Iran’s regime President, Ebrahim Raisi, marked the first anniversary of his inauguration last Monday with a wide-ranging speech in which he ridiculously claimed that his administration had solved numerous socio-economic problems at both national and local levels. The speech was aimed to portray an unstable ruling theocracy as more powerful than ever. Yet, Raisi miserably failed by presenting some bogus facts and figures.
It was no doubt for the same purpose that Raisi avoided referencing the fraught negotiations over the future of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal until roughly the midway point of his two-hour address. When he did, it was only to reiterate the regime’s outstanding ultimatums and to champion his own imaginary success in “neutralizing” US sanctions with domestic economic production. Such claims reinforce prior statements from Raisi and other regime officials, which portray the regime’s Western adversaries as being in much more desperate need of a deal to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
This reflects the regime’s effort to exploit a global energy crisis to acquire new concessions from the JCPOA’s Western signatories. That crisis largely stems from the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Tehran recently began actively supporting by providing the Russian military with missile-carrying drones.
Therefore, Iranian officials and state media outlets argue that by isolating themselves from Russian oil and gas markets, Western powers have...
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