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KAYHAN LIFE
Kayhan Life is an independent media outlet focusing on Iran, offering in-depth news coverage of Iran’s politics, economy, society, and culture, and spotlight prominent Iranians around the world. Kayhan Life is the English-language partner of Persian-language site, Kayhan London.
Photo of traffic on a road in Tehran
Geopolitics
Roshanak Astaraki

What A Nuclear Deal Could Mean For Iran's Broken Economy

Ordinary Iranians are hoping for a speck of economic relief and nothing more, if Tehran can sign a nuclear deal with world powers that could alleviate longstanding sanctions.

-Analysis-

As the fate of talks on Iran's nuclear activities remains uncertain, millions of Iranians are hoping, cautiously, that a deal with the West could help alleviate a range of socio-economic problems. Some economic agents hope a deal to renew the 2015 nuclear pact will boost business, travel and spending. Others insist a no-deal is still better than prolonged uncertainty. The question remains, even with a deal that will soften the sanctions on Iran, can Iranians expect even a measure of prosperity in an economy that is restricted, dysfunctional and beset with opaque procedures and massive cronyism?

For over 20 years, the Iranian regime's cat-and-mouse game with the world over its disconcerting nuclear program, suspected money-laundering and support for regional militias and hitmen, have earned it a range of sanctions on Iran's economy and financial system. The regime has furthermore refused to sign the FATF or international pact to block terrorist and criminal finances.

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Local women walk on Gavkhooni wetland in Isfahan province, central Iran
Green
Elahe Boghrat

Why Environmental Protests In Iran Are Being Ignored

The growing environmental movement in the West, wittingly or not, has given no attention to mass protests in Iran against the clerical regime, most recently focused on the drought conditions and other ecological risks. Had ecologists been hoping to sign a green pact with Tehran?

-Editorial-

I wrote this in late November as farmers in Isfahan, in central Iran, faced a ruthless assault by the security forces of the Islamic Republic on the dried Zayanderud river bed, where they had been protesting for several days. The latest footage shows shots being fired on the crowd of citizens, striking at least one man and a woman.

Farmers had called a protest for 9 a.m. on November 26, and large numbers of people were expected to gather in the river bed where water had until recently flowed for centuries, if not millennia.

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A photo of two women walking past a poster of Iran's president
Geopolitics
Yusef Mosaddeqi

Interests Or Ignorance? What Drives The West's Appeasement Of Iran

Whether out of cynicism, greed or basic lack of knowledge, the West has willingly embraced the fabricated vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a slightly unruly, but essentially legitimate government with which it can do business.

-OpEd-

LONDON — Since the 1979 revolution in Iran, there has been strong support in the West for the idea of talking to and working with the Islamic Republic. For starters, this can be explained by Western governments' considerable economic interests in Iran, which endures to this day.

In turn, inside Iran, some politicians swiftly adopted the "good cop/bad cop" approach to dealing with the West. They would play the role of liberals, and keep open the door to a sham dialogue between the "infidel" West and the self-styled homeland of Shia Muslims.

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Reports: U.S. Arms Abandoned In Afghanistan Moved To Iran
Geopolitics
Kayhan London

Reports: U.S. Arms Abandoned In Afghanistan Moved To Iran

Weaponry belonging to the Afghan army is moving into Iran, though it is not clear if it is smuggled, or moved in a deal between the Taliban and Iran's regime.

LONDON — With the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, much of the U.S.-supplied military hardware formerly used by the country's armed forces have fallen into their hands. This terrorist group that ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, and gave refuge to other terrorists, especially al-Qaeda, now has its hands on advanced military weaponry and know-how.

It has also become clear that neighboring Iran was keen and ready to get its own hands on this material, either to use directly or to copy the weapon design.

And this has happened amid reports that armaments including tanks and armored vehicles have been moved into Iran. Sources say Iranian dealers are particularly looking for arms and missiles the Americans abandoned in suspect circumstances, without destroying them.

Bagram air base, Afghanistan, on Sept. 1 — Photo: Samiloglu Selcuk/Abaca/ZUMA


It is not clear whether the Taliban or fugitive members of the armed forces are handing over the weaponry to the Islamic Republic of Iran, or if this is the work of middlemen exploiting the disorderly state of the country.

War booty is not the only thing moving into Iran though. Thousands of Afghan citizens have left their homes and towns, fleeing toward neighboring countries like Iran and Pakistan.

These include the elderly and pregnant women, who are risking their lives on a desperate flight, though it seems they prefer this to living under the Taliban. Meanwhile, Western states are preparing for a new wave of refugees from Afghanistan, knowing that regional instability will push them toward Europe and beyond, even if they first pass through Pakistan, Iran or Turkey. This is increasingly of concern to them as the refugee crisis may last a while, in spite of the contradictory positions of different Western countries, particularly those in the European Union.

Afghan Taliban fighters in the Laghman Province celebrate a peace deal between US and Taliban
Geopolitics
Hamed Mohammadi

Why Iran Is Actively Backing The Taliban For The First Time

Iran's clerical Shiite regime has seemingly overturned its long-held hostility to the Taliban, and may be readying itself to welcome the 'enemies of America' as Kabul's new masters.

-Analysis-

There can be no doubt the situation in Afghanistan is critical. As U.S. and allied troops depart, the Taliban are exploiting the Kabul government's weakness to capture districts and towns, especially in the north.

In some areas, conditions seem normal by day but as darkness falls, armed motorcades attack villages, patrols or army posts, firing on any Afghan citizen trying to resisit.

A UN report from May listed 50 of Afghanistan's 400 regions as being in Taliban hands. And that progression appears relentless, with eight districts falling in June in less than two days in the provinces of Takhar, Samangan and Balkh, and some fighting reaching the outskirts of cities like Mazar-i Sharif.

There have been reports of Afghan troops simply handing over their trucks to the Taliban, by some accounts as many as 700 trucks or lorries in recent weeks, in addition to armored vehicles and artillery equipment. All these will aid the Taliban in their war effort.

The head of the Islamic Party of Afghanistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, says "there are secrets behind the fall of cities without any fighting, and circles inside the Afghan governments have a hand in their fall."

The Revolutionary Guards want the country turned into another quagmire for the United States.

U.S. security sources say the Taliban may take Kabul within six to 12 months after Western forces have fully withdrawn. Still, International Crisis Group analyst Andrew Watkins recently told the Wall Street Journalthe Taliban were not invincible, and Kabul's fall is by no means a certainty. Other specialists have pointed out that the Taliban have been capturing rural terrain of little strategic worth, attributing their successes also to the uneven distribution of Afghan troops, mostly trained to defend the big cities and highways.

And then, there are accusations from Afghan politicians that certain foreign powers, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, were helping the insurgents.

Abdulsattar Husseini, a legislator, has accused the Iranian Revolutionary guards and Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency of helping the Taliban, saying arms have been smuggled in from Iran.

Ali Khamenei meeting with Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran — Iranian Supreme Leader'S Office/ ZUMA Wire

In the past 20 to 30 years, Afghanistan has, like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, entered the Iranian regime's "resistance" map of regions where it sought to extend its ideological sway at the West's expense. The Revolutionary Guards have been biding their time ahead of a Western withdrawal.

Aware of the West's strategic and security interests in Afghanistan, and its rivalries with China and Russia, the Guards want the country turned into another quagmire for the United States, like Iraq. In fact, backing the Taliban and al-Qaeda could help the Iranian regime send its own militias into a lawless country, compensating for its weakened position in Syria and Iraq. These are used to extort concessions from Western powers, regardless of the cost to the long-suffering Afghans.

The Islamic Republic is not only inclined to see the Taliban take Kabul, but already busy whitewashing the terrorists at home, with one conservative daily in Tehran writing: "the Taliban today are not the Taliban who used to cut heads off."

"But after the United States toppled the Taliban in 2001, the Iranian Supreme Leader not only sheltered them but is now veering toward closer ties with them"

According to U.S. State Department documents, many Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders have been living in Iran in recent years. Cities like Mashhad, Qom and Tehran are in turn training bases for the Shia Fatemium militiamen fighting in Syria under the Quds Army, the Revolutionary guards' strike force in the Middle East. Dozens have returned to Iran as war winds down in Syria, ready to fight in Afghanistan instead, if not inside Iran. The Revolutionary guards would have no qualms about using them to crush domestic protests in Iran.

Some years ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, denounced the Taliban as sworn enemies of Shia Muslims, describing them as "hard-hearted," criminal and "creatures' of the United States. But after the United States toppled them in 2001, he not only sheltered them but is now veering Iranian foreign policy toward closer ties with them. And it is the task of various figures in Tehran to start rehabilitating the terrorists. The legislator Ahmad Naderi has called the Taliban "one of the region's essential movements," with whom "we have shared enemies." Ali Shamkhani, a former defense minister, now a senior security official, has praised their leaders for their resolve in fighting the Americans.

Iran's ambassador in Kabul, Bahador Aminian, calls the "resistance" in Afghanistan part of an "Islamic awakening" influenced by the ideas of Iran's late revolutionary leader, Ruhollah Khomeini. The fact is the regime and the Revolutionary guards have extended their tentacles, and their money, into both the Afghan government and the Taliban.

Enters Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi
Geopolitics
Ahmad Ra'fat

Raisi's Iran: Tougher Talk With West, Warmer Ties With Russia

​The arch-conservative Ibrahim Raisi's election to the Iranian presidency is pushing its regime closer to Russia and farther from the West — and leaving a big question mark on relations with China.

-OpEd-

LONDON — Reactions have varied in the two weeks since the election of Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. For starters, no Western government (save Austria) has congratulated Raisi, and the various statements by spokes people have mixed some surface criticism with observations on Raisi's presence in the "death committees' that signed prisoner death warrants after the 1979 revolution, as well as his record in the judiciary over the past four decades.

The German government spokesman stated that his country knew of Raisi's role in executions, refusing at a press conference to answer more questions on the matter. The government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy, Bärbel Kofler, has voiced concern that Raisi had given "no explanation" on his ties to rights violations in Iran. The French foreign ministry expressed hope Raisi's government would respect the 2015 nuclear pact with Western powers and reiterated the French government's "persistent" concerns over the state of human rights in Iran.

A senior Italian Foreign Ministry official told Kayhan London that Raisi's election would undoubtedly create problems in EU relations with Iran's regime, and it was difficult to foresee senior officials shaking hands with someone with Raisi's murky record. Public opinion would not accept it, the Italian diplomat added, foreseeing a possible repeat of Europe's difficult relations with another hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Western powers are not primarily worried now with Raisi's presence in the "death committees." Rather they are concerned with the fate of talks in Vienna on reviving the 2015 nuclear pact, and will keep an eye on the appointment of Iran's new negotiating team, whose members, all approved by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, will indicate "which way the wind is blowing," said the official.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has likewise observed that it was not the head of the Iranian government, but Iran's supreme leader, who took the final decisions there.

In the sixth round of talks, Iran's negotiators sought assurances that whatever administration follows the current presidency of Joe Biden would not abandon any new pact, as the Trump administration did in 2018. This alone could impede a new agreement. The Biden administration cannot in legal terms provide this guarantee, and the U.S. Congress is unlikely to allow it.

Still, a U.S. diplomat in Rome told Kayhan London that the Iranian request seemed reasonable, as such decisions were a presidential prerogative and the next president could, as Donald Trump did, decide to ditch the pact. Iran, he said, must in any case accept the risks of a pact if it wants to see sanctions lifted and its economy reopen.

Confrontations with the United States are its oxygen.

The Islamic Republic's acceptance of conditions set by the Biden administration should not be seen as a change of policy toward the United States, nor is the regime likely to change its military and regional policies, as the West expects. The Islamic Republic's confrontation with the United States and its regional interventions are its oxygen. It does not want to normalize ties with the West, but also prefers that tensions are kept under control. Khamenei has repeated that reconciliation with the United States was akin to setting aside the "revolution's ideals." These ideals, which Raisi stressed while campaigning, include running a missile program and regional interventionism.

Two days after Iran's sham elections, Raisi said he wanted better relations with other countries in the region, though he stressed that détente with the Saudi kingdom depended on it ending its "military intervention" in Yemen. Tehran itself has been backing the Yemeni Houthis, who use drones and missiles from Iran to target Saudi installations. Saudi Arabia is particularly concerned with Iran's nuclear program. Its foreign minister has said that regardless of who was president, the kingdom would react to Iranian actions on the ground.

Israel, meanwhile, believes Raisi's election means an acceleration of the nuclear program, while the Lebanese analyst Saad Kaywan has no doubts Raisi's arrival means more Iranian support for the Hezbollah, and an exacerbation of Lebanon's political and economic paralysis.

In contrast, those who could not wait to congratulate Raisi were Syria's President Bashar al-Asad and Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by the heads of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. Many inside and outside Iran believe the Raisi government will move more fully into Russia's orbit than its predecessors. The head of the Russian foreign ministry's Asia department has voiced confidence collaboration with Tehran would expand.

China is also pleased with Raisi's election. President Xi Jinping congratulated him 48 hours after election results were formally announced. But a journalist from the official Xinhua agency expressed China's concerns over the future of the 25-year bilateral pact and the conservative Ali Larijani's earlier elimination from the presidential race. Supreme Leader Khamenei had appointed him to oversee the pact's implementation. The journalist observed this might indicate Russia's rising influence, at China's expense.

In Tehran, getting ready for the June 18 presidential election
Sources
Roshanak Astaraki, Hamed Mohammadi and Azadeh Karimi

Iran’s Fixed Elections And The State Of The Islamic ''Republic''

By denying the right to moderate candidates for the upcoming presidential elections, the regime shows it has little interest in even a semblance of democracy.

-Editorial-

The failure of reformist candidates to win vetting approval for Iran's 13th presidential elections slated for June 18 is dividing reformists, and pushing them further away from participating in Iran's politics.

Let's look at the positions some adopted after the list of approved presidential candidates was published. As on prior occasions in the country officially called the Islamic Republic of Iran, the shut-out moderate candidates insist they will never boycott the ballot box.

Hojjatoleslam Hasan Khomeini, a grandson of the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, makes a nice living from the public monies paid to maintain his grandfather's mausoleum (roughly 14 million euros a year). Khomeini challenged the approved candidates to "drop out of the race," out of decency! Yet he didn't even run — no doubt on the advice (instruction) of current Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Khomeini's grandson seems to have no idea about the regime's already dismal public standing when he warns as he did that such disqualifications will "harm the Republic" in Iran and "weaken the bases of the Islamic system's legitimacy and acceptability!"

Mohsen Hashemi-Rafsanjani, another disqualified aspirant and son of the late president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, cited his father's words that "under no circumstances should one boycott polls."

Criticism of disqualifications are sharper than before.

Mohammad Khatami, who once headed a would-be reformist government and has played a key role in past years mobilizing voters, also warned the disqualifications would threaten "the Republic." Saying nothing about Khamenei's role, he chose instead to criticize the Guardian Council, the body that determines who is fit for public office.

A prominent association of reformist and leftist clerics, the Assembly of Qom Seminary Teachers declared that with the "extensive" disqualifications, "everybody knows' now the June elections will be a "lifeless formality."

While reformist criticisms of disqualifications are a little sharper in tone than before, these same people still fail to protest about the many problems ailing ordinary Iranians. They are concerned less with society's security and prosperity than with their own exclusion from the corridors of power. If one or two had been approved to run, they would once again have urged people to vote in another "formality" that had something in it for them.

Many reputed reformists, both inside Iran and abroad, continue to see their interests as entwined with those of the regime. Thus, instead of urging a boycott, they weepingly regret being robbed of a chance to "actively" take part.

At a campaign center for conservative candidate Ebrahim Raisi near Tehran, on June 4 — Photo: Sobhan Farajvan/Pacific Press/ZUMA

Most of them believe they have a duty to respect the regime's red lines. And like Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, they know that they're all in the same boat, that none will benefit from it sinking. That is why the supreme leader and his Guardian Council are not bothered by reformist objections and disqualified them without remorse.

Many analysts believe the disqualifications mean the regime no longer needs reformists to pull in votes, at least for now. And in any case, for many reformists the end of politics is not their expulsion from the revolutionary banquet. There will always be a job somewhere, to allow their "active" participation.

Iran's leaders may be more concerned with those who have consistently boycotted voting for decades and, in contrast with reformists, have widespread public support. Khamenei asked people, after his list was published, "not to listen to those urging us not to go to the polls." He too knows that restricting elections can play into the hands of people he's termed "seditionists."

So why and on which grounds did he permit the disqualifications? Did he imagine, as with the end of the Ahmadinejad presidencies, that any old president will do — seeing as they're nobodies anyway — to refuel the system? Indeed, some reformists now timidly suggesting the need for "change" may come in handy for that, perhaps some years down the line.

But today, it seems Khamenei and the Guardian Council decided that since Iranians were not going to vote en masse anyway, they might as well have a "quiet" election. As the deputy-speaker of parliament, the conservative Abdolreza Mesri says, "a massive turnout doesn't matter per se, and can even yield a bad election." It could, he says, "divert our attention to how many voted, not the election's goal."

There's little place for the phony spectacle of a preordained election.

The voters are of course worried about the economy. The Rouhani government had promised to fix the economy within 100 days of its election. Instead things just got worse, and millions of Iranians have slipped below the poverty or absolute poverty lines. The state itself has put inflation at 168% since 2018, when the United States reimposed sanctions on Iran. Many more Iranians are living in shanty-towns now than before the Rouhani presidencies and the middle class is fading.

Add to that: a pandemic, worsening pollution, drought, social disintegration and pervasive political corruption, which leave little place for the phony spectacle of a preordained election. There seems to be no remedy for Iran's myriad ills — but then, the regime fancies as it always has that even without Iran, an Islamic Republic can survive and thrive.

Rockets are seen in the night sky fired towards Israel from the northern Gaza Strip on May 14, 2021
Geopolitics
Hamed Mohammadi

Is Iran Behind The Outbreak Of Israeli-Palestinian Violence?

Israel had struck Iranian interests in recent months without significant reprisals. Meanwhile, Iran is growing impatient that nuclear talks in Vienna are stalling, and may have turned to the Palestinian groups it arms to provoke the violence.

-Analysis-

LONDON — Heavy rocket fire on Israel from Gaza began four days after Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared in a speech on Quds Day that "fighting the Zionist regime is a general duty." He was addressing the youth of the Muslim world, and told them to "build suitable weapons and strengthen the line of holy war and martyrdom."

Khamenei reacted to the rocket attacks at another gathering in Tehran, saying "force is the only language the Zionists understand," and the best way for Palestinians to "force the criminals to surrender and stop their savagery."

Israel has dealt Iran's clerical regime several blows in recent years, both inside the country and against its allies and positions in Syria, each time with Iran unable to retaliate. Furthermore, while the suspect deaths of two Revolutionary Guards generals (Mohammad Hossein-Zadeh Hejazi and Mohammad Ali Haqbin) cannot be directly attributed to Israel, reactions by senior Iranian officials suggest they suspect Israel's hand. Some regional reports on Hejazi's death have suggested he was poisoned.

Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami said at his funeral that "I heard Israel is rejoicing, but it will disappear." The latest violence in Gaza seems, at the very least, to be a consolation to Iranian officials, after months of helpless resentment against Israel. But Iran may have had a more direct hand.

The Iranian ayatollahs are telling Israel its attacks and sabotage in Vienna will not go unanswered.

Talks have stalled to revive a nuclear pact between Iran and the West, as Israel and Saudi Arabia pressure the administration of President Joe Biden to prevent its waltzing into a any-old deal with Tehran, and dashed Tehran's hopes of dealing with an "Obama-style" administration. Iranian officials have repeatedly accused Israel in past weeks of blocking the talks. With the country heaving under economic pressures, the regime has few bargaining chips with the West, besides threatening to rev up uranium enrichment or fueling regional violence.

It seems that speaking through the rocket fire of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Iranian ayatollahs are telling Israel its attacks and sabotage in Vienna will not go unanswered. Khamenei thus likely gave the green light for strikes on Israel. He had to take this dangerous step to show Iran's sway over the groups it arms, and how closely they listen to Tehran.

Ayatollah Ali Khameini condemns Israel in a May 11 speech — Photo : Iranian Supreme Leader's Office

Salami, the Revolutionary Guards chief, told an interviewer that Israel was "in decline" and "this time the Zionist regime may even collapse internally." He was one of several personalities in Iran and Lebanon who have claimed this violence is not unrelated to the U.S. strike that killed the Guards general Qasem Soleimani in early 2020. One Iranian legislator, Mohsen Dehnavi, had already threatened a "shower of missiles' on Israel, after a recent strike near its Dimona installation.

The other factor inside Iran is the presidential election slated for late June, with the attacks also bearing a message to the candidates in Tehran, that "real" revolutionaries don't negotiate — they strike.

The attacks may have sought to ruin the Abraham Accords, between Israel and Sunni countries in the Gulf. as Israel's predictably crushing response puts Arab countries on the defensive as regional media and opinion will be sure to blame Israel for civilian deaths rather than Hamas, which regularly uses human shields.

Iran is well practiced at using proxies to strike at the West. And Israel must respond, knowing that failure to do so will only embolden its foes. Right now, the Islamic Republic of Iran is in a hurry to have sanctions lifted, which can only happen if negotiations get moving in Vienna. Will their gamble pay off? It depends largely on how Israel reacts in the coming days. But the West should not ignore the triangular link between Iran's weakened position, talks in Vienna and the rockets flying between Gaza and Israel.