Just what to make of some Iranian politics is confusing for an eternal neophyte like me. For example, some exiled dissidents wrote a letter to President-elect Donald Trump,which says, in part:
During the presidential campaign, we and millions of Iranians followed your forthright objection to the nuclear agreement reached between the Obama administration and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We sincerely hope that with your election, the new administration and the United States Congress will have the opportunity for the first time to review the regional and international outcomes of that disastrous agreement without any reservations, as was promised to the voters. …
We ask the President-Elect to send the clear message that the United States will not tolerate the increasing threats of the Islamic Republic of Iran against its citizens and neighbors. The new administration, in collaboration with the Congress, should expand the existing sanctions and impose new ones on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Supreme Leader’s financial empire and direct the U.S. Treasury to strongly enforce them. We ask the incoming administration to develop a comprehensive regime of sanctions against those Iranian officials who have violated the human rights of the Iranian people over the last 4 decades. Iran’s ballistic missile program is a threat not only to the region but to the world; we hope the President-elect will form an international coalition to pressure the Islamic Republic of Iran and force the regime to cease its pursuit of long-range ballistic missile. We believe the United States should confront the Revolutionary Guards’ malicious behavior in the region, in all fronts, and by all available means. The Islamic regime’s Achilles’ heel is that the Iranian people do no longer support it. We ask the new administration to support the pro-democracy Iranians whose goal is to replace the Khomeinist regime of Tehran with a liberal-democratic government.
First, you have to wonder why anyone who’s paying attention would trust anything Trump would have to say. As he demonstrated throughout his campaign, he could be all sides of an issue over a span of years – and not want to admit it.
Second, if Trump were persuaded to do something on a military scale, who would end up in power? Not these dissidents. Trump would probably want to go colonial. Remember his remarks on Iraq’s oil? Don’t doubt that he’d want to suck Iran dry as well. Is this what the dissidents think is good?
AL Monitor’s Rohollah Faghihi notes that none of the major political parties in Iran is happy about the letter:
Iranian conservatives have used the letter to attack Reformists, referring to the signatories of the document as “Reformists living abroad.”
The hard-line Raja News wrote Dec. 25, “The reason behind the writing of this letter in 2016 and the behind-the-curtain pressures in 2009 [in the aftermath of Iran’s disputed presidential election] to apply more sanctions on the Iranian people by the foreign-based Reformists do not need any analysis, because doing business at the price of sanctions on the Iranian people and receiving financial aid to set up anti-Iranian media and sites are part of the projects that they have been engaged in during the past decade, and for sure, the decrease in sanctions against our country will take the bread out of their mouths.”
On Dec. 27, under the headline “30 Traitors,” conservative Sobh-e-No newspaper described the authors of the letter as “the same supporters and active directors of the 2009 protests.” Of note, the disputed presidential election that year led to widespread unrest.
Meanwhile, Reformists have in turn slammed conservatives for linking the exiled dissidents to their camp. They further argue that their hard-liner foes and the signatories to the letter are equally damaging Iran.
Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, who served as interior minister under former Reformist President Mohammad Khatami, said Dec. 26, “The action of these 30 individuals was [designed] to help the ‘worried ones’ [hard liners opposed to the nuclear deal] current. Reformists assess the JCPOA as a diplomatic action that is supposed to help solve problems, but those abroad who seek to cause trouble for the country, and these 30 individuals’ efforts, are [carried out] in order to portray the JCPOA as ineffective, just like what the ‘worried ones’ are doing inside the country.”
I think by ‘current’ they mean momentum; but it’s apparent that the letter is grist for the Iranian political mills, making the flour for the bread for the people who vote. Question is, which bread will the voters prefer? Will they realize the dangers of dealing with someone like Trump? Or will it be forced upon them if he tries to “tear up” the nuclear deal?
