The Iranian threat
Iran launched its first military satellite into space on April 22, revealing a secret program that could dangerously advance its development of ballistic missiles. The Iranian move, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, should be a wake-up call for the entire world and particularly the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose mission is to monitor Iran’s commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal.
The US and the UK squarely condemned the launch, calling it a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 demanding that Iran not engage in any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that Tehran be held accountable for defying the resolution, while a Foreign Office spokesman in London cautioned: “We have significant and long-standing concerns, alongside our international partners, over Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is destabilizing for the region and poses a threat to regional security.”
Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is obligated to declare all its nuclear activities to the IAEA, which informed its governing board of 35 member states last month that Tehran was refusing to provide access to at least three possible nuclear sites.
Notwithstanding the heavy toll exacted by the coronavirus in the Islamic Republic, Iranian leaders appear to be undeterred about spending depleted funds in their state coffers on a uranium enrichment program aimed at building nuclear weapons instead of on their citizens.
As David Albright, president of the US-based non-governmental Institute for Science and International Security wrote this week, this program in itself provides a major justification for continued US and international sanctions.
“If Iran today wants a serious discussion about sanctions relief, it should start by abandoning the key threat Tehran poses to international peace and security: its uranium enrichment program,” Albright said. “Instead, Iran holds its own people hostage over the deadly coronavirus outbreak in a cynical campaign for wholesale sanctions relief.”
For Israel, Iran’s nuclear program is of particular concern because the country’s radical regime has frequently threatened to wipe the Jewish state off the map.
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday that Israel’s “war-between-wars” campaign against Iran is continuing despite the spread of the coronavirus. As evidenced by Monday’s missile attack on Syria attributed to the IDF, Bennett signaled that Israel was moving from a policy of blocking Iran to “pushing it out.”
In a Remembrance Day interview with Kol BaRama radio broadcaster Mendi Rizel, Bennett declared that Israel is ready to pay the price, whatever that is, to stop the Iranians from acquiring nuclear arms.
“We won’t allow them to be a nation capable of destroying the Jewish state,” Bennett said. “We won’t allow them to attain a nuclear weapon – at any price.”
The US is key in this regard, and the administration of President Donald Trump has indicated that it is ready to exert greater diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran. According to Daniel E. Sanger writing in The New York Times, Pompeo is preparing a legal argument that Washington remain a participant in the Iran nuclear accord which Trump renounced as part of a strategy to pressure the Security Council to extend an arms embargo on Tehran or impose far more stringent sanctions on it.
“We cannot allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to purchase conventional weapons in six months,” Pompeo said in a statement to the newspaper. “We are prepared to exercise all of our diplomatic options to ensure the arms embargo stays in place at the UN Security Council.”
The international community, led by the US, Russia, China and Europe, cannot let the coronavirus crisis deflect attention from Iran’s nefarious goals. No one understands this better than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has led a consistent campaign against Iran for over a decade.
With former IDF chief Benny Gantz, the leader of Blue and White, now by his side, Netanyahu will have to keep up Israeli military action to stop Iran from arming Shi’ite militias in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, while working on the diplomatic front to ensure that the world remains acutely aware of the regime’s nuclear ambitions and hegemonic plans in the Middle East.
COVID-19, which has devastated Iran, could be a turning point in efforts to oust the ayatollahs and help restore sanity and prosperity to the country’s people.