After a five-month hiatus, negotiations to save the Iran nuclear deal resumed on November 29 in Vienna between Iran and the bloc of five countries formed by France, Great Britain, Germany, China and Russia. The United States is participating indirectly after unilaterally withdrawing from the pact in 2018.
On Sunday, the head of British diplomacy, Liz Truss, described these negotiations as a “last chance” at the end of the G7 meeting, while the Iranian chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri, for his part mentioned the same day a ” positive development ”in the ongoing discussions aimed at lifting some of the sanctions that are stifling Iran’s economy in exchange for a reduction in its nuclear program, pacification and strict control of Iran. UN.
But if the resurrection of the agreement has been restarted, the success of the approach, it remains more than uncertain, estimates in interview with the Duty the Iranian dissident and opponent of the theocratic regime of Tehran Hamid Enayat, joined in France, where he lives in exile.
Tehran said last week that it wanted to “negotiate seriously” to save the agreement signed in 2015. Can we believe in the good faith of no the Iranian government?
I do not think so. Experience has shown that there is a big gap between what the regime in Tehran says and what it does. But it is not surprising to see the mullahs return to the negotiating table, since this flawed deal has never prevented Iran from acquiring the atomic bomb, while allowing the regime to pocket billions of dollars. due to the lifting of sanctions. This money has been used to suppress the population, destabilize the region, attack ships in international waters, expand the ballistic missile and drone program, and preserve and even develop nuclear infrastructure in its entirety. It remains to be seen how the other parties involved in the agreement will accept such a turnaround.
Six years after the signing of the agreement, in what geopolitical context does Iran now find itself for the resumption of dialogue?
From a geopolitical point of view, the Iranian regime is weakened. He was practically driven out of Syria by Bashar al-Assad, even if the dictator owes his survival in part to the hundreds of thousands of deaths that the Iranian regime has caused in the population of this country. Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes there destroyed the facilities of the many mercenaries of the Pasdaran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard army. The assassination by the United States of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Al-Quds Force, the Pasdaran extraterritorial unit, in January 2020 also dealt an irreparable blow to the regime. All this upset the geopolitical chessboard of the region to the detriment of Tehran. From a social point of view, the situation in Iran is explosive. The uprisings in Sistan and Balochistan, Khuzestan and Isfahan in 2021 are proof of this. To face it, Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Guide, maintains the course of repression. In the government of Ebrahim Raïssi, the presence of the Pasdaran commanders is generalized. He appointed four of them to the post of governors in addition to the thirteen already ministers and vice-ministers. This repression governs all actions of the Iranian regime.
Could this deleterious social climate influence the end of Iran’s nuclear program?
The regime sits on a keg of powder. If he wants to start serious negotiations, he must give up nuclear power, missiles and his regional influence. At the next stage, it will also have to hear the economic and cultural demands of its population, which has been suppressed for 42 years under the pretext of war, then respond to the fatwa banning foreign vaccines, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and finally the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988 simply because they remained loyal to their support for the People’s Mujahedin, the main opposition movement.
The Iranians have never sought to possess the atomic bomb, it is the theocracy which considers it as a guarantee of its survival. That’s why she clings to it. The nuclear weapons program has cost the Iranian people between $ 1.4 trillion and $ 2 trillion so far, pushing 80 percent of the oil-rich country’s population into poverty. This program has never been supported by the public. The same goes for the regime’s regional interference against which the demonstrators in the streets continue to speak out. But the more the people call for a change of regime, the more the latter sinks into militarization.
In this context, the peaceful nature of Iranian nuclear power can only be an illusion …
Absoutely. If the Iranian regime’s nuclear project was peaceful, why did you hide everything from the UN atomic energy agency? The international community only became aware of the nuclear project when the National Council of Resistance, the Iranian opposition, revealed it in 2002. To date, the regime has never taken the initiative to reveal it. the slots. Fereydoun Abbasi Dawani, deputy and former head of the atomic energy organization, declared on the anniversary of the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iranian deputy minister of defense and father of the Iranian nuclear program, that despite the fatwa Ali Khamenei banning nuclear weapons, Fakhrizadeh “created the system” to make a bomb. The threats of 90% enrichment show that the Iranian regime has never given up on its dream of building this atomic bomb.
How do you see the outcome of these negotiations?
The Iranian regime is currently at a crossroads. If he wants to acquire the atomic bomb while gaining time, he will have to face the firmness of the international community, starting with Europe, which wants to get closer to the Iranian regime, yes, but considers that nuclear weapons is a red line not to be crossed by this religious dictatorship, which also actively supports state terrorism.
At the same time, Iranian society, plagued by poverty, corruption, deprivation, incompetence and mismanagement, as well as a failing economy, is on the verge of social explosion and disruption. ‘a much larger uprising than that of November 2019. And under the circumstances, time is also playing against religious power.
The dead end is therefore more and more obvious. The regime cannot give up its nuclear program – which is the only guarantee of its survival – nor meet the Iranians’ minimum demands.
So, with or without a nuclear agreement, what is coming is certainly an overthrow of this regime, a reversal that the firm policies of the international community can accelerate.