The protests in Iran have been going on for more than two months, even though the regime is cracking down on the people. In mid-September, a young Kurdish woman died after being arrested by the regime’s morality police. Anger at her death drove thousands of people onto the streets. And since then, the protests have not stopped.
It is no longer just about the dress code. The Iranian regime has faced unrest for the third time in fifteen years. But this protest is different. For the first time, the mullahs’ regime in Tehran seems unable to get the protests under control.
The regime’s brutality and inhumanity forced the world to approve a fact-finding mission at a special UN Human Rights Council meeting about the situation in Iran, and this added to the regime’s international isolation.
Therefore, the controversial Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal, is now facing many more critics, and the world powers have scored it out from their priority lists.
It was obvious that when Biden took office in the White House, the heads of the regime were indescribably excited, thinking that the JCPOA case would be resolved soon, and they would be able to take advantage of its windfall concessions. But to the regime’s misfortune, this did not happen.
Since April 2, 2021, when the first round of nuclear negotiations was held virtually, the regime tried to take advantage and retard them as much as possible, to reach an irreversible position to produce its first nuclear bomb.
This flimsy situation continued for about 17 months until the people’s protests burst the regime’s dreams and changed all the equations against it in the JCPOA negotiations.
As the page turned against it, senior American officials clearly stated in the last days of the first month of the nationwide uprising that they had changed their policy from focusing on the JCPOA to the protests.
If they continued to push for a deal aimed at constraining Iran’s nuclear program, critics would say the US government is failing the protesters and theoretically freeing up billions of dollars in sanctions relief for the regime repressing the people.
Along with the US government, the European troika decided to take the same path. And due to the hostility and stubbornness of the regime, regarding its demands in the JCPOA, the regime’s human rights violations, and its support of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, the European troika has shown that they are willing to side with the US rather than the regime. Practically, the JCPOA negotiations have ended.
In the meantime, the vanquished regime tried to take advantage of the Ukraine war and blackmail the EU about “a harsh winter” because of an energy crisis to draw them back to the negotiation table.
Since then, three months have passed, and it became clear that, despite the regime’s expectations, the one who will face a harsh winter is not the EU but the regime itself.
Contrary to the illusions of its officials, Europe not only did not suffer from the energy and gas crisis, but the world price of oil and gas experienced a significant and unprecedented decrease.
Now it is time that the world powers, especially the US government, to initiate the procedure called “snapback” at the UN Security Council to reimpose sanctions on the regime. Not only because of the regime’s violations of the JCPOA agreement but furthermore, because of its human rights violations.
According to the UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2231, the snapback would trigger the re-imposition of all sanctions and restrictions on Iran described in UNSCRs 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1835 (2008), and 1929 (2010). As obvious, the clauses of the 2231 resolution are also applicable to the regime’s human rights violations case if there would be a strong readiness to end the appeasement policy.
This includes:
- An indefinite embargo on the transfer of conventional arms to and from Iran
- An indefinite ban on the international support for Iran’s missile program
- An outright prohibition on all testing and development of nuclear-capable missiles
- A demand to halt all enrichment-related activities
- An indefinite travel and asset ban for sanctioned individuals
It should be noted that one of the consequences of not complying with the fact-finding mission could be the referral of its human rights violations case to the UN Security Council. Something that will increase the regime’s international isolation.
In conclusion, the uprising of the Iranian people as a new parameter to the previous categories has changed the current against the regime. The results are deadly isolation and impasse.
