By: Hossein Abedini
Senior officials gathered last week in Geneva hoping to thrash out the nuclear deal that would bring the Iranian regime in from the cold. What we have been left with is a six month truce. The mullahs have agreed to curb some of their nuclear activities in return for some sanctions relief. Unfortunately that sanctions relief without a significant backtracking of its nuclear program is a serious concern.
President Obama and William Hague have hailed the deal as a starting point from which further negotiations can prosper. Some others on the other hand have slammed the deal as a big mistake. The reality is rather than a big mistake, the deal was a huge missed opportunity.
The mullahs regime had come to the table in a position of weakness. The regime was weakened by widespread sanctions. Their economy remains in disarray and infighting amongst the top brand within the regime deepened in a bitter sham Presidential election in 2013. Rafsanjani was side-lined, Rouhani selected and the regime’s political machine took a swing back to the time of Khatami. Tehran was suddenly looking to talk and continue the strategy of buying more times.
Those signals were defined as change by the regime’s apologists. We apparently had a new moderate to whom they could talk. The reality is those signals were not those of a moderate but rather a deceitful and misleading nature. The regime entered the negotiations knowing that it desperately needed an easing of the sanctions to solve its collapsing economic crisis. Fighting on multiple fronts in Iraq and Syria while pumping huge finance into its nuclear program has left the ruling clerics in dire financial crisis. Mullah Rouhani came to the table knowing that he had to buy the regime sanctions relief. Unfortunately the P5+1 gave him that sanctions relief, although limited, on the cheap.
In fact those sanctions and the isolation of the regime were what brought Rouhani to the negotiating table originally. His regime needed breathing space. Rather than offer him sanctions relief on the cheap, the opportunity was there to squeeze that little harder and dismantle the mullahs regime’s nuclear capabilities. Instead once again a policy of appeasement and a very weak and wrong policy was adopted. Today’s buzz words on Iran are diplomacy and negotiations. What brought the regime to the table was not diplomacy but sanctions and isolation and scores of major revelations by the Iranian resistance exposing the regime’s secret weaponisation program . However, in one foul swoop the P5+1 removed that stick and the carrot of sanctions relief was handed over on a silver platter.
Continued negotiations which deliver nothing tangible are dangerous. For years the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and Mrs Rajavi have highlighted the need for hard-hitting sanctions. Instead for years, the regime has bought itself time in negotiations. If hard-hitting sanctions had been applied ten years ago, the regime would not have been able to advance its nuclear program to where it is today. The NCRI first exposed Tehran’s nuclear program and recently it exposed information it has regarding nuclear sites the regime has failed to disclose to inspectors. It is critical that those sites are visited by the IAEA without delay.
The six month truce is now in place for better or worse. Currently this will only be short term relief for the Iranian regime. However, moving forward it is critical that the P5+1 do not enter protracted negotiations which simply buy the regime time. Sanctions are what brought the regime to the negotiating table and sanctions and absolute firmness should be what they continue to face. Those sanctions were not introduced lightly, they came about after the regime spent ten years lying to the IAEA and cheating the world and expediting its aggressive efforts to complete its nuclear weaponisation program.
The recent round of negotiations was a failed opportunity. Sanctions and isolation have weakened the regime and they should remain in place for as long as the regime fails to adhere to nuclear protocols or abide by the IAEA’s demands. Give the regime more time and sooner rather than later we will be facing a nuclear armed fanatic and ruthless regime in Iran.
