Iran has increased its blackmail campaign over the past few weeks, with the intention of forcing the international community to agrees to its terms.
Recently, it announced that it had begun enriching uranium to 20 percent at the Fordow nuclear site before the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) actually illegally seizing a South Korean ship in the Persian Gulf on Monday.
The mullahs have tried to blame their actions on the rest of the world for not sticking to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or even the ship they seized for allegedly polluting the Gulf waters, but Iran’s state-run media has revealed the truth.
Tehran Jeopardizes Global and Regional Peace with Unlawful Enrichment
The Vatan-e Emrooz daily, which is affiliated with the IRGC, wrote on Monday that Tehran’s true goals are to pressure the West into succumbing to the mullahs’ will.
“Enriching uranium at 20 percent was Iran’s winning card in facing western governments. [President Hassan] Rouhani’s government, at the beginning of the nuclear talks in Geneva two years before the JCPOA, generously accepted to halt in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and the recognition of Iran’s right to enrichment, none of which was realized,” the daily wrote.
“Now, in such circumstances, this concession can again force the JCPOA signatories to honor their obligations under the terms of the JCPOA, and thus return the balance in the number of obligations and duties to the nuclear agreement. In other words, experts believe that the beginning of Iran’s 20 percent enrichment could increase the probability of lifting sanctions much more than before,” Vatan-e Emrooz added.
This is not a response to Western non-compliance. Tehran has violated the deal since the very beginning, continuing nuclear tests and pretending to dismantle reactors, which is why the US withdrew from the deal in 2018.
In response, Iran stepped up its violations as a threat to the other signatories about what might happen if they too pulled out and as an attempt to gain concessions. This was ignored by the other signatories—particularly Britain, France, and Germany, which are pursuing a failed appeasement strategy—and Iran felt emboldened by this, which is what leads us to today.
“The seizure of this tanker in Persian Gulf waters sends a serious message to the South Korean government. A message that offers Seoul two options, either to choose to pay its long-standing debt to Tehran or (to compromise for the) security of its use of the Persian Gulf waterways in dealings with its Arab partners,” Vatan-e Emrooz wrote regarding the ship seizure.
This is extortion, plain, and simple. The lives of all those aboard may be at risk.
“The international community should take firm action since Tehran’s ongoing belligerent activities have continued despite the Western powers’ persistence on the appeasement policies,” wrote the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), who has been exposing Tehran’s nuclear activities since 2002.
