Following the announcement of U.S.’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal by President Donald Trump and the outline of the new U.S. policy toward the Iranian regime by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Iranian regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, laid out his conditions for staying in the nuclear deal.
The terms, which he declared in a meeting with regime authorities and later published on his website, were aimed at European states. Having lost the support it enjoyed in the U.S. in the past years, the Iranian regime is now trying to protect its interests by pressurizing European countries, which have engaged in trade deals with Tehran after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the deal is formally known.
Khamenei’s terms include the following:
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European powers must continue to buy Iranian crude oil despite U.S. sanctions
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European banks must continue trade with the Iranian regime
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The UK, France, and Germany must abandon any thoughts of curbing the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile program and its regional activities as demanded by Washington
If Europeans fail to comply with these terms, the Iranian regime will step away from the JCPOA and resume its nuclear program, Khamenei has threatened.
Here’s what Khamenei really wants from Europe:
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Despite U.S. sanctions, European countries should continue to buy the Iranian regime’s oils, so that it can continue to fund its illicit activities. The lives of the Iranian people have plunged deeper into poverty and misery despite the many economic concessions that the West has given the Iranian regime since nuclear negotiations started in 2013 and after the JCPOA was signed in 2015. As Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance (NCRI) had warned at the time the JCPOA was signed, “Khamenei will use [the funds released by the JCPOA] to further the regime’s policy of export of terrorism and fundamentalism in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon as well as to fill the coffers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.” Three years of JCPOA have proven how true that assessment was.
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Europeans must continue to support the Iranian regime’s banking system so that it can continue to receive and send funds to its proxies in the region. This includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the Hashid al-Shaabi in Iraq. These are the main implements for the Iranian regime’s malign activities in the region. Without proper funding, their capabilities would be strictly limited, and by extension, the region would become much more peaceful.
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If the UK, France, and Germany want the Iranian regime to stay in the nuclear deal, they should allow it to continue building missiles whose only purpose is to launch atomic bombs, and they should turn a blind eye on the regime’s meddling in the countries of the region, which defy the very fundamental purpose of the nuclear deal to establish peace in the region. Needless to say that the people of Iran categorically reject the regime’s meddling in the countries of the region, a point that was driven by the slogans they chanted in recent protests, such as “Leave Syria, think about us!” and “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran!”
In fact, Khamenei’s real demands from European countries is to become complicit in the crimes of his regime. As the Iranian resistance has stipulated time and again, the real path to address the threats and challenges the Iranian regime poses is to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for regime change and the establishment of freedom and democracy in their country. It is now up to the Europeans to choose their path and their side.
