Editorial
By Naveen Borojerdi
Over the last six years, Washington’s attitude and policy toward Iran have changed for the worse. The exit of the Obama Administration heralded the end of the Democrats’ soft, liberal imperialism and ushered in a new, more hawkish foreign policy under the Trump Administration. The U.S. Ruling Class picks and chooses which of its enemies to sabre rattle with depending on whether their elected official in the oval office is a Democrat or a Republican. Under the Trump Administration, we saw the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, colloquially known as the “Iran Deal,” ripped up and sanctions placed back on the country. The agreement, which Tehran followed thoroughly, was the first attempt at peace between both nations despite being based on a lie that Iran is working towards obtaining a nuclear weapon.
At the time of the deal’s inception, I supported the Obama Administration, just like many Iranians among the diaspora, as it felt like a step towards a better future for all of us. But the deal was not built to last and the U.S. moved from peace towards escalation. Shortly after destroying the deal, the Trump Administration placed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorist list and ended its term with the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Quds Forces and one of the most powerful figures in Iran, while he was on a peace mission between Iran and Saudi Arabia [the IRGC and Quds Force are branches of the Iranian Armed Forces]. During the presidential debates leading up to the 2020 Election, most candidates for the presidency said they would return to the 2015 Deal, but make adjustments to it such as incorporating Iran’s Ballistic Missile program — incongruous policy promises, considering most of them did not stop the Trump Administration from placing sanctions back on Iran in 2017, thus ending the path towards diplomacy. Even the most progressive lawmakers among the candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, claimed they “Could not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” a false, provocative smokescreen for hidden U.S. agendas considering Ayatollah Khamenei issued a Fatwa, or a religious order, against obtaining nuclear weapons back in 2003.
Leading up to the election, the Liberal members of the Iranian diaspora urged us to vote for current President Joe Biden because he would return to the deal, which I had predicted would be dead on arrival following four years under the Trump Administration. Fast forward three years later: still no return to the deal and the Biden Administration is making more demands for Iran to follow despite the U.S. having originally pulled out. Biden’s cheerleaders among the Iranian Liberal analyst class are painting both Iran and U.S. officials as being unreasonable, which we know is clearly not the case. Regardless of how you feel about the Islamic Republic, you cannot deny the fact they played by all the rules set out by Washington as part of the original deal. However, due to the decline in U.S. power with the rise of China on the world stage, the U.S. is losing bargaining power as the world moves towards an alternative to U.S. Hegemony. Washington is still trying to keep Iran under its thumb, but it can’t, simply because of the strengthening of relations between Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing. This is why the talks in Vienna have been unsuccessful.
In January, Israel’s new administration under Netanyahu carried out a drone strike on a military facility in Isfahan. This is a continuation of the previous administration’s policy, in the wake of a full-on assault on Iran’s sovereignty by sinister forces such as Trump Administration official John Bolton. Bolton, a long-time supporter of Maryam Rajavi and the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, boasted on BBC Persian that Washington arms separatist groups along the Iraq/Iran border in Kurdistan. The January attack comes in the midst of protests across Iran in the wake of the death of Mahsa Zhina Amini, a Kurdish woman. We’ve also seen, in the last few months, the Daesh carry out a successful terrorist attack in Shiraz, Iran, killing children, the elderly, and those in between. Iran’s enemies have been ramping up aggression, using the civil unrest as cover to carry out attacks, as Iran strengthens ties with its allies in the East, resulting in the weakening of the dollar. As we move closer to a multi-polar world, Washington and its satellites in Tel Aviv and Riyadh, are lashing out and doing anything they can to prevent the strengthening of the Iranian economy while continuing the same maximum pressure policy of the Trump Administration in administering more sanctions on Iran. This is the very reason why, the proof, that peace between both nations was nothing more than a pipe dream we all bought into. President Biden is clearly not interested in peace but rather escalation and we must oppose the continuation of these policies at all costs.
— Naveen Borojerdi is an Iranian-American peace activist living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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