Whatever one’s stance is on the Iran nuclear deal, one thing is clear – the Iranian regime is out of control and it poses a threat to the entire international community.
The United States is intent on ensuring that foreign policy towards Iran is sturdier. Next month, the Trump administration will announce what measures will be taken. Trump has made no secret of his contempt for the deal and wants to make sure that the country is held accountable for its actions.
Iran has recently denied the UN nuclear inspectors access to its military sites (with regards to verification of the country’s nuclear facilities).
Iran is acting like it has all the power in its hands, and it has certainly been treated as such. During the negotiations for the nuclear deal, Iran was given numerous concessions. In fact, way too many concessions. It was given dozens of billions of dollars despite being nothing but deceptive for the past few decades.
Even despite the nuclear deal, Iran is still continuing with its nuclear program and is anything but open about its activities. In fact, the nuclear deal has made the regime even more deceptive and secretive.
And despite the nuclear deal, Iran continues to support terrorism and fundamentalism. It is working with North Korea on ballistic missile development and it is fuelling the civil war in Syria.
It is expected that the Trump administration will reveal a new policy that will limit Iran’s influence in Iraq and Syria and put additional pressure regarding ballistic missile testing.
However, one area that the international community could tackle is the human rights situation. Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations said recently that human rights matter “now more than ever”. She said: “We say all the time if the government does not take care of its people, bad things will happen.”
Iran’s human rights situation is shocking. The people there are supressed beyond what we can only imagine in the West. People do not have freedom of speech or freedom of expression or freedom of religion. In fact, they have very little freedom in any part of their lives.
The Iranian authorities execute dissidents and are known to put children to death. At the minute, there are almost one hundred children on death row. Prisoners are tortured and denied due process. People are arrested for arbitrary reasons.
The Iranian regime has also been involved in one of the most horrific crimes against humanity – the 1988 massacre. During the period of one single summer, Iranian authorities executed around 30,000 political prisoners. Most of those who died were members of the opposition – PMOI / MEK. Yet, no investigation has ever been carried out and the Iranian regime has continued to disrespect human rights ever since.
This needs to change. The Iranian regime needs to be held to account for its actions, but most of all, the people of Iran must be allowed to have at least the most basic of human rights. The international community needs to support this.
