Two Regime Officials Say Iran Needs The JCPOA TO Avert Deeper Crises

Tehran announced on Saturday that it executed the former deputy defense minister, Alireza Akbari, after sentencing him to death on charges of spying for Britain’s MI6.

Before his death, an audio file was leaked where he claimed to have been tortured for 3,500 hours. Akbari said in the tape the regime had forced him to confess to crimes he had not committed.

Following the execution, The Sunday Telegraph said the UK is reconsidering its support for the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA, dealing another blow to the chances of reviving the accord. Britain has been a key player in the talks on restoring the Obama-era deal, abandoned by former US President Donald Trump.

The Sunday Telegraph cited senior – but unnamed -- British government sources as saying that the “landscape” has changed significantly since negotiations began in 2021, and as such Britain is now reviewing its options regarding its future involvement in renewing the deal.

“During the time we have been dealing with it, the landscape and proposition has completely changed – largely because of the behavior of the Iranian regime,” a government source said. The sources pointed out that the relationship with Tehran has been under severe strain in recent months due to its brutal repression of protests, ignited by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. Meanwhile, Downing Street said “all options are under review” following the execution of Akbari.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has also announced a series of measures in response to the execution, including sanctioning the regime’s prosecutor general and summoning Iran’s charge d’affaires to convey Britain’s “disgust”. He said the sanctions show that the UK is serious about holding Iran to account for its “appalling human rights violations”.

The British ambassador to Iran has also been temporarily recalled to the UK for urgent talks about possible next steps. Cleverly is also set to travel to Washington DC on Monday for talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken where the two will discuss Iran.

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On Saturday, Rishi Sunak accused the regime of a “callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people”.

Ramin Forghani, Akbari’s nephew who fled to Luxembourg because of his opposition to the regime, has said that continuing the discussions with Iran would be “unthinkable”.

Britain is already drawing up plans to proscribe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

Britain has also received support from the United States, France and Germany, all signatories of the JCPOA, in its condemnation of the execution.

Since negotiations to revive the nuclear deal or JCPOA broke down in September, the Biden administration and its European allies have put the talks on the backburner and even President Joe Biden said in early November that “JCPOA is dead.” 

Akbari’s execution is a major escalation in tensions between the West and the Islamic Republic, which were already sour over Tehran’s crackdown on nationwide antigovernment protests and its military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Akbari had been deputy defense minister under the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, from 1997 to 2005. He was an advocate of the Iran nuclear deal known as the JCPOA that was eventually signed in 2015 with world powers.

He was also close to Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. A source close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has provided information to Iran International showing that the execution of Akbari is aimed at weakening Shamkhani’s position in the clerical regime. It seems that President Ebrahim Raisi, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Interior Minister Ahmed Vahidi are exerting pressure to remove Shamkhani from the post.

Head of Non-Governmental Schools and Centers Ahmad Mahmoudzadeh told ILNA Sunday that “We will have a call to produce content of language books for schools, which will be implemented in line with the order of the Supreme Leader.”

"Language books that have nothing to do with our culture will be discarded," he added.

Changing the content of textbooks based on the government's propaganda policies has been implemented in the last few years upon the order of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. However, this is the first time that these changes will be applied to the language teaching books of private institutes.

Ali Khamenei had earlier criticized teaching English in general, saying in 2016 that "now we have reached to a point that English language learning has been extended to kindergartens".

Following his comments, ministry of education put a ban on teaching English at primary schools.

English is not included in Iran's official curriculum during the six years of primary school, but various non-governmental and a small part of public schools teach students English as extra-curricular subject, and these classes are not mandatory.

In recent years, some government officials have also suggested that instead of English, the teaching of Russian, Chinese and German languages should be supported in Iran.

Akbari, a former high-ranking defense official was accused by the regime of espionage for the United Kingdom.

Zarghami in a tweet on Saturday called for an investigation into Akbari's "change of behavior", saying that "I am worried about the repetition of this process." He did not say that he believes Akbari was innocent, something that would endanger his own security.

He added that "Alireza Akbari's fate was a bitter experience for the establishment" because he had "70 months of service" in the Iran-Iraq war.

Iran announced Akbari’s execution on Saturday, after sentencing the former Iranian deputy defense minister to death for espionage.

Akbari, also served as an advisor to the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani.

A source close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has provided information to Iran International showing that accusations against Akbari and his death sentence were aimed at weakening Shamkhani’s position in the clerical regime. It seems that President Ebrahim Raisi, Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi are exerting pressure to remove Shamkhani from the post.

The execution of Akbari was met with a wave of international condemnations, and Britain sanctioned Iran's Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri hours after Akbari’s execution was announced.

Britain called the execution a barbaric act, a sentiment echoed by the United States, France, Germany and Canada.

The IRIB's budget for the Iranian year 1402 which starts on March 21, has grown by 42 percent compared to last year's budget.

Some observers have attributed the rise in the state TV's budget to IRIB Chief Payman Jebelli's development plans for the organization. But the 7-fold rise in IRIB's annual budget since 2018 or its 4-fold increase since the inauguration of President Ebrahim Raisi in 2021 can be explained as a way of helping the state television to cope with the sharp devaluation of Iranian currency.

The Raisi administration started with a rate of exchange for US dollar of 250,000 rials which has so far risen to around 400,000 rials.

Last year, the state TV's budget was larger than the budgets allocated of 16 government ministries. This year, it is more than the budget for any Iranian province other than the Fars Province. Nonetheless, according to many critics and media including Khabar Online its audience has been declining since 2017.

While the budgets of the education ministry or other essential institutions have in real terms declined because of the worthless rials they receive, the hardliners ruling in Iran have made sure their main propaganda and repression outfits are well compensated for the de facto devaluation of the national currency.

Despite this, IRIB's output has been decreasing. Some of the TV series made on hefty budgets has had only 16 percent popularity according to the IRIB's own research center. Meanwhile, the broadcaster had to pull several entertainment programs that TV host Reza Dorostkar called "rubbish".

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But for the regime perhaps the more important thing is that IRIB broadcasts confessions of dissidents obtained under torture. Two of its so-called journalists are active interrogators of political prisoners.

The 42-percent rise in IRIB's budget becomes meaningful when we consider a minimal 20-percent salary increase for government employees in the face of an at least 50-percent inflation rate. An example of the extravagant rise in IRIB's budget is the amount allocated to the broadcaster's supervisory board which has only 6 members, all regime insiders. The budget for the supervisory board has increased from 70 billion rials two years ago to 90 billion rials last year and 145 billion rials for the coming Iranian year on March 21.

Nonetheless, the state TV is not the only organization receiving a hefty annual budget for the coming year. There are tens of religious and ideological propaganda organizations that are not accountable to anyone and have no checks and balances for their financial turnover.

According to economic journalists in Iran, The budget for Propaganda Office of the Qom Seminary has increased by 54.4 percent, The organization that runs Ruhollah Khomeini's tomb has received a 71.4 percent rise, the organizations that protects the relics of the 1980s war with Iraq received a 159.2 percent boost and the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representatives at the universities rose by over 40 percent.

Reports also say that among Iranian security organizations, the Intelligence Ministry got a 43 percent rise while the the police force got is 41 percent, the Army's Joint Chief of Staff got 32.5 percent, the IRGC 48 percent and the Basij 11.5 percent.

The substantially enlarged draft state budget, which is heavily dependent on tax revenues, will kickstart a month-long review of the bill before parliament holds a vote to approve it and turn it into a law. Last year the Majles changed some of the figures presented by the government in budget bill, but the parliament complained later that the Raisi administration spent the budget in its own way rather than sticking to the what the Majles had approved.

Herischi & Associates, who are based in Bethesda, Maryland, say they have taken a case in the United Kingdom against the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), and against insurers for NITC and the Sanchi. The Panamanian-flagged, Iranian-owned tanker caught fire in January 2018 after colliding in the East China Sea, 530km south east of Shanghai, with a Hong-Kong registered Chinese cargo ship, the CF Crystal.

While the 21-strong Chinese crew were rescued, Iran announced that all 30 crew members on the Sanchi – 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis - had died due to explosions, fire, and release of noxious gases resulting from a volatile 136,000-tonne cargo of natural-gas condensate.

But in a press release to publicize its latest case, Herischi & Associates claimed that the crewmen successfully left the ship, that the Sanchi was carrying a “secret cargo to be delivered secretly to North Korea,” and that 22 crew were alive in Iranian custody “weeks after the accident.” The press release gave no indication of what the secret cargo was.

Letter from Kim Jun Un

The law firm said it had discovered all this through gaining access to emails and recordings of Iranian officials, “volunteered sensitive information” from Iranian security forces, as well as “top secret Iranian documents” including a message from Revolutionary Guards intelligence to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Herischi & Associates even claimed to have a letter from North Korean leader Kim Jung Un to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei “thanking him for delivery of the cargo and his sadness [sic] for the accident.”

Iran at the time announced that the Sanchi was sailing from Asaluyeh, Bushehr province, southern Iran, to South Korea. Nader Pasandeh, a senior official at Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization, told reporters that the Crystal had caused the collision through human error.

But in early 2019, Iranian media carried reports of family members protesting outside the foreign ministry, the Chinese embassy and the presidential office. Relatives told Shargh, Hamshahri and other newspapers that they had received telephone calls, broken off as soon as answered, from sailor relatives who had been on the Sanchi. Mohammad Mehdi Boroumandi, who chaired a government committee into the disaster, said claims “about the Sanchi crew being taken hostage” were “based on hearsay,” while parliament member Mohammad Reza Kouchi called for an investigation into hoax calls.

‘Undisclosed location’

In December 2019, Herischi filed a lawsuit in a district court in Washington DC against the ‘National Iranian Tanker Company’ and named officials on behalf of families of ten crewmembers of the Sanchi. According to the law firm’s press release at that time, the families alleged “the crew of the Sanchi were seized after the collision” and had “been held in detention for nearly two years in an undisclosed location.” Herischi cited “the key piece of evidence” as “multiple phone calls…made from crewmembers’ cellphones to their relatives in the months following the ship’s destruction.”

In October 2020, Herischi announced thy were seeking over $1 billion damages for US citizens who lost relatives when a Ukrainian passenger airliner bound for Kyiv was January 2020 shot down over Tehran by a mobile missile launcher during high tensions with the US.