Who is the Real Threat Amongst the Iran America Conflict?
Introducing the origin of the disputes
Since the Iran revolution in 1979, when the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown there has been a lot of hostility between Iran and The United States (Milani 46). The United States has made it clear that Iran is one of the biggest threats to the western world and blames a lot of the terrorist acts on being funded by Iran.
However, western media does not depict the threats that the United States has on Iran and why Iran is so hostile towards America. Who is the real threat amongst the Iran America conflict?
It is important to analyze this different perspective as it shows America is not as impartial as Western media makes it seem and how they tend put their own agenda first, even when it is detrimental to others.
America and its Allies
America’s threats on Iran have had an impact on how Iran is seen amongst the rest of the world. Since United States has put sanctions on Iran, Iran has had negative relations with other countries. Other Western countries that would want to continue to work with Iran, no longer can due to the alliances they have with The United States (Shannon 2019).
Moreover, Iran is not a very popular country in the Middle East, countries like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Israel have all publicly discussed their dislike of Iran and their allyship with USA(Stone 1642). Now that America has decided to put sanctions on Iran and publicly spoken about their dislike of Iran, other countries will take advantage of this and create even more hostility in the Middle East.
Iran’s Economic Perspective and Sanctions
Unlike the United States which is concerned with hypothetical security breaches, Iran’s security is being threatened right now by United States. Unfortunately, western media does not show the Impacts of Iran’s security. Since the sanctions have been put on Iran there has been an array of different security threats on Iran.
The first security threat on Iran that has been caused by United States is economic security. Since the sanctions have been put on Iran, Iran has gone into a deep recession (Landau 25). Landau explains that these sanctions were put on Iran to try and get Iran to get rid of their nuclear plant, Iran had already agreed to limit their nuclear production, but this was not enough for the Trump administration, who went back on the nuclear deal with Iran, even though Iran was complicit. The purpose of the sesanctions were to withdraw from trades and encourage other western countries to pull out of the deals they had with Iran.Since Iran’s economy is largely focused around their sale of oil, having western countries pull out of their trade agreements has caused Iran’s economy to continue to plummet.
In 2016, after the nuclear deal, the first set of sanctions were lifted off of Iran andIran’s economy started to do well again. After the nuclear weapon deal in 2016 Iran’s GDP grew 12.3% (US-Iran standoff 2019). After the sanctions were reinforced, the GDP went back down to the negatives. Showing the direct economic threat that USA has.
Unfortunately, since the reinstatement of sanctions Trump has publicly said that he wants to bring Iran’s oil export to zero and is proud of wanting to enforce this. He knows that having Iran’s oil trade at zero will cause Iran to be unable to sell their products and this will hopefully encourage Iran to close their nuclear facilities (Six charts that show how hard US sanctions have hit Iran 2019). This reiterates that America is willing to put their own agenda first, knowing that Iran is significantly being impacted by these sanctions.
Moreover, since the Sanctions Iran has had a difficult time selling their oil, which is the most important part of their economy. As stated before, many other Western countries have decided to side with The United States and comply with the sanctions. They no longer trade with Iran nor buy oil from Iran.
Iran’s Humanitarian Perspective
From a humanitarian standpoint, since the sanctions have been put on Iran the cost of living has become too expensive and people are not making as much money as they should be to maintain a livable lifestyle. This has resulted in Iranians quality of life going down. The Iranian Rial was worth 200,000 for 1 USD at one point in 2017, the sanctions have not only been detrimental to Iran’s economy but to Iranian citizens. (US-Iran standoff 2019). This has resulted in a decrease in Iran’s humanitarian security. Middle class Iranians are not able to afford the same way of life they had before, the price of food has gone up, even double in somesituations, making it very difficult for people to be able to feed themselves and their families.
Moreover, finding employment in Iran is very difficult as well, people cannot afford to hire employees. As a result, not only is food expensive but also people cannot find work to be able to feed their families. Inflation is expected to reach 37% if the oil exports continue to fall (Catran et al 4).
Unfortunately, this has not received much media coverage to show the difficulty that regular Iranians have been going through and how normal Iranians are struggling to ensure that their regular day to day activities. This is a security threat since individuals do not have the same basic human rights that they are entitled to and the US is clearly at fault due to their sanctions. In particular, more Iranians are going back into poverty since supplies are so expensive, the USA knows this and is still focused on their own agenda, regardless of what Iranians are being put though.
Killing of Qasem Solemani
January 2 2020 Iran’s military commander Qasem Solemani was shot by US drone strike in Iraq unprovoked (Gan 2020). Although Trump argues that Solemani was responsible for the deaths of millions of people and this was necessary to stop further deaths, this was a clear violation of international law and United States domestic law (Gan 2020). This is very clearly an act of terrorism and if the roles were reversed there would be outrage amongst the international community rather than excusing and validating this behaviour. Gan emphasises this has created even more hostility amongst Iran and America, Iran vowing revenge for Solemani’s death and America promising that if Iran gets their revenge there will be a bigger price to pay.
America’s Perspective
The United states and the Trump administration especially,have claimed time and time again that Iran plays a role as a security threat to The United States. The United States is particularity concerned with Iran trying to obtain nuclear weapons, according to them Iran already acts radically, but if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons they will act more radically and will be difficult to control Iran, resulting in Iran becoming more radical than before (Shannon 2019).
Moreover, Iran’s government, as well as many Iranians have publicly said in Farsi ‘death to America’, which is an anti-American political chant that raised popularity during the Iranian revolution (Landau 27). The US takes this as a direct threat and has caused Americans to feel discomfort and feel threatened by Iran. So Americans are worried that once Iran has access to these nuclear weapons than they will try to bring death to America.
Iran’s Right To Bare Arms
Moreover, Iran argues that it is not fair for The United States to be able to control the production of Iran’s weapons. There are already nine confirmed countries that have nuclear weapons, including United States, at 6,185 nuclear weapons, it is very hypocritical for United States to say that Iran cannot have any weapons (Simbar 75).
Iran wants to have nuclear weapons to protect themselves in case they are under attack. Israel and America have time and time again threatened to bomb Iran, even the Bush administration considered Iran to be part of the ‘axis of evil’ (Davis et al 9). Another country that was labelled tobe part of the axis of evil was Iraq, which was later invaded, so Iran has reservations and wants to protect themselves from those threats (Simbar 80). If United States can feel protected with Nuclear Weapons, why should Iran have to feel defenceless in a region where they have many public enemies?
Conclusion
Overall we see how USA does pose a more significant threat on Iran’s security. America is worried about Iran’s potential threat, whereas Iran’s security is being threatened immediately. Although western media does not closely look at Iran’s security threat, Iran faces more security threats. United States main concern is Iran eventually accessing nuclear weapons and potentially using it on them. America possess an immanent security threat on Iran’s economic and human rights development. The West needs to put this into perspective so that they can see that America is not as nonpartisan as they try to seem.
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