Iran Digest Week of February 17- February 24
/AIC’s Iran digest project covers the latest developments and news stories published in Iranian and international media outlets. This weekly digest is compiled by associate Samuel Howell. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
US-Iranian Relations
Biden Diplomats Trying to Block U.K. Plan to Designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as Terror Group
Biden administration diplomats are trying to block a U.K. plan that would see Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) designated as a terror group, despite the fact that the U.S. took similar steps during the Trump administration.
The U.S. State Department, which is currently trying to revive the defunct Iran Nuclear deal, believes that the U.K. can play a key role as interlocutors and fears that role would be undermined by designating the IRGC a terror group, according to a new report from The Telegraph.
The move would harden the U.K.’s position against Iran and deal a blow to international talks, supported by the Biden administration, that are aimed at reviving the 2015 deal, which the U.S. withdrew from under President Trump.
Nuclear Accord
Iran acknowledges accusation it enriched uranium to 84%
Iran on Thursday directly acknowledged an accusation attributed to international inspectors that it enriched uranium to 84% purity for the first time, which would put the Islamic Republic closer than ever to weapons-grade material.
The acknowledgement by a news website linked to the highest reaches of Iran's theocracy renews pressure on the West to address Tehran's program, which had been contained by the 2015 nuclear deal from which America unilaterally withdrew in 2018. Years of attacks across the Middle East have followed.
Already Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently regained his country's premiership, is threatening to take military action similar to when Israel previously bombed nuclear programs in Iraq and Syria. But while those attacks saw no war erupt, Iran has an arsenal of ballistic missiles, drones and other weaponry it and its allies already have used in the region.
(ABC)
Iran floats adherence to NPT, dialogue on Ukraine, as JCPOA fades
The Biden administration says that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has not been on the table “for months,” but Iranian officials are saying that a nuclear deal is still possible.
Both could be true — with lots of caveats — and the sides could be moving deliberately or not toward what many are calling a "less for less" deal in the absence of the JCPOA.
In not-for-attribution conversations with Iranian and other officials, some ideas of what a post-JCPOA arrangement might look like are coming to light.
Health
COVID‑19 vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women and their reported reasons for vaccine refusal – A prospective study in Tehran, Iran
Rate of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is about 50% among pregnant women in Tehran.
Most common reason reported for vaccine refusal was fear of vaccine effects on the fetus.
Education level and occupational status are predictive of vaccine acceptance.
Access to internet and social media is higher among vaccinated women.
Economy
Iran Concerned Over Possible Return Of UN International Sanctions
Iran will show a serious response if the West activates the UN’s “trigger mechanism” to bring back international sanctions, a top member of parliament said Thursday.
Hossein-Ali Haji Dalegani, a hardliner a member of parliament’s presidium told Fars news agency in Tehran that as part of the Islamic Republic’s serious reaction, access for UN nuclear inspectors to Iran’s nuclear facilities will be blocked.
Iranian officials and media have somewhat focused on the issue of a provision in the 2015 nuclear accord (JCPOA) that allows signatories to trigger the return of international sanctions if Iran is found violating the cap on its nuclear activities. The term ‘snapback’ is also used for bringing back the international sanctions that were suspended after the JCPOA was signed in 2015.
Inflation Rising To Well Over 50% In Iran
For the fifth time since March 2022, the point-to-point inflation index in Iran exceeded 50% reaching 53.4% in the Iranian month ending on February 20.
The index shows that families have spent 53% more on buying the same goods and services in comparison to the same period last year.
The main reason for the jump in prices has been the daily decline in the value of the national currency. The US dollar has climbed to more than 500,000 rials this week, a more than 60 percent decline for the Iranian currency since August.
Inside Iran
Politicians Say Ignoring The People Led To Iran Protests
A reformist figure in Iran says the government has no will to communicate with the people amid a full-fledged crisis, which increases public dissatisfaction and anger.
While Iran has been overwhelmed by street protests for more than five months, Ahmad Khorram, a cabinet minister in the late 1990s and early 2000's reformist government said in an interview with moderate news website Rouydad24 that Iranian officials are reluctant to listen to the people as they have lost their sensitivity to their expectations.
Pointing out that the use of violence is the government's first and often only response to people's demands and protests, Khorram said that violent approaches have not worked elsewhere in the world, and they will not work in Iran either.
Regional Politics
Exclusive: Rocket strike in Damascus hit Iranian military experts, sources say
A rocket attack in Damascus on Sunday that Syria blamed on Israel hit an installation where Iranian officials were meeting to advance programmes to develop drone or missile capabilities of Tehran's allies in Syria, sources told Reuters.
Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's nearly 12-year conflict. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran's extraterritorial military power.
A source close to the Syrian government with knowledge of Sunday's strike and its target said it hit a gathering of Syrian and Iranian technical experts in drone manufacturing, though he said no top-level Iranian was killed.
(Reuters)
Global Relations
Germany expels 2 Iranian diplomats over death sentence
Germany said Wednesday that it is expelling two Iranian diplomats over the death sentence imposed in Iran against one of its citizens.
Authorities in Iran announced Tuesday that Jamshid Sharmahd, a 67-year-old Iranian-German national and U.S. resident, was sentenced to death after being convicted of terrorist activities.
Iran claims Sharmahd is the leader of the armed wing of a group advocating the restoration of the monarchy that was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but his family say he was merely the spokesman for the opposition group and deny he was involved in any attacks.
(AP News)
Analysis
Iran’s ‘women, life, freedom’ revolution has a manifesto. Here are the next steps.
By: Shadi Sadr
On February 13, when I saw the Manifesto for Minimum Demands of Independent Trade Union and Civil Organizations of Iran on Twitter, I was sent back to the early 2000s. I noticed some of the women’s rights organizations I used to work with among the signatories, still braving the dangerous waters of activism in Iran—a strong manifestation of the urgent need for structural changes. As noted in the manifesto, “No clear and attainable vision can be imagined to end [the current crisis] within the framework of the existing political system.”
Signed by twenty organizations and released on February 13, the manifesto soon gathered the support of many other civil society organizations, including another eighteen groups of young activists and university students, which have just been formed over the past five months. These labor, teacher, retiree, women, student, and youth organizations came together in a very dangerous security situation, with at least 530 killed and more than nineteen thousand arrested, according to organization Human Rights Activists in Iran. They offer an articulate and elaborate meaning to the slogan “woman, life, freedom,” aiming to end the formation of any power from above and to establish a society free of oppression, discrimination, tyranny, and dictatorship.
