RUTHFULLY YOURS

Before the Biden administration gets too carried away celebrating the election of Iran’s so-called moderate president, it should understand that Masoud Pezeshkian’s victory is nothing more than a ploy to distract world attention away from Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

While Iranian voters have understandably been focused on electing a new president to replace hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a mysterious helicopter crash in May, the regime has been intensifying its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

Reports that Iran has now acquired sufficient quantities of enriched uranium to build nuclear warheads have been confirmed by Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN-sponsored body that is responsible for monitoring the mullahs’ nuclear programme.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with London’s Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, Grossi said of Iran’s long-standing effort to enrich uranium to the level required to develop nuclear warheads, “They have enough material for a few warheads already.”

He also warned that it could take Iran just a month or so to assemble a nuclear warhead, given the progress they have made in recent months in their enrichment programme.

“[T]hey could do it in a matter of perhaps a month or a bit more,” he conceded, adding that, so far as he knows, the Iranians “do not have nuclear weapons at this point.”

The acknowledgement by an internationally respected body such as the IAEA that Iran has now acquired sufficient material to build several nuclear warheads, which could be assembled within the space of a month, is a devastating indictment of the Biden administration’s policy of appeasement towards Iran since US President Joe Biden took office.

Rather than confronting Iran over its constant acts of aggression, and Tehran’s constant breaches of its commitments to the IAEA over its nuclear programme, Biden has instead concentrated his efforts on engaging with the Iranian regime in the vain hope of resurrecting the flawed JCPOA “nuclear deal” agreed on by the Obama administration back in 2015.

Biden’s refusal to hold Iran accountable for its actions has resulted in the Iranian regime receiving billions of dollars in added revenue because of Washington’s decision not to enforce oil sanctions against Iran. As a result, the extra funds received by Iran have been used to fund the regime’s terrorist networks across the globe, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Moreover, rather viewing the IAEA’s confirmation that Iran has now acquired sufficient nuclear material to produce nuclear weapons as a justification for taking a harder line towards Tehran, Pezeshkian’s appointment as the country’s next president will encourage the Biden administration to maintain its policy of appeasement towards Tehran.

For while Pezeshkian’s election victory has been hailed by many world leaders as an indication the Iranian regime is seriously interested in reform, the reality is that the election of Iran’s new president is nothing more than business-as-usual so far as the Iranian regime is concerned.

Far from being a moderate politician who is interested in reform, as Iran’s apologists would like the world to believe, Pezeshkian’s career both as a heart surgeon and, more recently, health minister has been defined by his unwavering loyalty to the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well the Islamic Republic’s hard-line policies.

As Pezeskhian himself remarked immediately after his victory was announced, “I believe in the Supreme Leader, I am totally following him,” he said.

The brutal reality is that the whole notion that Iran has just elected a more moderate president is nothing more than a confidence trick perpetrated by the regime’s hardliners who, after the intense pressure they have come under in recent months because of the brutal repression of anti-regime protesters, realised they needed to take drastic measures to justify the regime’s legitimacy.

Giving the appearance, therefore, that the Iranian people have got their wish of electing a “moderate” leader will go some way — or so they hope — to alleviating the pressure on the regime, thereby allowing it to concentrate its energy on its real priorities, such as its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

One of the fundamental principles of Iran’s Islamic constitution is, after all, that ultimate authority lies not with the president but with the country’s Supreme Leader.

Such is the control exercised by the Khamenei’s hardline supporters over the entire Iranian political system that all candidates — Pezeshkian included — must first be vetted by the Guardian Council, the custodians of the Islamic revolution who report directly to the Supreme Leader.

As a senior official with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted to The Telegraph, in the wake of the election, that Pezeshkian had only been allowed to compete in the election to “legitimise the vote”.

“No one in the Guardian Council or the office of the Supreme Leader did not expect that coming, he was just approved to boost turnout,” one official said.

It is vital, therefore, that the Biden administration fully understands the cynicism shown by Iran’s hardliners in seeking to legitimise their brutal regime before making any further overtures to the country’s so-called moderate president.

In the uncompromising world of Iran’s autocratic Islamic republic, there is no such thing as a moderate Iranian president — a fact that Iran’s long-suffering people know only too well.

Con Coughlin is the Telegraph‘s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.