Original MKLA watches the middle east
The reading time is about 5 min.
Introduction: For countless people who died in the past wars, 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, 4 Afghans, 3 Germans and 3 Britons, and for countless people who died in future wars. For the countless that had perished in wars; for the 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, 4 Afghans, 3 Germans, and 3 British nationals; for the countless that will perish in wars.
One-fifth of the Iranian nuclear deal’s four and a half years.
On July 14th, 2015, the "P5+1" countries-Germany and five members of the Security Council, including Britain, France, China, the United States and Russia-signed the Joint Action Plan with Iran, commonly known as the Iranian nuclear deal.
The main constraints of the agreement on Iran are:
Low enriched uranium stocks decreased by 97% to 300 kg;
Within 15 years, the concentration of enriched uranium shall not exceed 3.67%;
Seal up the second-generation centrifuges, and reduce the first-generation centrifuges by at least two thirds;
Limit the operation of a factory in Natanz;
Allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to supervise all declared facilities, including military facilities.
Accordingly, the concessions to reduce sanctions include:
United Nations and some EU sanctions against Iran will be suspended or suspended;
Within eight years, the EU will even stop economic sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps;
The United States will stop sanctions against countries that have economic exchanges with Iran;
The restriction that American domestic enterprises are not allowed to trade with Iran remains unchanged;
The sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran for human rights issues remain unchanged;
The ban on the transfer of ballistic missile technology to Iran is maintained for 8 years and conventional weapons for 5 years.
On January 16th, 2016, the Iranian nuclear deal was officially implemented.
US President Barack Obama lifted economic sanctions against Iran according to the agreement.
Iranian President Rouhani said in a national statement: "We Iranians reach out to the world with a friendly attitude, put aside hatred, suspicion and conspiracy, and open a new chapter in Iran’s relations with the world."
Signature of Negotiator (https://www.entekhab.ir/fa/news/223984/–)
On May 8, 2018, US President Trump announced that the United States had withdrawn from the Iranian nuclear agreement and re-imposed the highest level of economic sanctions on Iran. It came into effect in November 2018.
As of May 2019, the International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Iran still abides by the main provisions of the the Iranian nuclear deal.
In the same month, the United States terminated the exemption of sanctions against third-party countries for importing oil from Iran. Subsequently, Iran announced that it would no longer fulfill some of its commitments in the the Iranian nuclear deal after 60 days, but at the same time, it also said that all its measures would be reversible, and once the remaining five countries gave an acceptable solution, it would continue to fulfill the agreement.
Since then, with the aggravation of American sanctions and the continuous expansion of damage, Iran has symbolically broken through the critical value of the agreement several times, hoping to put pressure on the international community and find a way out for the Iranian economy.
On July 7, 2019, Iran announced that its enriched uranium concentration would exceed 3.67%.
On November 4, Iran’s enriched uranium concentration exceeded 4.5%. Thirty new centrifuges were also restarted, doubling the total number of centrifuges to 60.
On November 7, Iran resumed uranium enrichment activities at the underground nuclear facility in Fordo.
On January 5, 2020, the American air raid on Baghdad airport killed Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Al-Quds Army.
That night, Iran announced that it would suspend the implementation of the the Iranian nuclear deal, but it would continue to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
2/5 From Economic Sanctions to the Iranian nuclear deal
Over the past decade or so, Iran has been able to sit back at the negotiating table, thanks to the all-round economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.
At first, the ruling clique was able to use international sanctions to create a sense of isolation in Iran and consolidate nationalist sentiment against foreign enemies. But by the end of 2011, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had to admit that the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union were "not without waves" and "had an impact after all".
Iran’s unique political system provides a relatively controllable way to vent public opinion.
Facing the economic pressure, the limited democratic election system provides a Velayat-e Faqih for theocracy. On the one hand, the presidential campaign has provided people with a sense of satisfaction in political participation to a certain extent; On the other hand, even if the candidates acceptable to the Constitutional Supervision Committee are selected, the weight of public opinion still contains some opportunities for reform.
On June 16th, 2013, hassan rouhani, a scholar of Islamic law, doctor of law studying in Britain, former First Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (Showraye Aliye Amniyate Melli), former chief nuclear negotiator, member of the expert meeting responsible for electing Iran’s supreme leader (Majles-e Khobregan-e Rahbari) and the only moderate conservative candidate, was elected as the seventh Iranian President.
Through this bridge between reformists and hardline conservatives, Iran’s international status has also improved in recent years.
Rouhani (Meghdad Madadi/Tasnim News Agency) when he was just elected president.
The Iranian President/Foreign Minister/Foreign Ministry spokesperson sent a tweet to congratulate the Jewish holiday, which was unimaginable during Ahmadinejad’s tenure.
3/5 Defend revolutionaries and vested interests.
However, on the thorny road to reform, Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Eslami is the biggest obstacle in the system.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps was established after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and was directly subordinate to the Supreme Leader.
In this way, two armies appeared in Iran.
One is the regular army-the army of the new Islamic Republic of Iran absorbed some officers and men of the former Royal Iranian Army, and was entrusted with the responsibility of defending national sovereignty and maintaining national order by the Constitution.
The other is the Revolutionary Guard-whose duty is to consolidate the Islamic revolutionary regime and supervise the former.
Today, the Revolutionary Guard has about 125,000 soldiers from the armed forces, including the navy, which is responsible for controlling the Persian Gulf. It has its own intelligence department and special forces "Sepah-e Qods". The Revolutionary Guard also governs the "Basij", with about 90,000 militiamen and 300,000 reserves.
David Dionisi, a former US intelligence official, believes that quds force’s tentacles are distributed as above in the world.
In 1982, Soleimani in the Iran-Iraq War.
From 1980 to 1988, the Iran-Iraq war broke out and the newly established Islamic Republic was in a bitter struggle.
On the battlefield, loyal revolutionary guards and countless Basij volunteers took the lead. Baski often acts as a death squad, removing mines and attracting enemy fire with flesh and blood.
At home, because the new government is weak in economy and politics, it has to rely on the Revolutionary Guard to develop the national defense industry and even run the state machinery. As a result, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which seized this opportunity, quickly developed its military strength and scientific research skills at the beginning of its birth, and also developed a huge economic context that was not under the jurisdiction of the central government.
The Revolutionary Guards completed another stage of barbaric growth during Ahmadinejad’s term.
In order to consolidate his populist foundation composed of low-income people and militia, the president who is said to have joined Basij in the Iran-Iraq war has launched a series of plans to redistribute oil.
Profiteers are naturally not ordinary people.
During the privatization of state-owned enterprises, nearly half of the shares fell into the hands of semi-state-owned groups related to the Revolutionary Guard.
At the same time, due to the deadlock over the Iranian nuclear issue, the European Union also withdrew from the Iranian market after the implementation of multilateral sanctions, which forced Iran’s trade to be on a par with Asia. However, private enterprises have neither enough capital nor are good at dealing with bureaucracy, so the Revolutionary Guard naturally fills the gap in the market.
Therefore, although Iran’s economy has been hit hard by sanctions before, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and related privileged organizations have been able to draw nutrients from the situation of scarce resources and opportunities.
It is foreseeable that before globalization, democratization, anti-corruption reform and so on touch their rights and interests, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards will try to nip them in the bud.
4/5 A stumbling block to foreign policy
After the the Iranian nuclear deal came into effect on January 26th, 2016, Iran’s contradictions in foreign policy further surfaced.
As vested interests, conservatives constantly provoke western countries, causing embarrassment to supporters of normalization of international relations, in an attempt to undermine the implementation of the agreement.
For example, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tested medium-range ballistic missiles at intervals, boasted during the review, and its words were as extreme as ever. In Syria, Yemen and Iraq, the Revolutionary Guards are still carrying out military intervention that runs counter to the international mainstream.
The different needs of diplomatic relations and geopolitics are tearing the Iranian government apart.
As a Shiite island, Iran’s insecurity is not difficult to understand. In the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, nearly one million people were killed on both sides, ranging from trench killing to chemical weapons. This blood-soaked war has branded an indelible pain in the hearts of a whole generation: only a military power can avoid foreign aggression.
In 2003, American troops invaded Iraq. On December 30, 2006, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein died on the gallows. The sudden fall of the arch-rival once again deeply stimulated the leadership of Iran: if it is too late to distract the United States from the chaos in the Middle East, who will be hanged next?
In this way, facing the top priority of national security, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which tried to improve Iran’s economy by easing sanctions, was naturally marginalized.
Even when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Tehran and met with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Rouhani, Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif didn’t have a chance to appear.
A year ago, on February 26th, Zarif announced his resignation on Instagram, and he didn’t return to work until President Rouhani refused to resign. In the interview, he once said that he hoped to inspire his colleagues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to strive for the diplomatic authority entrusted by law, instead of becoming a victim of factional fighting.
I am afraid Zarif will suffer even more this week.
Perhaps it is a joke of history. Iran always chooses a tough conservative president when the attitude of the United States is a little slow, and when it finally chooses a more moderate president, it meets an intransigent American president-
This time, Trump, who played against Rouhani, directly withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal and assassinated Iranian military officer Soleimani, who was not a hidden goal, which opened a hell mode for Iran’s difficult internal affairs and diplomacy.
Rouhani tweeted its condolences over the crash of a passenger plane hit by a missile. According to Iranian official reports, the Ukrainian Airlines passenger plane was shot down because it was close to the "important military base" of the "Islamic Revolutionary Guards" and was misjudged as a cruise missile.
After the missile crashed by mistake, there was an anti-government demonstration in Iran, and Trump tweeted that he was with the Iranian people.
5/5 personal strength and institutional inertia
Soleimani, the general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, "died heroically as a national hero", finally ruined the Iranian nuclear deal, which was written by diplomats with more than ten years of painstaking efforts. Personally, he may also get his long-cherished wish.
So, does the limitation of Iran’s reform mean that military strike is the only solution?
In the state machine, Soleimani is not the only one that can’t be replaced. If one is assassinated, another will always take over. Although he may not have the talent of uniting Lian Heng in the dark and in the light, he can also create enough chaos.
Once a head-on conflict breaks out, Iranian nationals who had hoped for the United States and Europe and prayed for democratic reform will be inspired by nationalism and once again arm themselves with hostile armor and a sharp knife. After all, nationalism can transcend the pursuit of living standards, even life. They will also give their blood to the Revolutionary Guard.
The new war will only create a new generation of hardliners and miss the next 20 years.
I also sincerely hope that the brave Iranians who have become dissidents because they love Iran will not easily lose their way again in the complicated voices.
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Bibliography
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Original title: "Observation | Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Limitations of Iranian Reform"
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