The case against lifting sanctions on Iran’s clerical regime – analysis
Iran experts brought to the fore this week the role of the coronavirus crisis in Tehran’s strategy and the regime’s outright fabrications designed to hoodwink world powers into providing sanctions relief.Prominent Iranian author and dissident Amir Taheri tweeted that Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif claims that the “Islamic Republic has $100 billion in strategic reserves. So why is he begging for $5 billion from World Bank & making a song and dance about $500 million from Britain and just $5 million from European Union? And why doesn’t [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei release some of the loot?”Analysts have asked why Khamenei, who controls more than $200 billion in assets and an additional $91 billion in Iran’s sovereign wealth fund, allows this vast fortune to remain idle while ordinary Iranians suffer from a mushrooming deadly disease and a failing economy.Iran’s leaders are going full-throttle with their campaign to exploit the coronavirus to pressure the US to lift sanctions imposed on Tehran for its illegal nuclear program, support of international terrorism and ballistic missile development.Zarif called economic sanctions the US has in force amid the coronavirus pandemic as “medical terrorism.”
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