to the deal were quick to condemn the regime and warn Tehran against continuing reneging on its obligations.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas described Iran’s latest step to operate a greater number of centrifuges “unacceptable” and warned that Tehran risks completely breaking the entire nuclear agreement.
Britain’s Foreign Minister Dominic Raab called Iran’s decision a threat to Britain’s national security. “Iran’s latest actions clearly contravene the deal and pose a risk to our national security,” Raab said.
Even Russia, a traditional ally of the Iranian regime, did not defend the regime’s actions. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow was also “monitoring the development of the situation with concern.”
The regime’s desperate situation
The regime’s fourth step in breaching the JCPOA comes at a time that its strategy is falling apart in Iran and across the region. Tehran is facing serious setbacks in Iraq and Lebanon, two countries that the regime had occupied through its terrorist proxies. Both countries have seen large protests against the intervention of the Iranian regime in their affairs. The Iranian regime, which considered both countries as its “strategic depth,” is now faced with an unsolvable dilemma of losing its hold on the region.
#Iran officials are afraid the continuation of protests in Iraq will reignite uprisings in Iran. Iranian officials, including Khamenei, have repeatedly warned that losing their grip in countries in Iraq and Syria will result in a backlash in Iran.https://t.co/RVlU6xg2x9
— People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) November 5, 2019
In Iraq, the regime had for years pretended to have support among the majority Shiite population, trying thus to establish a stronghold and carry out its evil and terrorist agendas. But in the past weeks, some of the most intense protests against the regime have happened in Karbala, a holy Shiite city, where protesters attacked the regime’s consulate and ripped posters of Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the terrorist Quds Force.
In Lebanon too, where the regime had tried to occupy the country through Hezbollah, the Tehran-backed terrorist organization, millions of protesters have made it clear that they will not tolerate any government that is under the influence of the Iranian regime.
Meanwhile, inside Iran, the regime is faced with ongoing protests by various segments of the society, including workers, teachers, students, farmers, truckers, government employees and retired military personnel. Demonstrations rage over corruption, economic grievances and the regime’s continued suppression of freedoms and basic rights. Meanwhile, the regime continues to try to respond to protests with an iron fist, but faced with a multitude of crises everywhere, it is finding it increasingly difficult to put its suppression apparatus to effective use.
The regime has proven time and again that any move toward becoming a productive and peaceful member of the international community will result in its collapse, the latest proof being the explicit remarks of Khamenei. Under such circumstances, as has happened in the past decades, it resorts to more threats in hopes of extracting more concessions from the international community. And the weaker it gets, the more aggressive it will become.
