Sanctions Have Slashed Ayatollah Iran's War-Making Capacity

Townhall.com ^ | October 21, 2020 | Austin Bay

[Kaslin]

As October began, Iran's religious dictators were peddling a narrative of imminent triumph on "a momentous day," Oct. 18. On that day, the 13-year-long U.N. arms embargo imposed on Iranian security forces would expire. U.N. Security Council members Russia and China refused to renew it. Both dictatorships acknowledge they would love to sell weapons to Iran.

According to Tehran's propagandists and western media apologists, on the momentous day, The Great Satan (the U.S.) and its malign President Donald Trump would suffer a stinging diplomatic defeat. The regime survived the embargo!

Unlike the Obama administration, the Trump administration understands that the Tehran regime's propaganda theater masks its desperation. Defeat? Since 2017, the Iranian regime has suffered scores of economic, political and military defeats, several self-inflicted or exacerbated by regime corruption.

In 2017, the Trump administration re-imposed economic sanctions with the goals of stopping Iran's nuclear weapons program and penalizing the regime's malign behavior, such as its vicious oppression of its own people, its waging of proxy wars, its engaging in transnational crime and its seeding violence globally.

U.S. sanctions have the devalued Iran's currency. StrategyPage.com recently reported that in 2015, one U.S. dollar bought 32,000 Iranian rials (open market rate). In September 2020, 260,000 rials bought a buck. Now it takes 315,000. Note Iranian companies importing food and medicine have a subsidized official exchange rate: 42,000 rials to the dollar.

The regime survived the arms embargo, but 2020 rials don't buy the guns they did in 2015. Sanctions have slashed the rial's war-making ability. Weapons aren't food and medicine. Russian and Chinese weapons suppliers expect hard cash or oil.

Analysts estimate Iran's GDP will shrink 8% this year. Corruption, mismanagement, American economic sanctions and the Wuhan virus/COVID-19 all contribute to the economic decline.

On Oct. 8, the U.S. sanctioned 18 more Iranian banks. The State Department press release specified the U.S. goal as "further depriving the Islamic Republic of Iran of funds to carry out its support for terrorist activities and nuclear extortion that threatens the world."

On Oct. 13, The New York Times published an editorial ostensibly bewailing the Wuhan virus/COVID-19's toll in Iran. Iran is "the hardest-hit country in the Middle East," it said. However, the editorial's real target was the Trump administration, which "has shown little mercy" to Iran. As the death toll mounts, "the administration is adding new sanctions on a country ... already struggling to buy essential medicines." Thus, "the new sanctions against these 18 banks are particularly cruel during a pandemic." The editorial dismissed assurances that the sanctions didn't apply to food and medicine. In fact, the editorial wanted sanctions dropped because they have "not achieved the ultimate goal of forcing the Iranian government to capitulate to Washington." (An echo of "the regime survives" mantra?)

The Times editorial has the core elements of that schtick, enhanced by ardent tales of Iranian misery.

Since the 1979 revolution, blaming The Great Satan for Iran's woes international and internal has been the dictatorship's permanent information warfare gambit.

[Kaslin]

Since the 1979 revolution, blaming The Great Satan for Iran's woes international and internal has been the dictatorship's permanent information warfare gambit.

Thanks to that Peanut farmer from Georgia

[DoughtyOne]

I was just going to say...

Thanks for beating me to it.

Jimmy Carter and Barack Hussein Obama, the two gifts that
just keep on giving...

[Gen.Blather]

“Thanks to that Peanut farmer from Georgia”

Unlike Obama and Clinton, I think Carter was honest. But he was an ideolog, like Obama and Clinton and that damage alone was enough to infect the world with a Jihadist philosophy that was basically dormant since the end of WWI. Add the Clinton crime family and the Obama Jihadist supporter and they, together, made the world a much less safe place for humanity. (While enriching themselves to a ridiculous degree.) Imagine a Biden presidency, which would be owned by the Chinese and whoever is backing the others who paid huge sums to Hunter, who was essentially a procurer. How safe would the free world be under them?

[LRoggy]

Too simplistic . . he certainly accelerated the Shah’s downfall by meeting with Khomeini in Paris and blessing him, but the Shah was not exactly a wallflower himself and the Iranian people were eventually going to go this way anyhow.

Carter was as much into human rights as Reagan (back when BOTH parties actually cared about that) and the likely support of the Shah would have made this a lot bloodier than the 50 hostages, with the likely same result. Reagan spooked the Mullahs to the point they released the hostages pretty much on his Inauguration Day and Reagan wes kind enough to let Carter greet them at Andrews Air Base.

Obama was really the goat in this story. And he should face eternal shame in the history books for this stupidity, with Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett right behind him.

[chuckee]

The ayotollah’s ammo supply is down to 17 tree branches. After the troops beat themselves with them, they make a run at the enemy with them