EDITORIAL: Iran – Western weakness to blame for Tehran’s nuclear blackmail

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The latest attempts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with the Iranian regime failed last week. As expected, the Iranian regime doubled down on its nuclear blackmail. Three days after talks with world powers resumed on November 29, Tehran stepped up work on a nuclear facility dug deep into a mountain. At the same time, it was added to a long list of maximalist demands. All of this has led even Europeans to warn that unless Tehran changes quickly, negotiations are doomed to failure.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “Iran at the moment does not seem serious about doing what is necessary to return to compliance, which is why we have ended this round of talks to Vienna ”.

But defiantly, the regime’s main negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, stressed after the breakdown of the latest talks that Tehran “will not back down from its demands”, including the controversial demand that the United States lift all sanctions. before the regime honored its commitments.

Germany has asked the regime to come up with realistic proposals in the talks, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry said on Monday. Tehran’s proposals are “not a basis for a successful end to the talks,” she said. The German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said it was unacceptable for Iran to advance its nuclear capability alongside the talks.

On December 1, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sounded the alarm by announcing that Tehran had started enriching uranium to 20% purity at the Fordow plant. This is a major violation of the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), since the deal completely bans uranium enrichment at Fordow. IR-6 centrifuges are much more efficient for uranium enrichment than the previously used IR-1 generation.

So where are we now? Since the talks abruptly ended over the summer, the regime has gained critical time by imposing a five-month break in negotiations. During this time, it increased the depth and breadth of its nuclear activities. In addition to the latest alarming breach, Tehran has started producing enriched uranium metal, a move that is pushing its nuclear weapons program forward. Last month, the IAEA said Iran was continuing to increase its stocks of enriched uranium and remained in violation of its agreement with world powers.

The failure of the Vienna talks shows once again that the Iranian regime, using appeasement, has plunged the talks into a cycle of deception to buy time and manufacture the bomb. Khamenei’s fate is tied to his nuclear program, another reason Raisi was chosen president. This cycle must end with a firm approach

– Mohammad Mohaddessin (@Mohaddessin) December 4, 2021

In the meantime, Tehran is clearly gaining time as it continues to push for maximalist and unworkable positions, like lifting all sanctions, while making unrealistic new demands. At the same time, the mullahs have threatened to enrich uranium to 90% purity, another obvious attempt to blackmail world powers into granting it concessions. All this raises doubts in Western capitals of Tehran’s seriousness regarding the talks.

It shouldn’t be too hard to realize now that Tehran’s threatening actions speak louder than its diplomatic acrobatics. To speculate on his intentions only distracts attention from his behavior.

The West should not fall prey to Tehran’s longstanding nuclear blackmail as the regime marches towards the bomb.

The point is that the main variable in the formulation of the mullahs’ behavior is the domestic situation. The more the regime is compressed inside, the more it sees an inevitable need to pursue a nuclear weapon as a strategic necessity for survival. Western counterparts should realize that for a regime whose concern is not the well-being of the Iranian people, economic incentives ring hollow. Instead, the mullahs are scrambling to find a way to curb a growing wave of dissent within them, which is precisely the main driver behind Raisi’s emergence.

As Ms. Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said, the mullahs’ besieged Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has inextricably linked his regime’s fate to the nuclear program due to the domestic threat. Plunged into incurable political, social, economic and environmental crises, the clerics in power will never give up their nuclear weapons program.

The mullahs’ regime is a threat to global security because of its insistence on expanding its ballistic missile program and nuclear weapons project. It constitutes an omnipresent threat for the European communities because it actively prepares terrorist operations in Europe. #JCPOA

– Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) December 4, 2021

Importantly, Tehran’s disturbing but all too familiar model of nuclear blackmail is fueled by a vicious circle of appeasement. Growing violations and threatening behavior have been virtually rewarded with complacency and concessions.

A more responsible policy would correspond to violations of the regime with a more decisive policy that would significantly reduce its activities. The only practical solution is to re-impose the six suspended UN Security Council resolutions, completely dismantle nuclear sites and regime enrichment, and conduct inspections anytime and anywhere. Everything nurtures a collapsing theocracy while reinforcing dangerous illusions in the West.

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