{"id":233193,"date":"2021-01-15T09:18:38","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T14:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=233193"},"modified":"2023-02-01T05:24:31","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T04:24:31","slug":"how-the-world-offers-concessions-to-iran-for-its-malign-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/terrorism-a-fundamentalism\/how-the-world-offers-concessions-to-iran-for-its-malign-activities\/","title":{"rendered":"How the World Offers Concessions To Iran for Its Malign Activities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Iran-spec-terrorism-03112020\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, Iran\u2019s hardline paramilitary, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, seized a South Korean-flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, apparently as part of a bid to strong-arm the South Korean government into facilitating the release of seven billion dollars in Iranian assets that remain frozen in accordance with US sanctions. Subsequent developments have seen Iranian officials promoting a familiar narrative that says the IRGC<\/a>\u2019s strategies do represent the regime as a whole. Unfortunately, many Western policymakers still fail to see through this false narrative.<\/p>\n

There is really no excuse for this blindness. As Tehran sets about using the tanker as a bargaining chip, it is also using a familiar strategy that may easily be compared to \u201cgood cop, bad cop\u201d interrogation tactics. The Iranian officials who are currently negotiating with the South Koreas are actively portraying themselves as innocent bystanders in this situation, while the IRGC and other hardliners are tacitly threatening harm to the ship\u2019s sailors and to the future security of international shipping unless they are appeased.<\/p>\n

This moderate\/hardline divide is a false dichotomy, but one that allows some Iranian officials to play the good cop by arguing that concessions are needed in order to constrain hardliners whom they otherwise have no control over. Presently, this strategy is being applied to frozen assets in the context of a detained ship, but in the past it has also been used to obtain concessions from the West regarding everything from individual prisoner swaps to the 2015 nuclear deal.<\/p>\n

There must come a time when the international community recognizes this strategy for what it is, and ceases to accept that Iran\u2019s \u201cmoderates\u201d and \u201chardliners\u201d are truly at odds with each other. Fortunately, there are signs that growing numbers of Western policymakers are adopting appropriately skeptical views of the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n

Still, there is some ways to go before Western attitudes are uniformly in favor of treating both those factions the same. In the meantime, it remains all too plausible that the European Union will go on promoting friendly discussions with Iranian government officials like President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif<\/a>, while refusing to hold them accountable for the actions of hardline entities like the IRGC.<\/p>\n

Western policymakers\u2019 outlook may not be directly relevant to the tanker situation, but their perspective has strong potential to influence policymakers throughout the free world as they consider how to interact with the Iranian regime under current circumstances. Talks between Iranian officials and a visiting South Korean delegation began just days after the seizure took place, and there was no indication that the Koreans received any note of caution from those who have grown more familiar with Iran\u2019s provocations over the years.<\/p>\n

Had Western powers adopted appropriately assertive policies in their own right, they would surely find the motivation to remind allies elsewhere in the world, including the Koreans, that their interests do not in fact overlap with those of Iran\u2019s so-called moderates. Quite to the contrary, figures like Rouhani and Zarif have a long history of openly cooperating with their supposed hardline adversaries. In 2019, Zarif even went so far as to boast to state media that was holding weekly meetings with Qassem Soleimani<\/a>, the commander of the IRGC Quds Force<\/a> who, early the next year, was killed by a US drone strike while planning terrorist operations in Iraq.<\/p>\n

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Iran FM Javad Zarif, and Chieftain terrorist Qassem Soleimani, two side of the same coin<\/div><\/div>
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