“The most important instance of freedom is to be able to choose one’s own destiny.” —Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei

Once again, we have been inundated with a constricted view of events currently taking place in Iran, carefully crafted to fit the dominant western narrative, which always presents the Islamic Republic as a nation teeming with citizens on the brink of rising up against their oppressive leaders. That Iran is a religious democracy, in which citizens are able to vote and otherwise engage in responsible and constructive debate regarding their individual and collective destinies, is completely lost in the western media. Meanwhile, the script for the escalating unrest in Iran appears to have been taken from a recent joint U.S.-Israeli secret memorandum of understanding.

Background

Since the time of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran of 1979, the United States has sought to topple the legitimate government of Iran, and to that end, Washington has imposed an ever-expanding, draconian regimen of economic sanctions upon Tehran in addition to supporting extremist groups, such as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, for the purpose of amplifying internal dissent among the citizenry.  Between 1979 and 2015, over 30 U.S. presidential executive orders and congressional legislative acts placed an ever-tightening economic straitjacket on the Iranian economy, all of which in principle should have been nullified upon the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) otherwise known as the “Iran nuclear deal” between Iran and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany.

However, even 30-plus unilateral acts of economic warfare against the Islamic Republic of Iran did not satisfy the revengeful plutocrats on the Potomac. In a desperate attempt to bring Iran to its fiscal knees, the Washington regime, with the help of the long arm of the U.S. Treasury, pressured its European allies and other members of the international community into approving additional sanctions, which were contained in six European Union and six United Nations Security Council resolutions.  These exhaustive economic sanctions even targeted non-U.S. companies that attempted to do business with Iran, as was bluntly pointed out by former Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, David Cohen, who declared, “Foreign banks and businesses still have to make a choice: they can do business with Iran, or they can do business with the U.S.—not both.”

After the historic implementation of the JCPOA, E.U. and U.N. sanctions were terminated with relative ease, but with U.S. sanctions fixed in law, only an act of the U.S. congress could terminate them permanently, and hence, a system of presidential “waivers” was created, which allowed the U.S. executive to “waive” application of the myriad of sanctions on Iran for time periods from 30 to 90 days.  After the final agreement was reached but before the U.S. sanctions could be “waived,” an interval of unspecified duration had to elapse in order to allow the U.S. sufficient time to take “preparatory steps.” This was an apparent ruse, which contravened Ayatollah Khamenei’s insistence for sanctions relief upon the final agreement’s implementation. “This has to happen,” the Leader rightly insisted, adding pointedly, “If lifting sanctions is supposed to depend on another new process, why did we negotiate with them in the first place?”

Post-JCPOA expectations

Perhaps the Iranian people themselves held the highest hopes for the positive economic impact of the JCPOA, judging by the post agreement euphoria exhibited by exuberant crowds of people who took to the streets of Tehran in celebration after the deal was inked in Vienna on July 14, 2015.  Ominously, expectations of rapid economic recovery in Iran were not voiced by many figures within the government itself. For his part, Central Bank of Iran governor Valiollah Seif expressed doubts that economic improvement would materialize before March, 2016, while  petroleum minister Bijan Zanganeh, in a slightly more optimistic tone, had predicted an increase of a million barrels of oil a day within six or seven months of the lifting of sanctions.  

Sadly, expectations of a new age of prosperity in Iran seemed to plummet in direct proportion to crude oil prices, and while the nuclear agreement allowed the Islamic Republic to sell as much oil as customers would want to buy, the resulting revenue did not rebound as anticipated.  Furthermore, a sinister lingering effect of the U.S. sanctions produced reluctance on the part of many bankers and investors to risk running afoul of U.S. wrath should some of the sanctions “snap back.”  Thus, Iran has been hit by a “double-whammy” of low oil prices, which adversely impacted the revenue stream, along with a sluggish return of foreign investment, which included downscaling of investment by major oil companies.  Furthermore, it must be understood that relief under the JCPOA only applies to the so-called “secondary” sanctions; the “primary” sanctions applied to U.S. persons and firms remain in effect, as do U.S. sanctions not related to the nuclear issue.

The JCPOA notwithstanding, there remains widespread reluctance among banks, investors and business in general to engage in financial transactions with Iran due to the possible adverse repercussions, including being cut off from the U.S. financial system.  The decision banks and businesses are forced by the U.S. to make in relation to the risk involved in dealing with Iran is whether the potential for profit from the transaction outweighs the costs of due diligence and possible subsequent litigation, should a sanctioned party unknowingly be overlooked in the process.  To the detriment of the Iranian economy and the hopes of the citizens of the Islamic Republic, many firms have taken the coward’s way out by simply choosing to avoid doing business with Iran altogether.  

Consequently, access to the “unfrozen” oil revenues deposited in European banks touted by a certain U.S. leader as “an immediate financial boost”  was far from immediate, and the net result is that allegedly “unfrozen” Iranian assets remain effectively frozen by the U.S. financial syndicate, which exercises the power to place a stranglehold on Iran, or any other country for that matter, that does not comply with Washington’s wishes.  So despite the fact that the JCPOA has been in effect since January 2016, that Iran has been found to be in full compliance by the IAEA, and that banks and businesses can legally engage in transactions with the Islamic Republic, the Iranian economy is still feeling the residual effects of almost 40 years of U.S. sanctions, and for that reason, Iranians are still failing to receive the full fiscal benefit of the agreement.

Protests emerge

As was previously mentioned, the U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iran cannot be terminated without an act of the U.S. congress, therefore, the U.S. president must “certify” Iran’s compliance with the terms of the JCPOA in order to grant a waiver of sanction provisions.  The current U.S. president failed to do this, as he announced to the world in a speech brimming with calumnies against Iran on October 13, 2016.  He also accused the previous U.S. president of lifting sanctions against Iran “just before what would have been the total collapse of the Iranian regime,” a statement that makes clear the sentiments of the current occupant of the White House.  Despite the deleterious effect of his decertification efforts, the U.S. president, apparently oblivious to the sublime hypocrisy of his statement, said, “[W]e stand in total solidarity with the Iranian regime’s longest-suffering victims: its own people.”

In the face of low oil prices, a lack of foreign investment and uncertainty over the future of the JCPOA as threatened by the U.S. president and congress, Iran’s economy is expected to grow at a rate of 5% over the current year while inflation is projected at 9%. These figures translate into a net loss in purchasing power of 4% for the average Iranian consumer, who undoubtedly must be disheartened by not seeing the hoped-for economic benefit from the nuclear deal materialize.  Because of this frustration over what some Iranians view as a lack of sufficiently rapid economic improvement, protests emerged in Mashhad on Thursday, December 28 and then almost too quickly spread to Qom, Rasht, Kerman, Qazvin and other provincial capitals.  Unfortunately, violence has ensued resulting in the loss of life and destruction of property.

Predictably, the U.S. president was quick to categorize the protests as political, while failing to acknowledge the economic basis, which has been caused largely by his country’s harsh sanctions and other economic meddling in Iran’s internal affairs.  University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole laid the blame for the economic distress squarely where it belongs; on the United States and the Zionist lobby. “[T]he U.S. is certainly a big part of the problem here, acting in part at the behest of the Israel lobbies and in part at those of the arms manufacturers and oil interests,” he wrote.  Likewise, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed faux support for the Iranians, but denied that his regime, in collusion with the U.S., had any connection with backing and amplifying the protests.

The secret MOU

Nevertheless, according to reports by sources inside the Zionist regime, the U.S. and the Israeli entity have signed a pact to address the omnipresent “Iranian threat” in accordance with the U.S. president’s Iran strategy speech of October 13.  The memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Washington and Tel Aviv regimes was signed on December 12 at the White House, and enumerated specific plans for joint U.S.-Israeli teams to destabilize Iran as well as to deal with its allies, Syria and the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah.  The MOU came almost one week after the announcement by the American president of his decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Concerning the impact of the secret MOU, Israeli channel 10 reporter Barak Ravid remarked that, compared to the embassy move announcement on December 6, the new pact would have “a far greater impact on the security of Israel’s citizens.”  A stretch of logic is not required to conclude that the December 12 MOU contained the U.S.-Israeli blueprint for co-opting protests in Iran and then escalating the turmoil. 

Religious democracy

Concerning the Iranian protestors, the Israeli prime minister preached, “They seek freedom. They seek justice. They seek the basic liberties that have been denied to them for decades.”  True enough, but the denial of freedom, justice and basic liberties came before the victory of the Islamic Revolution, not afterwards, at the hands of the U.S.-installed shah.  As Ayatollah Khamenei has explained, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a religious democracy in which citizens enjoy full rights and freedoms.  “Genuine democracy – freedom of the people, relying on the votes of the people – is sacred to us,” the Leader wrote.  Moreover, he previously stated, “Justice should be forcefully demanded by all the people and youth, so that all officials are made to pay attention to the issue of justice, even if it is against their will.”  These sentiments were reiterated by Iran’s president, Dr. Hassan Rouhani, who stated, “People have problems; this is natural and we have to solve these problems.... Their criticism is a right.”

In stark contrast to the sincere leaders of Iran, the current White House tenant has proven himself to be a pathological liar.  “We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone,” he proclaimed on inauguration day, yet he is doing precisely that to Iranians and similar peoples, who seek only the freedom to choose their own destiny.  Clearly gloating over reports of protests, violence and arrests in the western media, he declared, “The U.S. is watching!”  As we have seen, the U.S. and its Zionist cohort are doing much more than merely watching these protests in Iran unfold from afar.  They are actively involved in fanning the fires of discontent in the Islamic Republic, and may have even struck the match to ignite the first flame.

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