Former Iranian Lawmaker Calls Hardline Politician 'Warmonger'

In a clear move to pressure Iran on stalled nuclear negotiations, the Biden administration on Thursday sanctioned Chinese, Emirati and Iranian companies engaged in illicit export of Iranian petrochemicals.

One of Iran’s deputy foreign ministers, Mehdi Seferi, in a state television program Thursday evening said Iran can always set up new companies to trade oil and petrochemicals.

But the United States did not mince words announcing the sanctions, after 15 months of indirect talks with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

“The Biden Administration has been sincere and steadfast in pursuing a path of meaningful diplomacy to achieve a mutual return to full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Absent a deal, we will continue to use our sanctions authorities to limit exports of petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products from Iran,” a statement by Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after the Treasury Department announced the sanctions.

The move signaled the administration’s new policy toward Iran which had favored not enforcing tough sanctions imposed by former president Donald Trump while year-long talks were taking place in Vienna. But the end to formal negotiations in March left the Biden team’s strategy facing a dead end as Iran continued its nuclear program by enriching uranium at a higher level and building up more leverage.

At the same time, The Wall Street Journal disclosed on Thursday that the US has been secretly coordinating Israeli air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria since the camoaign began in 2017. Israel has been sharing its plans ahead of most airstrikes, the WSJ quoted current and former US officials.

Deputy foreign minister Seferi, however, remained defiant, saying Iran has been under various sanctions for four decades and has its own ways for self-sufficiency, exports and imports.

“Americans every day add people to their sanctions’ list, but these sanctions will not pose a hurdle to the sale of petrochemical products, and everything will continue as normal,” Seferi said.

In the real world however, it is not easy for Iran to maintain the additional level of exports it achieved since the Biden administration came to office. From a low of 250,000 barrels of crude oil sold per day in 2019, Iran’s exports reached close to a million barrels in early 2022. China has been the main customer because it knew that Washington would not enforce the sanctions while it aimed to restore the JCPOA.

Now, the US is signaling that the rules of the game have changed and pressure will be exerted on third parties buying Iran’s exports and people who are involved as middlemen.

Already, Iranian crude exports declined in May because of Russian competition, as it offers cheaper oil to China.

Iran’s income from oil products and petrochemicals was $23 billion from March 2021 to March 2022 and it aimed to boost it to $27 billion. The foreign currency generated competes with crude exports and is vital for Iran amid its current economic crisis.

Just this week, as the national currency dropped to a historic low, the government ordered petrochemical exporters to sell their dollars in the local market to bring the exchange rate down. The effort had a modest impact and for now has stabilized the Iranian rial.

At least three admins of separate channels on the social media app Telegram have been arrested by the IRGC’s internal security service, the Guard’s official Telegram channel said on Thursday.

The announcement said that these Telegram channels, which were reporting on internal Iranian politics and rumors, “published classified information and documents,” and spread “fake and selective news to sow discord among high-level officials.”

In recent years the Revolutionary Guard has set up multiple social media accounts, including on Telegram, to spread its version of events. This extensive network is part of what has come to be known as IRGC’s “cyber army”.

The announcement made by the IRGC Intelligence Organization did not reveal the names of those detained, but reports circulating on social media in Iran say one person is Ali Gholhaki, a journalist who supports hardliners in the political establishment and often publishes first-hand news about impending decisions or developments.

One expert Iran International spoke with was surprised if Gholhaki would have been involved in disclosing classified information. His track record shows he is a well-informed insider whose political revelations often prove to be correct after a few days.

One example was during the presidential election in June 2021, when he was the first to report that the constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, was set to disqualify a few key candidates.

Gholhaki and the three Telegram channels mentioned are all close to the Revolutionary Guard and it is not clear why they were arrested and what else might be behind the move.

The IRGC announcement mentions no examples of what information the three channels disclosed.

At this stage, speculations among observers generally relate to possible factional infighting.

One theory involves parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who was discredit when similar Telegram channels were involved in disclosing that his family took a luxury shopping trip to Turkey in April amid an economic crisis and rising poverty.

Ghalibaf at the time threatened legal action against those who “defamed” him, but later other events pushed the scandal into relative obscurity.

Another theory relates to a reported clash at a recent meeting of the Expediency Council, another constitutional body, where supposedly hardliner politician Saeed Jalili and former parliament speaker, moderate-conservative Ali Larijani argued about Iran’s nuclear policies. These same type of Telegram channels leaked that the two had a fierce argument when Jalili proposed pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT).

Yet another theory is that the IRGC intelligence wants to show it is in charge and omnipotent after repeated deadly incidents among it personnel in recent weaks.

Two commanders of the Guard’s extraterritorial Quds (Qods) Force died in May, one shot multiple times in broad daylight outside his home in Tehran and another fell form the rooftop or balcony of his house. Immediately suspicions fell on Israel that has apparently been behind a series of spectacular attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military sites, as well as key individuals.

Following the deaths of the Quds officers, at least two weapons experts working for the IRGC also died mysteriously.

These sort of evets since July 2020 have dealt a serious blow to the image of IRGC Intelligence, as Iranians on social media make fun of its inability to protect its own, while it claims to intimidate enemies.

Motahari, who has often criticized hardliners in recent years, said in his letter that Iran “has now acquired nuclear knowledge” and there is no reason to risk international action against the country, especially a possible UN Security Council resolution.

Motahari said, “Whether we like it or not, Iran’s economy is tied to the JCPOA and the removal of [United States] sanctions” and asked Raisi “to courageously ignore the emotional mood among some hardliners demanding the removal of the Revolutionary Guard from the [US] list of terrorist organizations.”

Iran’s year-long negotiations with world power, particularly the United States came to an abrupt pause in March, as reports said Tehran was demanding the removal of its Revolutionary Guard from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). Nevertheless, hardliners dominating both the presidential administration and parliament insist that they can manage the economy despite crippling US sanctions.

Motahari went on to say that it is the Iranian people who must pay the economic price for some “irrational slogans”, which cost the country its economic development.

Motahari argued that the nuclear knowledge Iran has gained is sufficient for its peaceful purposes in medicine, agriculture, and other needs. “Why we should act in a way as to bring about the return of Iran’s nuclear file to the UN security Council” and the possible return of international sanctions, he asked. Motahari added that Iran should not count on Russia and China, as “We fundamentally do not trust them.”

The former deputy speaker of parliament argued that if the United States has labelled the IRGC “terrorist”, “We have also pronounced their CENTCOM terrorist, and our hands are free for certain actions.”

Motahari’s reference was to a decision by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council in 2019 that designated the US Central Command in the Middle East as a terrorist organization, after Washington listed the IRGC as an FTO.

“The expectation from your excellency is that you should solve this issue through the Supreme Council of National Security, as the Supreme Leader has delegated the resolution of the problem to you and the Council.”

While Motahari in his letter pressures Raisi to act, it is a well-known reality that major policy issues, such as Iran’s nuclear program cannot move forward without Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s decisions.

Motahari asked Raisi to relinquish the demand for removing the IRGC’s terrorist designation, “since our power could not overcome the opposition of the Zionist lobby.”

The photos of the collective weeding of at least 100 couples at Imam Ali Officers' University went viral on Wednesday by Iranian social media users who were shocked that the cadets who chant “Death to America” during their trainings daily are tying the knot in one of the most iconic American cars. 

While many are irked by the hypocrisy, most people have made fun of the combination of a red Ford Mustang with a white chador, an outer garment or open cloak worn by Muslim women. 

While Iranian authorities, especially military officials, never lose a chance to criticize the use of American brands, many of them and their family members pay large amounts of money to use the sumptuous products. 

Earlier in the year, a selfie of Qasem Soleimani’s daughter holding the latest iPhone 13 was picked up by Iranian social media users who began reposting it to make the point that the phone the daughter of the former Qods (Quds) force commander uses to demand retribution for the United States, is an iPhone.

Collective weddings, which appeared in Iran in the 1990s, are promoted by the authorities to encourage marriage among young people, who hesitate mainly over the sheer costs of holding a wedding ceremony. Their costs are usually covered by various government institutions, with the office of the Supreme Leader’s representative for universities as one of the main funders.

Danon who is now chairman of the World Likud warned that Israel is ready to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. “We hope Israel would not be the only one bearing the burden of dealing with the threat coming from Iran,” he said, “but even if it would be only us, we are ready and determined.”

Danon highlighted recent reports that Islamic Republic had a large network of agents in Turkey trying to kidnap and kill Israeli tourists.

“It's unheard of that you have a regime that is exporting violence, and they are doing it publicly,” he said.

Danon, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2015-2020, was a member of the Knesset representing the right-wing Likud Party and served as Deputy Minister of Defense.

In an interview with Iran International’s television host Fardad Farahzad on June 15, Danon was asked if recent killings of individuals serving in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and attributed to Israel will not provoke retaliation. Danon did not attempt to deny the possible Israeli role in the sensational events.

“According to reports, those people who were killed (in Iran) were not innocent. They were heavily involved in destruction, promoting violence in the region. I cannot acknowledge who is taking responsibility for eliminating those threats, but I can tell you that our world is much safer when they are not around us,” he said.

At least four officers and weapons experts serving for the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) have been killed or died in mysterious circumstances in Iran since May 22. In some of the cases the Islamic Republic has indirectly accused Israel, while in other cases it has claimed the deaths were natural.

The quandary Iranian security and military officials face is that acknowledging Israel’s ability to eliminate individuals on Iranian soil is extremely embarrassing for them after insisting for years that they are invincible and in total control of events not only inside the country but around the region.

Suspected Israeli operations against Iranian nuclear and military sites as well as the killing of key individuals began in July 2020, with several spectacular operations that blew up extremely well-defended sites and the Hollywood-style assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist.

Speaking about the stalled nuclear talks with Iran the former UN envoy said that it was a mistake for the United States to pull out of the 2015 nuclear agreement, “but it will be a grave mistake to re-enter the JCPOA, because basically whatever happens, the Iranians will continue with their nuclear ambitions, but they would have the legitimacy of democracies from all around the world to continue to do that.”