The only reason Iran is conducting an anti-sanctions campaign is to divert domestic attention from its mishandling of the coronavirus crisis
Amidst a spiraling coronavirus crisis that has taken the lives of between 5.915 and 17.500 Iranians, depending on who you ask, the Islamist regime in Iran has embarked on a public relations campaign to get sanctions relief.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is spearheading this campaign and claims that the United States is waging “economic war” and using “medical terrorism” to double the suffering of the Iranian people.
“What doubles the suffering of Iranians, what limits their choices in crisis management, and what aggravates concerns for citizens’ livelihood is that sanctions and coronavirus are coming at the same time,” Zarif declared.
The Iranian FM later doubled down on his claim that the US is waging economic war and medical terrorism on Iran and suggested American policy vis a vis Iran was tantamount to committing “war crimes.”
“US has gone from sabotage & assassinations to waging an economic war & economic terrorism on Iranians—to medical terror amidst COVID-19. This even ‘exceeds what would be permissible on the battlefield,’” Zarif wrote on his Twitter account before firing off a tweet in which he accused the world of “aiding war crimes.”
Iran claims that the sanctions are hampering the efforts to get the coronavirus crisis under control but President Rouhani was caught saying that the regime needs the money to fill its coffers.
“Our efforts are aimed at bringing back our money seized in other countries,” Rouhani told a group of Iranian officials.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the regime also stole $1 billion in aid that had been donated by European countries to fight the COVID-19 virus.
“Multiple regional reports have shown that before and since the virus began spreading, Iranian leaders stole funds purposed directly to support the ailing Iranian people,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.
So far, only the Europeans have been impressed by the campaign to get rid of the sanctions by claiming that they prevent effective action to contain the huge coronavirus crisis in Iran.
The Europeans used their INSTEX mechanism, which was designed to get around the US sanction regime against Iran, to transfer an aid package to the Islamic Republic.
Morgan Ortagus, a spokesperson for the US State Department later shot back at Zarif and posted a Tweet in which she told the Iranian regime to use Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s hedge fund of billions of dollars to fight the COVID-19 epidemic in Iran.
Ortagus was referring to Khamenei’s personal fortune of a staggering $200 billion, but also could have mentioned the fact that Iran has $100 billion in strategic reserves according to the same Zarif.
“It’s not the sanctions. It’s the regime,” Ortagus asserted.
It’s indeed the regime that once again is lying through its teeth.
Iran’s health minister Saeid Namaki said last Monday that Iran has “not faced a shortage of special drugs need to treat this disease” (COVID-19 virus).
Another Iranian official, Ailreza Biglari, even boasted that Iran could help other countries in containing the coronavirus pandemic.
“If our neighbors and regional countries (except for Israel) require help, the Health Ministry is also prepared to export them,” Biglari said referring to coronavirus test kits.
If Iran is having trouble fighting the COVID-19 outbreak, why did it prevent a delegation of Doctors Without Borders (DWB) from assisting the Iranian population?
The regime sent the DWB delegation, which intended to build a 50-bed inflatable hospital, back to France claiming that the doctors were part of a spy network.
Khamenei also rejected an offer made by the Trump Administration to send medical aid to Iran which is not part of the sanction regime and recent analysis of pharmaceutical trade between the EU and Iran showed no change between 2011 and 2019.
Khamenei rejected foreign assistance because he doesn’t need it.
The only reason the regime is conducting this anti-sanctions campaign is that it needs to divert domestic attention from its mishandling of the coronavirus crisis.
How do we know for sure? Because Iran just decided to build a 1.000-bed hospital for coronavirus patients in neighboring Iraq.
Building hospitals for the Iraqi Arabs is one of the actions the Iranian regime undertakes to curry favor with the population in Iraq and to maintain its influence over the Arab majority country which is essential for Iran’s hegemonic drive.
Khamenei’s regime is again facing domestic unrest with young Iranians storming centers of Iran’s Relief Committees in major Iranian cities.
The young Iranians demand that the regime finally release “the massive assets of financial foundations and institutions controlled by Khamenei and the IRGC, including Khomeini’s so-called Relief Committee and the Executive Headquarters of Khomeini’s Directive, to fund efforts to counter coronavirus and pay people’s living expenses so that they would not be compelled to go to work,” according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Khamenei’s regime, however, will have none of it, and instead opts for increasing regional tensions over US presence in Iraq.
Iran threatened once again to close the Strait of Hormuz and has deployed dozens of missile launchers along the coast of the narrow waterway.
The move came after armed speedboats of the IRGC once again harassed an American container vessel in the Strait of Hormuz last Thursday after doing the same to an English cargo ship.
Content retrieved from: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/278319.