International sanctions have crippled Iran’s regime, and its financial resources and power is almost zero. The regime is no longer able to financially support its proxy groups in the Middle East, and worse it is even not able to pay government officials’ wages.
The situation is so bleak that all the regime’s lobbyists especially in the US are crying and begging the US government for the lifting of the sanctions. We will exclude the people and their situation from these facts because they are the last concern of the regime, and only thing that this regime’s is concerned on them is their fury because of poverty and starvation, resulted by the regime’s policies in wasting their wealth and the country’s national resources in wars and terrorism.
Abolfazl Zohrehvand, a regime-affiliated foreign policy expert and former Iranian ambassador to Italy, frustrated about the situation in an interview with state-run website Nama about the lifting of the sanctions said:
“The issue which is now important is the lifting of all sanctions, and the nuclear or non-nuclear issues are not considered.”
Speaking about the nature of the sanctions, he added: “What has happened so far in Vienna is related to the lifting of sanctions imposed during Mr. Trump’s presidency, and not even to the sanctions imposed during Mr. Obama’s term. The next noteworthy point is that non-nuclear sanctions will not be removed in any way, including the fact that the Revolutionary Guards remains a terrorist organization on the sanctions blacklist.”
About the regime’s freedom in financial exchanges, he added: “During the negotiations, it seems that the central bank is going to be removed from their sanctions so that it will not have any problem in transferring money, but the fact is that U-turn is still under sanctions and we still do not have access to its resources, and they not only will remove U-turn from the sanctions, but other sanctions systems will remain in place.”
He added: “It is possible for us to sell our oil and return some of its money somehow into the country or to import goods in exchange for the sale of oil, and they have mentioned this, but there is no guarantee for the sale of oil and its returning money. Because U-turn is blocked and it is not possible for us to make financial transactions, which is one of the most important and key issues in sanctions.
“But they promise that we will be able to sell two million barrels of oil for 180 days and their money will be delivered to China, Korea and Japan, and we have to buy goods for that money, and we will easily be able to transfer the money back to the country, because all the ways of transferring money to the country are closed.” (State-run website Nama, May 23, 2021)
Speaking about two other versions of the JCPOA, which the state-run news agency IRNA describes as the Yellow-JCPOA and the Red-JCPOA, is confessing that all the sanctions will be not lifted and is just a delusion.
“However, the other two types of the JCPOA, which are yellow and red JCPOA, because they are related to terrorism and human rights issues, will not be lifted for the time being and will be transferred to a new period of negotiations.” (IRNA, May 23, 2021)
Mocking the president’s claim about the lifting of all the sanctions, it added: “That Mr. Rouhani’s is announcing that all sanctions have been lifted and the country is liberated is a reaction to the election.” (IRNA, May 23, 2021)
Speaking about the regime’s last chance, IRNA added: “The best thing is to move forward step by step. That is, in relation to the fact that we will fulfill our obligations in the JCPOA and return to our obligations in enrichment, which is 5 percent enrichment, and will put some of the centrifuges are under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and then we will enter new negotiations on human rights, missiles, Iran’s non-interference in the region, and assistance to groups that are considered terrorists.”
These facts all show that the regime’s claims to prevent the IAEA to have access to its inspection cameras are just hollow bragging, as the regime’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf announced on May 23, and is playing with fire, which as experience has shown this will be not fulfilled by the government and will remain just a slogan.
