While few politicians or governments are unaware that acquiring an atomic bomb is one of the strategic goals of Iran’s Supreme Leader to ensure his regime’s survival, there is still insufficient will to prevent Ali Khamenei from achieving that goal.
The 2015 JCPOA agreement between Iran and the P5 + 1 (US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) limited Iran’s nuclear activities for a short time (15 years). However, even after the 2015 agreement, Iran continued its nuclear activities, including working on producing more advanced centrifuges, both secretly and out of sight of IAEA inspectors and under the guise of research to produce isotopes and treat cancer patients.
After Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018 and re-imposed US sanctions, Iran had already equipped itself with more advanced IR-6 centrifuges with five times the capacity of the first-generation IR-1 centrifuges, on the one hand, and had begun to increase its enriched uranium reserves further than agreed, on the other hand.
Presently, Iran IR-18 type centrifuges, are 16 times more efficient than IR-1 ones. The IR-18 centrifuges are and can greatly shorten the enrichment time. Also, with the resumption of enrichment at a concentration of 20% and increasing it to 60%, Iran is very close to completing the final necessary steps to make an atomic bomb.
Policy of appeasement
In 2015, the Iranian regime was in a state of complete bankruptcy. Still, unfortunately, because of the policy of appeasement of western countries and the fear that the collapse of the mullahs in Iran may lead to regional instability, the demands of the regime were largely accepted. The mullahs were allowed to limit their nuclear activities for only a short period of 15 years. As a result, all sanctions imposed on the regime were lifted, Iran was allowed to sell its oil, investors were encouraged to invest in Iran, and billions of dollars in cash was flown to Iran via an airplane.
Tehran faces numerous social and economic challenges
Although Khamenei sees his survival in achieving an atomic bomb by following North Korea’s example, he knows that Iran is now in the worst economic situation, with 80% of Iranians living below the poverty line and with inflation rising to 50%. For some essential food items, inflation is now over 70%. Many factories and manufacturing centers have been forced to close, and unemployment is so high that one-third of Iran’s youth are unemployed. Nearly a third of the population of metropolises such as Tehran and Mashhad can no longer afford housing costs and, as a result, have been pushed to the outskirts of cities and in sheds that do not have the minimum living facilities such as running water and electricity.
Iran’s budget deficit is now more than 500,000 billion tomans. Without the lifting of sanctions, there is no prospect of getting out of this situation, and the government is forced to print banknotes, which will further increase inflation. The vast majority of Iranians, fed up with the corruption and incompetence of the mullahs and the ruling dictatorship, want regime change and a free government with the separation of religion and state. They express this demand despite the security forces’ brutal repression in nationwide protest rallies in the past years with slogans such as death to Khamenei and death to the dictator. They also made this clear by boycotting the presidential election last June. According to credible sources, despite all the propaganda and arrangements to get people to the polls, only about 10% of eligible voters cast their ballots.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 epidemic is taking a high toll in Iran. Currently, Iran has the highest number of deaths per its capita, with more than 500,000 COVID-19 related deaths in the country. Iranians widely blame Khamenei, who deliberately banned the import of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines into Iran.
According to several Iranian officials, the situation is so bad that the Iranian society is like a time bomb waiting to explode, or according to former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the “coming flood will soon take everyone away.”
It is quite clear that the P5 + 1 countries will be overjoyed if they reach a new agreement with Iran and have signaled that Iran will benefit from its return to the Vienna negotiations and drafting a new agreement. In reality, reaching a new agreement with Iran and lifting sanctions can be very beneficial for the western countries, opening the 85 million Iranian market for investment and export of their products. Also, with the availability of Iranian oil and gas into the world market, the prices of these products would decrease, which would benefit industrialized countries. At the same time, these countries have the illusion that by reaching an agreement with Iran, they can prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring an atomic bomb, at least for a period of time. This is merely an assumption and a miscalculation that could give Khamenei new strength and maybe keep him in power for a while longer.
Let’s suppose that Western countries, especially the United States, stand by the Iranian people and insist on their firm demands from Iran. In that case, they can either force Khamenei to give up his nuclear activities, his missile programs, and interventions in the region. Otherwise, the worsening of Iran’s economic and social situation will cause widespread social uprisings in Iran and will bring down his regime.
Khamenei is well aware that his regime cannot afford to completely and abruptly abandon the JCPOA at once. The Iranian regime is known to buy time for its malicious nuclear activities by prolonging its responses to the IAEA while secretly expanding its nuclear program. Only time will tell how long the regime can play this mouse and cat game, what the international community’s response may be, and how Iranians will react to the regime’s growing economic and social failures.
This article was first published by irannewswire
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