On Wednesday, July 2, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticized the Iranian government for refusing to pay its arrears. In this context, the Islamic Republic joined Venezuela, Yemen, and Lebanon who had lost voting rights in 2020.
“Iran and the Central African Republic are in arrears on paying their dues to the United Nations’ operating budget and will lose their voting rights in the 193-member General Assembly,” Guterres said. “The minimum payments needed to restore voting rights are $16,251,298 for Iran.”
In response to Guterres’s letter, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claimed, “UN deprived Iran of its voting rights,” shedding crocodile tears for his government, “U.S. economic terrorism prevents Iran paying for FOOD, let alone UN dues.”
However, he intentionally neglected how much Iran spends on irresponsible policies and aggressive projects like equipping and supplying extremist proxies, supporting the Syrian regime, making nuclear weapons, and advancing ballistic missiles’ range.
“When I went to Syria, some complained that I had caused expenses. But I will say this again, “We may have given $20-30 billion to Syria,” said former chair of the Parliament (Majlis) National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh in early May 2020.
"Iran is in arrears on paying its dues to the @UN’ operating budget and will lose their voting rights in the 193-member General Assembly," said @antonioguterres.
Iran refuses to pay its debts while spends around $20-30B in Syria alone, said former lawmakerpic.twitter.com/mE11FsEiSc— Iran News Update (@IranNewsUpdate1) June 3, 2021
Furthermore, in December 2020, Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar praised Qassem Soleimani, the former chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force (IRGC) killed in a U.S. drone attack in January 2020, for supporting Hamas.
“During my meeting with Iranian officials in 2006, I raised some requests as the Palestinian Foreign Minister. [Then-President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad referred me to Soleimani. I told Soleimani that we have a problem with paying our employees’ paychecks,” he said.
Ever thought how #Iran's regime spends the Iranian people's money?
$22 million in cash from Qassem Soleimani to Hamas in nine suitcases is one example.#Priorities pic.twitter.com/nBWXnQbSuj
— Heshmat Alavi (@HeshmatAlavi) December 28, 2020
“A decision was quickly made because I had to leave the next day. I saw $22 million in cash in several suitcases. We had agreed on more but since we were a nine-men delegation, we could not carry more,” al-Zahar explained.
In a speech broadcasted in January 2016, Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, confirmed all Hezbollah’s financial and weaponry supports come from Iran. “All of Hezbollah’s budget, wages, food, drinks, weapons, and rockets are supplied by the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said according to al-Arabiya.
Meanwhile, in October 2020, Iran Focus revealed that state-owned companies have devoured 70 percent of Iran’s total budget, and while they can compensate for the country’s entire budget deficits, the fate of their profits are bleak. The website mentioned this amount of money are absorbed by corrupt government institutes and officials.
In reality, the government’s primary problem is not with a lack of money, but the country suffers from a corrupt system. “The corruption looks like a seven-headed dragon,” the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described the corruption in February 2018. “Every time you cut one head off, you’re still left with another six.”
In October 2013, Regarding Iran’s systematic corruption and flawed financial system, first IRGC commander-in-chief Javad Mansouri said, “Even if it rains gold, … nothing will be solved.” Therefore, Iran’s complicated economic dilemmas will be resolved neither in Vienna nor in Washington DC.
As long as the ayatollahs continue their untransparent rule, they squander national assets on oppressive and aggressive policies. The Islamic Republic’s 42-year history has proven this truth, and the current system would resolve the country’s dilemmas once a leopard changed its spots.
