Resuscitating Iran’s Nuclear Deal Is Fool’s Errand – Senior US Senator

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Tuesday that “In response to the new US sanctions, we started pumping gas into hundreds of new generation centrifuges. We acted based on the decision made. The Americans shouldn’t think they can get concessions from Iran at the negotiating table with these measures.”

He described it as startling that the US proposed a resolution in the International Atomic Energy Agency while “we repeatedly received goodwill messages from US President Joe Biden through mediators.” 

On Monday, August 1, the US Treasury sanctioned several companies it said were involved in the sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals.

Announcing Tehran’s latest steps beyond the limits of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on Monday that Iran has started pumping uranium gas into hundreds of IR-1s & IR-6 centrifuges as part of its plan to reach uranium enrichment capacity of at least 190,000 SWU (separative work units), a measurement of efficiency in enrichment. Under the JCPOA Iran was allowed only 6,104 SWU and no IR-6s.

Amir-Abdollahian added that Tehran is reviewing the recent proposals by the European Union to take forward talks over renewing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The US State Department spokesman has said Washington also is reviewing proposals made by Joseph Borrell, the European Union foreign policy chief.

Monday, August 1, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Naser Kanani said that the next round of the Vienna talks can perhaps start soon. He added that during the past days serious messages have been exchanged and Iran has expressed its views on a proposal by the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

At the same time, Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami told reporters in Tehran that Iran is technically capable of building a nuclear bomb; a statement that has been made before by at least two other Iranian officials and has been generally taken as a defiant signal from Tehran. President Ebrahim Raisi also reiterated last week that the people of Iran have told him they want to resist rather than sign an agreement with the United States.

In an interview with moderate conservative news website Khabar Online in Tehran on Monday, former lawmaker Ali Motahari said that some Iranian officials are misled to believe that maintaining relations with the United States will signal an end to the revolution.

Commenting on Iran’s policy of drawing closer to China and Russia he said, "Looking East is not a bad idea, but it should not be tantamount with distancing from the West. We need to maintain relations with both sides and take advantage of the rivalry between them. However, cutting all ties with the West wound not serve the nation's interests."

Khabar Online wrote that there is a pessimistic mood in Tehran as a result of which no one would be shocked if the government announces the end of the JCPOA. In the meantime, the people, politicians and the media keep criticizing the government and its negotiating team for keeping everyone in the dark about the fate of the talks.

Motahari said that currently neither Iran nor the United States find the JCPOA useful for their interests. He noted that US President Joe Biden no longer has a welcoming attitude toward the revival of the JCPOA as this might adversely affect his situation in the November Congressional election. The war in Ukraine has also changed the international atmosphere, said Motahari, pointing out that the combination of these factors has made decision-making difficult for both Tehran and Washington.

The loyalist followers of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who are currently in charge of the government in Tehran say that they can manage without a nuclear deal with the US, despite crippling economic sanctions.

Motahari said: "Of course the country's economy can be run without the JCPOA, but this will impose unnecessary hardships on the people. We also have to pay more for our imports and get less for our exports. My final verdict is that without the JCPOA it is impossible to have an ideal economy."

Motahari agreed with current lawmakers at the Majles that the government is deliberately keeping the parliament and everyone else in the dark about the state of the negotiations.

Asked if Iran and the United States can have direct talks without the revival of the JCPOA, Motahari said, "With no JCPOA, relations will be more negative and maintaining ties will be even less likely. Apart from that, without the JCPOA, a war against Iran will be more likely because of Israel's provocations. "

He said, "severing ties with Washington was imposed on us following the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 under the influence of the leftists and possibly the embassy of the former Soviet Union." However, Motahari said, "There is always a chance for maintaining relations if we do away with obsolete slogans."

In his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi said that preliminary plans have been made for Raisi’s participation in the United Nations annual gathering. 

The UNGA 77 is scheduled to open on September 13 in New York, and the first day of the high-level General Debate will be on 20 September. On the agenda of this year’s event are a meeting to mark the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities on September 21 and a plenary meeting to commemorate the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons on September 26. 

Raisi – who is on the US and European sanctions list -- did not attend the high-level summit in the previous year, and only delivered a video speech. 

He is probably among the most controversial among the Islamic Republic presidents to attend the General Assembly as he was a member of a "death committee" that issued orders to kill political prisoners in 1988. A witness in the Swedish trial of Hamid Noury (Nouri), an ex-judicial official and jailor, over alleged involvement in Iran’s 1988 prison executions named Raisi as one of the officials directly involved in the massacre. 

Earlier in the year, prominent former UN officials called for a UN investigation into the 1988 "massacre" of political prisoners in Iran, including Raisi’s role, at that time.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani made the remarks on Tuesday, a day after US Treasury and State Department imposed sanctions on six companies, four based in Hong Kong, one in Singapore, and one in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The companies were subjected to sanctions over their links with Iran's government-owned Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial company. The Treasury also blacklisted Glory Harvest LPG Tanker for links to Iran. The US said the firms have helped Iran sell tens of millions of dollars in oil and petrochemical products to East Asian countries.

Kanaani was referring to a recent message of condolences by US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley who expressed sympathy with the victims and their loved ones affected by the devastating flash floods and landslides throughout Iran.

The Iranian spokesman added that the current US administration’s attitude towards the Islamic Republic does not differ from its predecessor, despite the fact that it has repeatedly dismissed Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran as a failure.

Despite 16 months of negotiations to revive the JCPOA, Iran has not accepted a proposal, which the US says is on the table. After lax enforcement of sanctions since early 2021, Washington has signaled a new approach.

Kanaani said that the White House’s addiction to imposing sanctions and using them as political leverage exposes the United States’ “imperialistic nature.”

The state-run television (IRIB) on Sundayaired the so-called ‘confessions’ of Sepideh Rashno, a 28-year-old artist, writer and editor, who was arrested on July 16, after a video of her quarrel with a woman enforcing hijab rules – identified as Rayeheh Rabi’i -- went viral.

In the video Rabi’i, who was fully covered by a long, black ‘chador’ – which is typical of the supporters of the Islamic Republic – is seen shouting at Rashno who had unveiled in a city bus. The quarrel became so frantic that other passengers intervened and kicked the hijab enforcer out of the bus.

Iran’s state media and media outlets affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) have been publishing videos of forced confessions from women who are arrested over their participation in an ongoing anti-hijab campaign.

In the forced confession under detention shown by the IRIB Sunday, Rashno says she regrets her confrontation with the hijab enforcer and posting her video on social media and that she “begged” US-based anti-hijab activist Masih Alinejad to remove the video of the encounter from social media.

Rashno has reportedly been in detention at the IRGC ward of Tehran’s Evin Prison since her arrest without any contact with her family or access to a lawyer.

In a tweet Sunday, Alinejad alleged that Rashno was tortured and forced to denounce herself and speak against her. “She’s a hero fighting for freedom for all women, for our dignity. I call on the international community to support Sepideh Reshnou,” Alinejad wrote.

While all these were taking place, a man was arrested outside Alinejad's home in Brooklyn, NY with a loaded AK-47 assault rifle, after being seen loitering for two days and trying to get into her home.

Social media users have pointed out that in the video aired Sunday Rashnou appears to be wearing a heavy layer of makeup to cover up bruises on her face, particularly above her right eye, and looks very tired and worn out resulting from possible physical and psychological torture.

Armin Soleimani, journalist, in a tweet Sunday said by torturing Rashno and airing her ‘confession’ on the state television, authorities aimed at intimidating anti-hijab activists and protesters.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei claimed last week that the anti-hijab movement is nothing but a Western plot against the Islamic Republic, adding that in his view the Islamic Republic does not need to defend itself about issues related to women including the hijab but should rather be aggressive and attack the West for turning women into a “commodity”.

Rights activists allege that the Islamic Republic systematically uses torture and broadcasts torture-tainted ‘confessions’ of activists, politicians, and even ordinary criminals against themselves and others on state television to intimidate their peers and the public.

“Such confessions may have worked in the early days of the revolution but fortunately has lost its [desired] impact now due to being repeatedly used for all sorts of things and have even made the incompetent security organs the butt of jokes,” Maziar (Mazyar) Ebrahimi, a businessman who was tortured to ‘confess’ that he had been spying for Israel and was involved in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists in 2012 tweeted about the airing of Rashno’s confessions.

On July 12, following a call by women’s rights activists for civil disobedience with the hashtag of ‘No2Hijab’ social media exploded with dozens of videos and photos of women unveiling in public.

Iran’s government which is now fully controlled by hardliners has adopted a harsher than usual approach in enforcing hijab in the streets and government affiliated institutions, amid economic crisis and hardship for tens of millions. Government and military officials have warned the population against disobeying hijab rules and the morality police hijab enforcement patrols have detained many women, sometimes violently, on the streets.