By Morteza Ahmadi*
In the past months, after the 13th government took office in Iran and the nuclear talks resumed, the Western side has been attempting to influence public opinion in Iran, both of the elites and ordinary people, through applying strategies of cognitive warfare and portraying wrong images to reach a “wrong interpretation” and increase pressure on the Iranian negotiators in order to reach their own desired result. It is essential to deal with such commotion. So, in this article a wrong assumption by thinkers of cognitive warfare is criticized.
The United States and the three European countries (UK, France, and Germany) have repeatedly announced in the past five months that “time to reach a deal is limited” because given Iran’s nuclear progress and its breakout time, the points in the JCPOA nuclear deal are losing their value.
Therefore, it is necessary to reach an agreement soon. An example is in remarks made by Robert Malley, the United States special representative for Iran, in an interview with CNN on December 21, in which he said that Iran is getting close to reaching the ability to build a nuclear weapon in the near future.
“If they continue their nuclear program at this pace, we will have a few weeks and not more.”
However, studies done by experts show that the assumption that Iran is getting close to building a nuclear weapon is wrong because, based on technical studies, there is a clear difference between uranium enrichment at the level of weaponry and developing a weapon. These two must be separated.
Even if we imagine that Western lies are true and assume that Iran has reached enrichment to a level of 90 percent purity, 12 to 18 months are still required to build a nuclear weapon.
Second, the Western side is totally aware of this issue as Robert Kelly, a former inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Al Jazeera in an interview aired on December 26 that building a bomb by Iran is stupid.
He said, “It is right to say that this level of enrichment (60 percent) is not dangerous, because it is not enough to build a bomb. So, Iran may be close to the level of transfer to a higher level of enrichment to build a bomb, but building a bomb while the agency [the IAEA] is daily inspecting their program is stupid.”
Third, the Western side has admitted that the scenario of Iran’s reaching a nuclear bomb is psychological warfare. An Israeli official has revealed, “Lapid [the Israeli foreign minister] has told Sullivan [the US national security adviser] that Israel is acting in a way as if Iran possessed uranium at 90 percent purity level.”
It is clear for the Western side that Iran’s progress in the nuclear area is being made within the framework of the IAEA’s safeguards and the NPT [the Non-Proliferation Treaty] and the scenario of Iran’s getting close to building the atomic bomb is simply a “vigilant lie”.
Why is he insisting on a vigilant lie to emphasize on the urgency of talks? The answer is that sanctions have lost their effect and public opinion knows that “the emperor wears no clothes”.
A number of simple principles in the past five months show that by the failure of the “maximum pressure” policy, Iran has reached behind the enemy lines:
A: Pressure on the US by those harmed by sanctions
US sanctions have harmed its allies in addition to the Iranian people. Yun Kanghyeon, the South Korean ambassador to Tehran, said recently in an interview, “Korea has been harmed a lot by sanctions on Iran… the petrochemical industry of Korea has faced many problems [due to US sanctions]… a number of international banks went bankrupt after being fined by the US [due to violation of sanctions].
In this line, US allies have been harmed economically by the intensification of sanctions and, consequently, these countries have called on the US to remove sanctions on Iran or issue sanctions waivers.
According to some unofficial news reports, South Korea and Japan are holding consultations with the US in this regard.
B: Lack of compliance with the sanctions by US opponents
The sanctions and opponents of the US have been harmful to the US, as in the past months, China has opposed the US unilateral sanctions. In this line, Hua Chunying, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, announced on October 29: “China categorically opposes any unilateral sanctions and urges the US to stop enacting its domestic laws against third persons and institutions as soon as possible. China has adopted this position several times; it is not just a remark.”
C: Benefits of interactions with Iran is greater than the risk of US sanctions
Oil sanction waivers for foreign buyers are such that “the benefits of Iran’s waivers” are more than “the risks of US sanctions”.
It is beneficial for others to buy Iranian oil, and they may increase their oil purchases. In this line, Bloomberg has reported that China has increased importation of oil from Iran, and Beijing has imported 18 million barrels of oil in November, equal to 600,000 barrels per day. This amount is 40 percent greater than China’s imports in October.
D: Economic index: In addition to the above-mentioned points, some of the economic indices prove the failure of the “maximum pressure” policy, as the International Monetary Fund recently announced Iran’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021, 1.08 trillion dollars, which stands first among regional countries.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey stand second and third, respectively. According to this report, Iran’s GDP is higher than certain European countries such as Poland, Portugal and Switzerland, which proves the failure of the “maximum pressure” policy.
According to the most recent statistics of Eurostat, Iran’s exports to the European Union in October were 103 million euros, which is the highest since the end of 2018.
This report shows that in the first ten months of the current Iranian calendar year (which began on March 21, 2020), Iran’s volume of exports to the European Union was 736 million euros, which is 22 percent higher than that of the previous year.
These indices show the reason behind the Western side’s rush to reach an agreement and sees the time as being limited. In fact, the US seeks to sell Iran its “failed weapon” in the negotiations as a “concession” through cognitive warfare.
The Iranian negotiating team, as it has shown in the past months, should not be influenced by this psychological warfare because a “favorable agreement” is within reach through patience, and we can pick the fruit of the people’s resistance against the “maximum pressure” policy in dignified negotiations.
Former US secretary of state and former national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, wrote in his book, ‘World Order’: “Evidence shows that Iran’s nuclear capability has been increasing while the Western stance has been weakened.”
Today, it is the West’s turn to retreat in the area of sanctions because the “clock of sanctions” is no longer ticking.
*Morteza Ahmadi is a political analyst based in Tehran.
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