The Ukrainian Resistance’s Impact On Iran’s Nuclear Talks – OpEd

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Almost two months have passed since the rise of Ukraine’s heroic resistance to the Russian invasion. This unexpected resistance has provoked many events and developments and will lead to many more changes in the not-so-distant future.

Changing geopolitical landscape

In the two months since the war, it has become clear that the Russian military has been downgraded as the world’s second-greatest military power.  The April 22 sinking of Russia’s prized warship, Moskva, by Ukrainian military forces is the best symbol of Russia’s decline in the balance of power.

Russia, as much as it can, tries to dominate Ukraine with its terrible missile attacks, resulting in the killing of Ukrainian children and women, such as the Boucha massacre in March. But these atrocities do not alter the fact that Russia has been downgraded by several degrees in its geopolitical positioning and its international balance of power. 

Consequently, its allies, such as Iran, will share in this decline. By following a weakened Russia, Iran’s theocracy can no longer force the West to make concessions with its drone strikes on oil tankers or the Dubai airport in the United Arab Emirates.

Iran’s misguided support for Russia

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was the first national leader to call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to express his support for Russia’s aggression into Ukraine. 

The Iranian regime expected Russia to achieve its goals from the earliest days. But it—and Russian—miscalculated the fierceness of the Ukrainian resistance. In fact, one of the events on which the Ukrainian resistance had a severe impact was Iran’s nuclear talks with the UN’s Security Council, known as P5+1.

The table around which the parties to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal sit has been gathering dust for 40 days. Apparently, there is a dispute over Iran’s demand that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) be removed from the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) terrorists. 

The formidable IRGC executes the Iranian regime’s bellicose policy and regional influence. The American public, including Congress, as well as the survivors of the IRGC massacre of American soldiers in Iraq are strongly opposed to its removal from the list.

The fatal blow to the policy of appeasement

When Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said he did not want to leave Ukraine and instead asked for weapons—and said it would be an honor to die on Ukrainian soil—it was a fatal blow to the policy of appeasement. This policy has so far led to the fact that in some countries, crimes are committed without criminals being held accountable under the shelter of national sovereignty.

For years, Western countries have paid Iran’s supreme leaders a ransom for the blackmail and terrorism of the Iranian regime—Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini hung more than 30,000 political prisoners in less than two months under this policy in 1988—and at the same time, all the perpetrators of this massacre, such as Ebrahim Raisi, are in power. It is under the protection of this appeasement policy that Iran has set a record for per capita execution—and executions of children.

The Iranian regime is desperate to remove the IRGC from the US terrorist list by using blackmail and firing missiles or drones. But the policy of appeasement is now weakened, if not ended.

Until now, the Iranian regime has tried to ensure its survival by simply repressing its people inside the country and trying to build a nuclear bomb and wielding its bellicose policy abroad. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has publicly stated that if his regime does not fight in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, it will have to fight its own people in Tehran.

It is now time for the regime to fight inside the country.

The spread of popular uprisings in Iran, whose slogan is the overthrow of the regime and its policy of regional expansion, followed the expansion of resistance units led by the Mojahedin Khalq, the sworn enemies of the Iranian regime for the past 40 years. The regime is now challenged in every street and every city. The unification of the resistance units leads to the formation of a liberation army against the regime.

Let us salute the resistance, democracy, and freedom—and a bright future in Ukraine and Iran.

Hamid Enayat

Hamid Enayat is an Iranian human rights activist and analyst based in Europe.

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