Ex-President's Memoires Reveal Politics Leading To Iran's Isolation

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks during a meeting with his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio in Rome on Monday. “Pursuing political, economic and commercial cooperation is one of the main goals of this trip,” he said upon arrival. 

In the meeting, the Iranian diplomat said, “We want the JCPOA to work well. We seriously want a good and lasting agreement and we believe that Iran should be able to take full economic benefit from the JCPOA. The US should understand this fact well regarding guarantees.”

According to Iranian media, Di Mario noted that Italy is ready to play a positive role in the negotiations for the return of all parties to the JCPOA.

The visit comes as the efforts – mainly by the European Union -- to kickstart the stalled Vienna negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA keep failing. The latest effort was the proximity talks in Qatari capital Doha on June 28-29, which ended without any progress. The US said that Iran did not show serious intent to move forward in the talks.

Later in the day, Amir-Abdollahian tweeted that “if the window of diplomacy is still open, it’s because of Iran's dynamic initiatives,” noting that the US cannot impose its one-sided views through accusation and sanctions. “Diplomacy is not a one-way street. Reaching the final deal needs the US' acceptance of realities, flexibility and initiatives.” 

In a tweet on Sunday, Pompeo rejected Biden’s claim that the Middle East is “more stable and secure” now than during the presidency of Donald Trump.

“You've got to be kidding me,” he said, adding that former chief of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) General Kenneth F. McKenzie or any Israeli, Emirati, Afghan or Saudi citizen can testify that Biden is wrong.

Both former and current CENTCOM commanders called Iran the most destabilizing force in the Middle East.

“Only the Ayatollah agrees,” Pompeo said, referring to Ali Khamenei who usually tries to portray the region as more stable and tranquil than it truly is.

The US President said that when he took office Washington was “isolated and alone” at the United Nations Security Councill on the issue of Iran, as his predecessor had withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA.

But the president also made a series of claims not exactly reflecting reality.

While there is more Western diplomatic coordination in dealings with Iran, the country has almost reached a nuclear threshold stage during Biden’s presidency and is violating more US oil export sanctions. Iran has now sufficient enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb.

Moreover, Biden’s claims about more stability in the Middle East also leave room for questions, as the US troops have been targeted at least 29 times since October 2021 without any military response, on the backdrop of dozens of Iran-backed Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia in 2021 and 2022, with the aggression expanding to the UAE. Iran also continues its terror activities in the region, as recent events in Turkey showed and pro-Iran groups such as the Hezbollah and Hamas maintain a highly aggressive posture toward Israel.

President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday called lack of compliance with hijab rules “an organized promotion of [moral] corruption in Islamic society” and ordered all government entities to strictly implement a “chastity and hijab” law drawn in 2005 by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.

Authorities have also launched an extensive campaign this year against women they call ‘bad-hijab’. In addition to crackdowns by the ‘morality police’ on the streets, some officials have ordered extra measures, including to government offices, banks, and public transportation authorities to withhold service to ‘bad-hijab’ women.

In the past few weeks authorities have also shut down some businesses such as cafes and restaurants and detained their female patrons for ‘improper hijab’ and arrested nature tourists for flouting their hijab, dancing, and drinking in the depths of northern forests.

In the jargon of religious and political hardliners women who are unwilling to wear the hijab and display their displeasure by wearing small and colorful headscarves with tight-fitting, short dresses are called ‘bad-hijab’ ones.

Meanwhile, authorities this year named the 12th of July as Hijab and Chastity Day and are planning rallies at stadiums and other places to honor, celebrate, and promote the Islamic notion of the hijab (cover) for women.

But women’s rights activists say forcing women to follow a certain dress code is a violation of their human rights. In response to the government’s plans, they have called on women to action against compulsory hijab on July 12, to drop their headscarves in the streets and other public places. The campaign has been dubbed as the ‘NO2Hijab’ campaign.

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Activists are also urging men to support the women’s movement by accompanying their wives and daughters on the street when they protest or by posting videos on social media.

Mehdi Hajati, a political activist, in a tweet Tuesday supported the ‘No2Hijab’ movement. The movement is driven by those who are demeaned by the hijab rules and will succeed if protests continue. “Those [who try to enforce hijab rules] will eventually be exhausted [by our protests],” he wrote. Hajati, a former member of Shiraz City Council was expelled from the council in 2018 and was arrested for speaking out against the arrests of two members of the persecuted Baha’i minority.

The anti-hijab social media campaign has once again been spearheaded by US-based activist Masih Alinejad who has been behind several social media campaigns against compulsory hijab over the past decade.

“Many of us remember this fear when we got arrested for the first time by morality police. No other government in the world— not even North Korea—terrorizes women because their hair is showing. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a gender apartheid state,” Alinejad tweeted Friday with a photo of two women in a ‘morality police’ van crying out in horror.

In 2012 Alinejad launched the “Stealthy Freedoms” campaign, which invited women to share photographs of themselves without the hijab. She continued her campaign with “White Wednesdays” in 2017 which encouraged women to wear white headscarves or take them off in protest at the rules every Wednesday. Both campaigns became quite popular on social media.

The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency shared its new report with news agencies on Saturday indicating that Iran escalated its enrichment operations by deploying more advanced IR-6 centrifuges that can quickly switch between different levels of uranium purification.

Behruz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s atomic organization told local media on Sunday that his agency had informed the IAEA “At least two weeks earlier,” about the operation, and “the international media was exaggerating” the development “with particular intentions”.

He added that the IR-6 centrifuges would produce 20-percent enriched uranium.

Kamalvandi went on to say that his agency is simply carrying out its mandate according to Iran’s legislation. He was referring to a law adopted by the parliament in 2020 mandating higher degree of enrichment until the United States lifts economic sanctions.

Nuclear talks between Iran and world powers since April 2021 to restore the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA have not succeeded. Iran has been expanding its nuclear program since 2019 as US sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump remain in effect.

The US and its European allies have repeatedly warned that the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program, talks to restore the JCPOA might become meaningless.

Western diplomats have long expressed concern about devices this cascade, or cluster, of centrifuges is equipped with.

The use of these so-called modified sub-headers means Iran could switch more quickly and easily to enriching to higher purity levels.

Iran’s move came ten days after indirect talks with the United States in Doha with the mediation of the European Union failed. The US said that Tehran did not come to the meeting in a serious negotiating posture and had simply repeated “extraneous” demands.

While Iran is required to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency about such a switch, if it chose not to, it might escape detection for some time as there is currently a lag between Iran's enrichment and IAEA inspectors' verification of what is produced.

"On 7 July 2022, Iran informed the Agency that, on the same day, it had begun feeding the aforementioned cascade with UF6 enriched up to 5% U-235," the confidential report to IAEA member states said. Reuters reported on the development after seeing the IAEA report.

UF6 refers to uranium hexafluoride gas which is fed into centrifuges to be enriched.

In a report on June 20 also seen by Reuters, the IAEA said that months after Iran informed it of its intention to use the cascade, Iran had begun feeding UF6 into it for passivation, a process that comes before enrichment.

The IAEA verified on July 6 that passivation had ended, Saturday's report said.

"On 9 July 2022, the Agency verified that Iran had begun feeding UF6 enriched up to 5% U-235 into the cascade of 166 IR-6 centrifuges with modified sub-headers for the declared purpose of producing UF6 enriched up to 20% U-235," it said.

Iran is already enriching to up to 60% elsewhere, well above the up to 20% it produced before its 2015 deal with major powers that capped its enrichment level at 3.67% but still below the roughly 90% of weapons grade.

The move is the latest step of many to breach and move well beyond the restrictions which the 2015 deal imposed on Iran's nuclear activities. It comes as talks to revive that deal are at an impasse and Western powers have warned time is running out to reach an agreement.

An agreement was said to have been close in March, after 11 months of talks in Vienna, but the negotiations stopped and remained stalled. The agreement would have removed major US economic sanctions, but Iran insisted that sanctions not directly related to the nuclear dispute should also be removed. On major cluster of sanctions target the Revolutionary Guard, but these are related to its role in terrorism and regional destabilization.

The United States pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, re-imposing sanctions against Tehran that the deal had lifted.

A year later, Iran began retaliating by breaching the deal's restrictions on the level of uranium enrichment. Tehran further escalated enrichment as Joe Biden won the US presidential election and embarked on talks with Iran and other JCPOA signatories to revive the agreement.

Now, Iran has accumulated enough 60-percent enriched uranium to be able to take the next step of enriching the fissile material to 90 percent purity needed for one nuclear bomb.

With reporting by Reuters