Share

Tweet

Share

Share

Email

Comments

Rami Dabbas – Trump’s departure Will change the balance of power in the Middle East in Iran’s favor

The balance of power was in Iran’s favor before the Trump administration came to power. With his departure, the situation may change again in favor of the Islamic Republic.

Against Iran, there is no doubt that Israel has been extremely fortunate in the past four years. The Donald Trump administration’s policy toward the Islamic Republic was fully aligned with the goals of the Jewish state. But the Israelis are now concerned that the balance of power will shift in favor of the Iranians when Joe Biden comes to power.

Trump’s policy of applying “maximum pressure” on Iran has served Israel’s interests because it has significantly weakened the religious establishment in that country in several ways. From the start, Israeli leaders have opposed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, 2015 multilateral agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program). The main beneficiary of the nuclear deal was not the Iranian people, but rather the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It is believed that the JCPOA will give strength and courage to its pro-Iranian Militias and states like Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas movement, as well as the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

In addition, the nuclear deal paved the way for the lifting of sanctions on Tehran. When some of the restrictive measures against Iran were removed under the Barack Obama administration, it became clear that this gave Iran universal legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.

This new legitimacy and the lifting of sanctions on Iran has brought billions of dollars in revenue to Iran’s military institutions – the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Iranian militias and satellites to Tehran in the region. Iran has used this revenue stream to expand its influence throughout the region, including Syria and Iraq. Yemen and Lebanon…  and the expansion campaign was very successful.

 

The balance of power was in Iran’s favor before the current White House administration came to power.

 

One of the first things Trump did was pull the United States out of the nuclear deal. It was a big blow to the Iranian regime and a great victory for Israel. A year later, the state-controlled Syrian newspaper, Al-Watan, reported that Iran had suspended its government credit line in Damascus. In addition, the reduction in resources forced the Iranian leadership to reduce funding to the Palestinian Hamas movement and the Lebanese Hezbollah, and Hamas was forced to implement “austerity plans,” while Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, called on his organization’s fundraising department to “provide an opportunity” Jihad with money, as well as to help in this ongoing battle.

Israel scored another victory as the internal economic situation in Iran became so dire that President Hassan Rouhani admitted that the country was facing the worst economic crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Rouhani complained, recalling, “We have become accustomed to seeing this approach (ignoring US sanctions) by the previous government (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), and unfortunately, the sanctions are still continuing.

The national currency of Iran has been in free fall for the past three years. As of November 19, 2020, the value of the US dollar is approximately 250,000 riyals. Before the current US administration applied the policy of “maximum pressure” on Tehran, the US dollar was worth nearly 30,000 riyals.

Iranian oil exports also fell to record levels last year. The state budget depends on selling black gold.

The balance of power has shifted in favor of Israel to the extent that it has managed hundreds of direct strikes against the Iranian regime over the past few years. In the past period, for example, the Israeli Air Force attacked a number of targets in Syria, including, according to media reports, targets of the Quds Special Forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

But Israel is now concerned about a possible review of the new Biden administration’s approach to dealing with Iran, which could not but affect the Israelis’ “freedom” to deal with Tehran, which they received from Trump.

Whereas, “while Israel was lucky during the Trump administration when it came to confronting and weakening the Iranian regime, the balance of power between Israel and Iran could actually shift in Iran’s favor in the next US administration.

In a previous story, Western media reported that Trump was discussing with his senior advisers in the White House the option to attack Iran’s main nuclear facility, the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.

General Herbert McMaster, former national security advisor to US President Donald Trump, warned in a November 12 interview with Fox News that Israel could attack Iran if it “detects a threat from it, even in the last days of the Trump administration.” McMaster pointed out that Israel follows the Begin principle, which means that the Israelis will never reconcile with the presence of weapons of mass destruction in an enemy state, and they will by all means suppress attempts to establish or obtain such weapons by Iran. This doctrine is named after Menachem Begin, the former Israeli prime minister, who, in June 1981, issued the order to strike the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. McMaster also referred to Israeli strikes in September 2007 on targets in Syria, where nuclear weapons are being developed, according to the Jewish state’s military intelligence.