Last month, in its most recent quarterly report on Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed Tehran’s enriched uranium is far above the limit permitted in the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Furthermore, Iran has broken the 3.6 percent purity and has stockpiled 2,105.4 kg of enriched uranium with 4.5 percent purity.

Based on scientific details, Iran is not yet capable of producing a nuclear weapon. However, given the Iranian government’s non-transparent background, the actual amount of stored uranium is unclear. In the past two decades, Tehran has ceaselessly continued its nuclear activities.

They never complied with their obligations under the JCPOA despite receiving billions of dollars as economic reliefs. Instead, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the authorities “not to destroy all the bridges.”

In this respect, speaking to the state-run Channel Four TV on January 22, 2019, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi exposed that the Iranian government had cheated in its obligations. “The leader [Khamenei] warned us that they were violators of agreements. We had to act wisely. Not only did we avoid destroying the bridges that we had built, but we also built new bridges that would enable us to go back faster if needed,” he said.

“We had bought the same quantity of similar tubes. When [P5+1 negotiators] told us to pour cement into the tubes… we said, ‘Fine. We will pour.’ But we did not tell them that we had other tubes. Otherwise, they would have told us to pour cement into those tubes as well. Now we have the same tubes,” he added.

Salehi’s remarks flagrantly showed that the JCPOA was full of loopholes. The nuclear agreement practically allowed the ayatollahs to advance their ballistic missile programs, which enable them to produce missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The flawed deal also tempted the ayatollahs to continue joint researches with North Korea to achieve nuclear weapons.

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However, the people of Iran and the Middle East region were the first losers of the deal. Given the agreement, the ayatollahs managed to evade international pressures to respect people’s fundamental human and civil rights. Furthermore, the agreement exempted them from the global attention to their malign and provocative behavior in neighboring countries.

Regrettably, the West turned a blind eye to Tehran’s accomplice with the butcher of Damascus in suppressing Syrian citizens with toxic gas. Western leaders’ eagerness to deal with Iranian authoritarians also led them to turn back to the Iranian people’s democratic protests in 2009. It also siphoned billions of dollars in cash and credit for the ayatollahs, which was totally squandered on improving oppressive and aggressive apparatuses such as the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

In this respect, as the people of Iran are losing their loved ones due to the government’s mismanagement of the novel coronavirus. They do not need that their national resources to be spent on armaments and nuclear ambitions, opposition activists say. The people of Iran are in severe need of health and hygienic items and equipment, sparing their lives and health, not more tanks, missiles, and other weaponry systems.

In this context, the world must impose a comprehensive embargo on the Iranian government, ensuring the Iranian people’s wealth uses to cover their necessities. As the Foreign Ministry’s former spokesperson said, “Food and medicine have never been sanctioned.” However, the ayatollahs would like to gain political privileges by leaving the people in misery and hardship. Therefore, the international community must apply stiff monitoring on the Iranian government’s banking system and money transferring, compelling it to purchase the people’s needs.

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