Iran: Putting an end to the illusions of the politics of complacency

Feeding the crocodile does not tame it, but rather makes it even more predatory. The ferocious repression continues to get tougher and more violent, but on the West's side, the endless negotiations to reach an imaginary nuclear deal continue.

By approving the agreement for the exchange of condemned prisoners between Belgium and Iran, the Belgian government and parliamentarians have made it clear to the people of Iran that they do not hear their voice, presumably thinking that feeding the crocodile will tame it and prevent it from tearing up more human flesh. Yet it has been established since the birth of the Islamic Republic that hostage-taking and the permanent blackmail of life are elements of an assumed strategy of the mullahs' regime.

And it did not take long after the signing of this historic agreement, which, according to the Brussels Bar Association, is contrary to the Belgian Constitution, for the Iranian state to prove this once again. First, John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations and former White House national security advisor, was targeted by a plot to assassinate him outright. A few days later, the writer Salman Rushdie, the subject of a 1989 fatwa issued by the Supreme Leader, was seriously injured in a knife attack.

If there were any doubts about Iran's intentions, they must be definitively removed. The possible consequences of the approval of this disturbing bill are becoming clearer. Feeding the crocodile does not tame it, but rather makes it even more predatory.

Maintaining trade relations... or political cowardice?

In 2018, Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat, and his accomplices plan to detonate a bomb at a gathering of tens of thousands of people attended by political figures from around the world. He was arrested for his planned attack. And although the independent Belgian justice system did its job by sentencing him severely, the terrorist diplomat will be exchanged for innocent Western hostages held in Iranian jails under false pretences. Once again, the West decides to play the policy of appeasement...

Exactly as in 1988, when thirty thousand political prisoners were purely and simply massacred by the authorities and the Western countries closed their eyes and covered their ears. There is no one so blind as the one who does not want to see, as the saying goes. It is important to remember that negotiations on oil and trade relations with the Islamic Republic were well underway. Economic interests already prevailed over life and the policy of appeasement was already in place.

A Western newspaper even dared to compare Qassem Soleimani, the Qods Force general responsible for multiple massacres in the Middle East and especially in Syria, with Che Guevara! Yet it was Mr. Soleimani who allowed Russia to take a dominant position in this murderous conflict in more ways than one. But here again, the West ended up playing appeasement. And we could multiply the examples ad libitum, in Yemen or Iraq for example, where militias affiliated to Iran have committed crimes and received, as a punishment, a few billion dollars (1 dollar = 1.01 euro) in cryptocurrency and a little cash sent by plane.

Recently, Amnesty International reported on a growing wave of public executions in Iran. Everywhere, moral patrols attack women with and without hijab. The ferocious repression continues to get tougher and more violent, but on the West's side, the endless negotiations to reach an imaginary nuclear deal continue, and the policy of appeasement still does not give up on this chimera.

Mohammad Marandi, a member of the Iranian nuclear negotiating team, reacted to the attack on Salman Rushdie. He wrote on Twitter: "I shed no tears for a writer who spreads hatred and insults against Islam and Muslims. He is a plaything of imperial powers who has established himself as a post-colonial writer. But isn't it strange that in the run-up to a possible nuclear deal, the US claimed that Mr Bolton was the victim of a conspiracy, and then this happens?"
 
Just like in 1988, when thirty thousand political prisoners were simply massacred by the authorities and the Western countries closed their eyes and ears.

The nomination of Ebrahim Raissi as president is the final solution.

The uprising of the rebellious youth in 2019, which Ali Khamenei was only able to contain by giving the order to shoot into the crowd, led him to the conclusion that the only way to survive was to unite against the flood of rebellions. The coronavirus and the deliberately shot down Ukrainian plane were not enough to stop the uprisings. Consequently, the Supreme Leader considered that the only solution was the "appointment" of Ebrahim Raissi, a faithful among the faithful, to the post of president, so that the latter could repress the demonstrations by carrying out his orders while keeping his hand in obtaining nuclear weapons.

In fact, if the Supreme Leader had sincerely wanted to reach a nuclear agreement with the West, it would have been signed under the presidency of Hassan Rohani, assisted by his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. These pseudo-negotiations have only one purpose; they serve to buy time in the nuclear arms race.

The appointment of a man actively involved in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners as president is a clear indication of the radicalisation of the Islamic Republic. The goal has been the same since the birth of the Islamic revolution in 1979; to advance its cause by creating terror, through repeated hostage-taking, through bombings, through trying to have John Bolton executed, through trying to assassinate Salman Rushdie.

To date, the only resistance to the gangsterism displayed by the Iranian state is the work of the people of Iran. Over five thousand resistance units have been formed in Iran since 2016. And these units have only one goal; to overthrow terror with the aim of creating a secular government that advocates, among other things, direct democracy, gender equality, freedom of worship and the possibility of self-determination for the different ethnicities that make up the country. The Iranian people have made their decision. They are confronting the regime. But what about the West? What is this great defender of fundamental freedoms and human causes doing? What quest is it pursuing now? Does it wish to stand by the side of a sovereign people or does it prefer to remain the accomplice of a regime already condemned by the verdict of history for petty financial reasons? Is the West's courage just a façade?

Hamid Enayat is an Iran expert and writer based in Paris, where he has written frequently on Iranian and regional issues over the past thirty years.