Editorial comment: Iran is paying the price for meddling

Reimposition of sanctions shows that Washington and its allies have had enough of Tehran’s duplicity

From today, Iran enters a challenging new phase in its economic activity and international relations, with the imposition of a series of tough sanctions on the regime for its failure to fully satisfy Washington and its allies over the intentions of its nuclear programme. But the sanctions too are being imposed on the Tehran regime that continues to flout international norms by arming, aiding and abetting the militias and armed groups from the Bab Al Mandab to the Mediterranean who further its sectarian and seditious agenda.

For too long and in too many places, with so many arms and so many alms, the regime in Tehran has spread terror and sedition, unsettling this region and bringing chaos, crisis and catastrophe, enabling terrorists to wage murderous campaigns, unsettling, unhinging and usurping governments from Yemen to Beirut. At the very same time as it was signing on to the fundamentally flawed international agreement hatched on its nuclear programme, the regime in Tehran was arming and funding Hezbollah to keep President Bashar Al Assad in power in Damascus, and flying in the face of the United Nations Security Council and its resolution on Yemen by secretly supplying a deadly and sophisticated arsenal of weaponry and rockets to Al Houthi militia.

The reimposition of international sanctions is a significant show of solidarity that designates the government in Iran as being a clear and present danger to world order and regional stability. The regime was given every opportunity to return to normal standards of international behaviour, but it has shunned those diplomatic entreaties and instead, continued on its path to expand and expound its wholly and unholy sectarian agenda.

For now, the international sanctions in place strictly curtail Iran’s ability to move its oil and energy products, and the result will be an immediate sharp shock to its finances. The intermediate and long-term effects will be felt by ordinary Iranians.

Iranian parliamentarians too have been calling for change in Iran’s economy. Now, with the reimposition of sanctions, those same parliamentarians will know who to blame — their political leadership and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who have actively flouted international law and funded Tehran’s forces of sedition and terror across this region and beyond.

There is a sad irony in this saga in that Iran is blessed with an abundance of minerals and natural resources that ought to form the basis of a wealthy economy. That it has not become a productive economy is entirely the fault of its political regime, who prioritises international meddling over internal well-being. And for that, Iranians now pay a hefty price.