Iran: A Disturbance in the Farce
18th January 2022
In Austria the negotiations with Iran to revive the 2015 treaty that ended sanctions (if Iran halted work on nukes) are not going well. There have been eight rounds of talks since the new, hardline Iranian government took power in August 2021. This was the result of the 2020 national elections which were rigged, as they traditionally are, so the new president would be Ibrahim Raisi, an infamous mass-murderer and recognized war-criminal. Putting Raisi into such a public position is another example of how desperate Iran is to make clear to opponents in Iran, Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere what they are up against. Raisi insisted that Iran would not negotiate with the West until the 2018 sanctions were first lifted. Nations seeking to negotiate a new peace deal with Iran discovered that Raisi had the support of the religious dictatorship in Iran as well as the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) for this desperate, “all or nothing” negotiating strategy.