Iran using coronavirus to lobby for lifting of sanctions

Photo: Reuters

SALEEM SAMAD

Is Iran using the coronavirus to lobby for lifting of sanctions?

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s clerics -- President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif -- shrewdly appear to be investing significant political capital in a global campaign to have all sanctions against the theocratic regime lifted.

Iran clerics blame the imposition of economic sanctions by the United States to have caused a heavy toll in the Covid-19 public health crisis -- the confirmed cases are nearly 58,500 while deaths have risen to more than 3,600, as of April 6.

Taking the crisis as an issue with the West, Tehran has launched a new diplomatic campaign admitting its failure of clinical management of the pandemic.

The Iranian leaders are desperate for the US to lift its sanctions and are placing significant pressure on the international community to release financial resources, including those which are frozen by the Trump administration, as explained by Dr Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist based in the US.

Not very surprisingly, several US lawmakers, including Sen Bernie Sanders, Rep Ilhan Omar, Sen Elizabeth Warren, and Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have succumbed to the excuse given by the regime’s foreign minister Javad Zarif.

Fortunately, the US sanctions do not include medical or humanitarian restrictions, which could impact the fight against Covid-19, argues Iran watchers.

The outbreak of the virus has nothing to do with the much-talked-about US sanctions, instead of the clerical regime’s failure to contain the crisis efficiently.

“If the timeline of the Iran cleric’s activities is analyzed, it could be understood from the stubbornness of the regime,” says Hanif Jazayeri, an Iranian opposition activist based in London.

In January, the regime’s supreme leader authorized more than $215 million for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) backed Quds Force, engaged in proxy wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Iran’s regime recently spent $67m redecorating the Zeynab Shrine in Syria with funds that could instead be used in the fight against the pandemic.

When the first case of a coronavirus victim was detected in mid-February in the religious city of Qom, authorities covered up its existence when they asked the people to take part in the sham parliamentary elections.

President Hassan Rouhani has overtly ruled out quarantining any cities and instead “donated” 3 million face masks to China as a “sign of long-term and traditional friendship between two countries.”

On the other hand, the IGRC has been caught hoarding millions of medical supplies, including disinfectants, gloves, and masks, while selling them on the black market at 10 times the price.

Ever since the outbreak, the Mahan Air, affiliated with the IRGC, has continued its flight to and from China, the geographical source of Covid-19.

Despite the conflict, the US has offered to support Iran during the coronavirus crisis via the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement and also exempted the donation of medicine to Iran from US sanctions. Unfortunately, the US offer was outright rejected by the regime in Tehran.

The WHO has sent Iran diagnostic kits and protective equipment for health care workers, including 7.5 tons of medical supplies. The United Arab Emirates also sent two planeloads of hygienic items to Iran, while Kuwait pledged to help Iran with $10m without any restriction.

Nevertheless, Iran’s Foreign Minister continues to threaten the international community that, if the sanctions against Iran are not lifted, the widespread coronavirus pandemic will endanger other countries’ national security.

The Rouhani-Zarif duo is trying to cash in on the coronavirus tragedy by pushing the US and the international community to lift all sanctions against the Iranian regime.

First Published in the Dhaka Tribune on 6 April 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad, Email saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Iran, a nation plunged into crisis of competency, legitimacy

Rogue warlord General Qassem Soelimani commander of Quds Force killed in a US drone attack

SALEEM SAMAD

Iran, a nation plunged into crisis of competency, legitimacyQasem Soleimani

The aura of solidarity after General Qasem Soleimani's assassination temporarily created across

Iran soon gave way to hostility after a Ukraine Airlines was shot down by an Iranian missile.

The clerics of the Islamic Republic of Iran have finally plunged into a series of crisis faced internally and externally.

Never before the tens of thousands of Iranians in self-exile have stepped outside their abode to protest Islamic Iran's erroneous political policies and appalling human rights status meted by street protesters demanding democracy.

Iran's role in the geopolitics of the Middle-East since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 the religious fundamentalism plays as a catalyst in the formulation of Iran's foreign policy.

Iran's proxy war strategy which is practiced through hybrid Shia militias in the region. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its Quds Force, plays an important role in Iranian politics and security decisions.

The Quds Force engaged in hybrid war has been authorised by the Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to punish the most hated countries in Middle-East.

The assassinated Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani by US drone attack has shown success in waging proxy wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen to punish American allies Israel, Saudi Arabia and Emirates.

In the early 1980s only, when Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, who spearheaded the Islamic Revolution had been facing a war with Iraq, it started its policy of recruitment and mobilisation of Shia Muslims to raise rag-tag militias in all over the Middle-East to counter its arch-foes, Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq.

Iran backed Hezbollah involved proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan have always remained involved, either directly or indirectly, in every conflict of Middle-East.

These proxy groups became immensely active after Baghdad fell to the United States in 2003. This hybrid warfare strategy immensely benefited Iran, by avoiding direct military confrontations and therefore hiding Iran's conventional military weaknesses and reshaping the politics of Iraq in its favour.

One of the very important factors regarding how Iran has been able to maintain his influence in the geopolitics of the Middle-East is due to its properly systematised network of proxies and its state actor IRGC and Quds Force.

Iran has always used these hybrid militias for strategic purposes, strengthening of its national security and its revolutionary agenda.

The conventional threat to Iran is mainly posed by the United States and its allies in the Middle East, but mainly Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Another threat that Iran faces is by Jihadist groups like Islamic State and Al-Qaeda affiliates in the Arab countries and Afghanistan.

If we talk about Syria, Iran's influence in the balance of power and politics of the Middle-East has accelerated to a new level after the eruption of civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

Syria has been a steady ally of Iran since the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979 and has always supported the father and son duo of Hafez-al-Assad and Bashar-al-Assad respectively due to their allegiance to Alawite sect of Shia Islam.

Iran's support to the Houthis started in 1990 with an objective to protect the Zaidism sect of Shia Islam in Yemen.

Evidence of Iran's support and military assistance to Houthi rebels came to surface in 2012 when the United States found the Quds Force providing training to the Houthis in Saddah, a small town in Yemen.

Through these proxies, Iran has successfully encountered Saudi Arabia, American and Israeli influence in the region. The influence became unpredictable in the region and the USA had to redo its policy for the Arab states.

First published in The Asian Age, 25 January 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter @saleemsamad: Email: saleemsamad@hotmail.com