Iran Hardliners Attack Ex-President's Call For Serious Reforms

On the sidelines of the India Energy Week conference, Afshin Javan referred to OPEC's recent decision to cut production, saying OPEC is moving in the right direction.

On Sunday, Reuters quoted the chief of the International Energy Agency (IEA) as saying that he expects half of this year's global oil demand growth to come from China.

OPEC+, an alliance that includes members of OPEC and others including Russia, agreed last year to cut their production target by 2 million barrels a day (bpd), about 2% of world demand, from November until the end of 2023 to support the market.

“Why did OPEC do this? Because it was not optimistic about oil demand level,” added Javan stating that China needs more oil after pandemic restrictions were eased.

OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said on Monday the collective decision to cut output in October was the right move.

The October decision initially drew heavy criticism from the United States and other Western countries but market dynamics since then have shown the cuts to be prudent with oil prices hovering near the $85 a barrel from highs of above $100 in 2022.

Condemning violations of human rights and state-sponsored terrorism by the Iranian Government, the bipartisan group of Representatives submitted a resolution on Tuesday, which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The motion was introduced by California's Republican lawmaker Tom McClintock and is cosponsored by 165 other representatives. 

The resolution “calls on relevant United States Government agencies to work with European allies, including those in the Balkans where Iran has expanded its presence, to hold Iran accountable for breaching diplomatic privileges, and to call on nations to prevent the malign activities of the Iranian regime’s diplomatic missions, with the goal of closing them down and expelling its agents." 

It also emphasizes that Washington “stands with the people of Iran who are legitimately defending their rights for freedom against repression, and condemns the brutal killing of Iranian protesters by the Iranian regime; and recognizes the rights of the Iranian people and their struggle to establish a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear Republic of Iran.”

The resolution mentions the popular antigovernment protests in 2017, which resulted in at least 25 deaths and 4,000 arrests, and the protests in November 2019, when about 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest, as well as the current wave of protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested in mid-September 2022 by the morality police that enforce the regime’s mandatory dress code laws. 

Noting that women and youth have led the 2022 protests in Iran to demand social freedom and political change, the resolution describes the uprising as “rooted in the more than four decades of organized resistance against the Iranian dictatorship.” The ongoing unrest have been most recently led by women who have endured torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and death. 

It also mentions executions and death sentences in recent months and calls for measures to force the government to cease such repression.

In the 116th Congress, the House of Representatives passed House Resolution 752, "Supporting the rights of the people of Iran to free expression, condemning the Iranian regime for its crackdown on legitimate protests, and for other purposes,” it adds, urging the Administration to work to convene emergency sessions of the United Nations Security Council and to work with United States partners and allies to condemn the ongoing human rights violations perpetrated by the Iranian regime and establish a mechanism by which the United Nations Security Council can monitor such violations. 

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The resolution also mentions efforts by the international community against the crackdown on dissent in Iran, saying that on November 24, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council established a fact-finding mission to conduct an independent investigation into the ongoing deadly violence related to the protests in Iran that began on September 16, 2022. It also mentioned the resolution adopted by United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on December 14, 2022, to expel Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) for the remainder of its 4-year term ending in 2026. 

Enumerating other actions by the US against the human rights violations by the clerical regime, the House resolution referred to the Department of State’s 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released on April 13, 2022, which cites that “Iran’s government and its agents reportedly committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, most commonly executions for crimes not meeting the international legal standard of ‘most serious crimes’ or for crimes committed by juvenile offenders, as well as executions after trials without due process.”

“On October 25, 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteur (UNSR) on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Javaid Rehman, told the United Nations General Assembly that almost all executions in the country constituted an arbitrary deprivation of life, noting the extensive, vague and arbitrary grounds in Iran for imposing the death sentence, which quickly can turn this punishment into a political tool,” read the resolution. 

The resolution also condemns the Iranian regime’s arbitrary and brutal suppression of “ethnic and religious minorities, including Iranian Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs, Christians, Jews, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, and even Sunni Muslims,” noting that it deprived them of their basic human rights, and has in many cases executed them. 

Following about five months of constant antigovernment protests and several rounds of global sanctions, the situation has changed for Iran since negotiations to restore the JCPOA broke down in September. The Biden administration and its European allies have put the talks on the backburner and even President Joe Biden said in early November that “JCPOA is dead.” But what is the alternative for a world fraught with the threat of a nuclear Iran? Many US officials – democrats in particular – believe the Islamic Republic is bad but a nuclear Islamic Republic is even worse. 

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has suggested an alternative agreement to the landmark accord 2015 JCPOA could break the deadlock in talks between Tehran and world powers.

Warning against adopting a defeatist approach to the signatories’ halfhearted efforts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action at Chatham House in London on Tuesday, Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the coming weeks and months would be crucial in determining the direction the talks take.

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“There has been a modification that should have been reported. You cannot go back and right this wrong. The thing is that, of course, with this modification, the facility has new capabilities so we have to inspect more,” he said referring to Fordow nuclear plant, which IAEA says requires increased inspections.

“Europe has been a very strong advocate of JCPOA... Of course, the geostrategic factors are weighing because it's not so far away and the Middle East consideration that we were mentioning is very important. I think in the case of Europe, it is very important that they continue to support us in trying to find a viable way forward — JCPOA or no JCPOA," he said. 

“What we need to make sure is that we have the necessary elements to make sure that there is no proliferation, that this [nuclear] program does not cross a line. And that might be through something like the JCPOA or something else. On this I’m neutral,” he said, suggesting that he would be supporting any viable alternative to the deal. “It is the gap that worries me at this point in time because we are losing the visibility and the program continues to work. This is why I need to go to Tehran. We need to talk and we need to do it soon.”

In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, Biden did not mention Iran; not acknowledging the Iranians demonstrating for an end to the Islamic Republic, neither mentioning the nuclear program, perhaps because the JCPOA policy has failed, and Washington has no idea for a new policy. An article in The Hill on Tuesday called on Biden to pressure US allies “to help them find the nerve and resolve to hold the regime accountable” and “to deploy the measures necessary to shake the Iranian regime.” “Efforts to isolate and punish the regime have been too slow, too weak and too disjointed to stop the carnage,” read the article. 

In an opinion piece on Tuesday, Republican representative for Texas Pat Fallon denounced Biden’s Iran strategy that has been centered on reviving the nuclear deal “that enriches a murderous regime” calling it “a strategic folly.” “It is high time for an alternative strategy that takes advantage of the regime’s domestic vulnerabilities to advance US interests and to help quench the thirst of freedom for the Iranian people,” he said. “The Islamic Republic has cast a murderous shadow across the Middle East, and beyond, for decades. Even more recently, thousands of rockets with Iranian origins have rained down on Israeli civilians, with over 100,000 more waiting in Hezbollah’s arsenal. Fanning the flames of civil wars in Syria and Yemen, Iran has established a ring of fire around US partners in the Middle East. Today, the same Iranian weapons used in the Middle East directly threaten European security,” Fallon wrote. 

Iranian Australia-based academic Alam Saleh believes that the alternative for a deal with Iran is war and an atomic Iran. He told Etemad daily in Tehran that any agreement is better than no agreement, although even in case of reaching a deal, major Western companies might hesitate to enter the Iranian market as investment would be a risky proposition. "Neither Iran, nor the United States have a plan B that would replace an agreement. An all-out war is the only thing that can replace an agreement and a war is most likely to lead to the emergence of a nuclear Iran." 

Given the status of Iran’s domestic and foreign politics, mired with rising inflation and public uproar, the Islamic Republic may give up some of its demands and sit at the negotiation table with a more cooperative spirit this time around.

The German lawmakers also urged the authorities of the Islamic Republic not to issue or carry out death penalties against the prisoners.

Meanwhile, a group of Australian Senators and members of House of Representatives also demanded more pressure on the Islamic Republic.

Senator Claire Chandler told Iran International that “we want to see the IRGC listed as a terrorist organization... We want to make very clear to the world that we are concerned about the human rights abuses that are happening in Iran.”

Senator Jordon Steele-John also told Iran International’s correspondent that “Australia has been very slow in acting and very hesitant to act… It took more than three months for Australia to do anything like what it should have done. So we welcome finally the imposition of broader sanctions.”

On the other hand, Member of Parliament Keith Wolahan stated that the Australian Attorney General's Department has said there were legal [restraints] to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization, [but] if that is the case, we call on the government to introduce a bill to the House of Representatives.”

Iran has witnessed nationwide protests since mid-September after Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody. Over 500 protesters have been killed by the regime forces and thousand are arrested.

“There are three countries we have excluded: Russia, Iran, North Korea,” said German diplomat Christoph Heusgen, who is the chairman of the conference, in an interview published Wednesday.

“We don't want the Munich Security Conference to serve as a podium for Russian propaganda,” Heusgen added.

Russia’s opposition, including chess champion Garry Kasparov and exiled former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky are invited to the event instead of delegates from the Russian government.

The names of the Iranian participants have not been announced.

“After violations of international law and the brutal attack of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and police against their own population, we no longer have any standing invitations for Iran,” Christoph Heusgen, the chairman of the conference, told Global Insider.

Although the last round of the conference was held before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did not participate and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock criticized Moscow’s non-participation in the event.

French President Emmanuel Macron, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg are among the participants of this conference, which slated to be held from February 17 to 19.