Hope for reaching a U.S.-Iran peace deal is gradually fading away

Araz Barwari | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Hope of millions of suffering people in the Middle East is fading away about US and Iran reaching a deal over Iran’s nuclear and missile weapon program. The two countries still haven’t reached any new deal over the Iranian nuclear weapon program because they have different demands and expectations of one another.

US, Israel and European countries have consistently asked Iran to drop its nuclear weapon ambition and stop it’s missile manufacturing program, and arming Shi’a militias in the region, in exchange for lifting economic sanctions on the regime.

US and EU countries like France, Germany and UK have offered such a deal to Iran because they are concerned about the Iranian nuclear and missiles program for various reasons.

Iran in response has always said that it doesn’t want to make nuclear weapons but has insisted that since Iran has many enemies, its missile program is needed to be active and updated in-order to be able to encounter any threat and to protect its security and sovereignty from future attackers like Saddam.

Iran also claims it tends to use the weapon only for self defense. Ultimately, Iran justifies its missile program as a legitimate national right like many other countries because it’s run to produce weapons only for protection and self defense. Therefore, Iran says closing it down is not negotiable with anyone.

However, for US, EU, Sunni Arab countries, and Israel, the matter of closing down Iranian nuclear program and missiles factories and also it’s arm supplies to Shi’a militias in the Middle East, is key conditions and demands that is not negotiable with Iran as it is the only thing that guarantees the interests, safety and security of US and its Arab allies in the Middle East. Both sides have conflicting views, demands and expectations from one another which leaves no hope for a peace settlement between Iran and US.

Clearly, neither side is backing down from their demands and conditions or else they would have reached a deal by now. So this means Iranian top Shi’a Mullahs and Islamic Revolution guards commanders IRGC, who control Iran, eventually choose to continue making ballistic missile over accepting western economic incentives offer which would economically benefit millions of Iranian poor and unemployed people who have been suffering as a result of this situation.

Iran is certainly not a true democratic country because its run under a religious dictator. It has a biased, and discriminating religious constitution of Islamic Shia school of thought which doesn’t guarantee the rights of Iranian minorities.

Iranian parliament is too weak to make a decision or a deal with US that would be in the interests of Iranian people because the ultimate decision is made by Shi’a Mullahs and IRGC commanders over its nuclear weapon and missile program. They call it Islamic Republic of Iran’s national security matter.

Meanwhile, many countries around the world such Russia, China have missile manufacturing programs too. They produce massive amounts of different types of modern missiles with different range and sophistication. But this makes one wonder as why US perceive Iranian shorter range missiles 2,000 km a more serious threat than for example, Russian R-36M (SS-18 Satan), missile with the range of 16,000km or China’s Dongfeng-41 (DF-41, CSS-X-10), China with the range of 12,000km.

But apparently US and Israel have their own reasons to put it’s focus and efforts more on stopping the Iranian missile program rather than other countries like North Korea, Russia and China, who produce much more advanced missiles than Iran does.

The first reason is US and European countries possibly believe that the mentality of people who rule China or Russia, who manufacture and possess these weapons, are different than the mentality of people who rule over Iran.

With Iran being run under the mentality of religious fanatic and zealotry leaders like Khamenei, it makes US to believe Iran is more dangerous than China or Russia because religious zealotry and fanaticism ideology of Iranian Shi’a leaders is far more extreme then nationalistic and socialistic ideologies of Russian and Chinese leaders.

China and Russia is not under the rule of religious fanatic politicians and military leaders. They might not be as democratic as the US leaders but they are not religious fanatic leaders either.

The second reason US and Israeli military generals thinks Iranian massive amounts of missile production can turn to a big threat to it’s military forces in the middle East because if Iranian military fire hundreds of missiles together at US military forces especially form different directions and at the same time, (potentially from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen ) they can’t all be intercepted.

This means few missiles will hit and cause damage and casualties to US military Navy and bases, or oil tankers in the Persian Gulf or Saudi Arabian facilities and maybe even to Israeli assets and lives as well in the Middle East. In fact, destroying even one US Navy Carrier will cost US not only millions of dollars but will also hurt it’s weapon selling market of air defense system weapons.

The third reason is, if US doesn’t stop the growth of Iranian military power in the middle East, US military presence would come off as irrelevant and infective towards the protection of the interests of its Sunni Arab allies from the power and hegemony of Iran in the Middle East.

US and Israel ultimately want a regime change or at least a regime mentality change in Iran towards its own people, Israel, US and its Arab allies. So to achieve this goal, US and Israel are using different means started from economic sanctions to proportional military strikes against Iranian interests in, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq.

Basically US is using the policy of carrots and sticks with Iran to achieve its objectives. However, Iranian regime believes that if it stops it’s missile manufacturing program, it will have no strong means to protect itself against its enemies. And Iran will becomes more vulnerable to attacks by anti Islamic Shi’a forces around the world. This claim might be true to a certain extent because groups like Isis don’t hesitate to kill Shi’a Muslims wherever they find them.

However, in reality Iranian regime doesn’t produce missiles of different ranges only to protect its self from groups like ISIS. The real motive behind advanced weapon manufacturing especially in massive amounts means more insurance and protection for Shi’a Mullahs and IRGC commanders to continue ruling and controlling Iran’s wealth, power and resources for ever yet get away with all crimes they have committed against Iranian people and foreigners.

Furthermore, considering the horrible record of human rights abuse and all other crimes Mullah and commanders of Islamic Revolution guards have committed against different Iranian religious, ethnic minorities and foreigners, they know very well that if Iranian government system changes to a secular democracy, Mullahs and IRGC commanders will lose power and wealth of the country and they can be easily arrested and tried for their crimes against humanity.

For the Mullahs and IRGC commanders, staying in power or or leaving the power in Iran is the matter of life and death. They see only holding on to power institutions of the country, and producing high tech weapons is the only grantors to their life safety. As a result a bunch of religious fanatic criminals leaders in Tehran will remain free from prosecution.

Iran regime also knows if they stop making advanced weapons to protect themselves and deter military threats of others, and if they don’t create military power balance with other powerful enemies, and if they fail to keep up with military capabilities of their enemies, they can be easily attacked by US, Israel and other opposition and anti Shi’a group like Isis.

The Iranian regime IRGC military commander and Mullahs know If they don’t control government money, weapons and military in Iran, they can be revolted against by people and easily removed from power.

Once they are out of power, they will eventually be either killed like Muammar Gaddafi or arrested like Saddam and brought to the court for all the crimes they (Mullah and IRGC commanders) have committed against different people since they came to power in 1979.

However, Iranian regime brush all their crimes under the carpet and instead, tells its people and the world that USA’s main intentions behind asking Iran to close down it’s missile program is to first disarm Iran, then invade it and control and plunder it’s wealth and resources. The disarmament of Iranian regime will make the mission easier for US to invade Iran like Iraq.

A peace deal between Iran and US will save many costs, lives for both sides. It will put an end to the long economic sufferings of millions of people in the Middle East. However, if Iran doesn’t take US and European economic incentives offers in exchange for stopping its nuclear and missile program, a military confrontation with Iran will automatically be the next option for US.

However, US and Israel seems to be patient for going to a war with Iran because it continue pressuring Iran economically and politically with the hope to make the regime accept the US offers over its military weapons program.

If Iran doesn’t give in the alternative is war undoubtedly and Iran will lose the war to US. History shows that wars usually happens between two countries when the two countries have conflicting interests and neither sides is willing to accept the offers and conditions of the other in-order to reach a peace deal.

Araz Barwari is a law student at the University of Nawroz in Kurdistan of Iraq.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.