So what’s goin’ on in Iran? How did the Islamic Republic really
respond to Covid-19? How is it coping with Washington’s relentless “maximum
pressure”?
These questions were the
subject of a long phone call I placed to Prof. Mohammad Marandi of the
University of Tehran – one of Iran’s premier, globally recognized analysts.
As Marandi explains, “Iran
after the revolution was all about social justice. It set up a very elaborate
health care network, similar to Cuba’s, but with more funding. A large hospital
network. When the coronavirus hit, the US was even preventing Iran to get test
kits. Yet the system – not the private sector – managed. There was no full
shutdown. Everything was under control. The numbers – even contested by the
West – they do hold. Iran is now producing everything it needs, tests, face
masks. None of the hospitals are full.”
Expanding
Marandi’s observations, Tehran-based journalist Alireza Hashemi notes, “Iran’s
wide primary healthcare system, comprising public clinics, health houses and
health centers is available in thousands of cities and villages”, and that
enabled the government to “easily offer basic services”.
As Hashemi details, “the
Health Ministry established a Covid-19 call center and also distributed
protective equipment supplied by relief providers. Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei ordered the armed forces to help – with the government deploying
300,000 soldiers and volunteers to disinfect streets and public places,
distribute sanitizers and masks and conduct tests.”
It was the Iranian military
that established production lines for producing face masks and other equipment.
According to Hashemi, “some NGOs partnered with Tehran’s chamber of commerce to
create a campaign called Nafas (“breath”) to supply medical goods and provide
clinical services. Iran’s Farabourse, an over-the-counter stock market in
Tehran, established a crowd funding campaign to purchase medical devices and
products to help health workers. Hundreds of volunteer groups – called “jihadi”
– started producing personal protective equipment that had been in short supply
in seminaries, mosques and hussainiyas and even natural fruit juices for health
workers.”
This sense of social
solidarity is extremely powerful in Shi’ite culture. Hashemi notes that “the
government loosened health-related restrictions over a month ago and we have
been experiencing a small slice of normality in recent weeks.” Yet the fight is
not over. As in the West, there are fears of a covid-19 second wave.
Marandi stresses the economy,
predictably, was hurt: “But because of the sanctions, most of the hurt had
already happened. The economy is now running without oil revenue. In Tehran,
you don’t even notice it. It’s nothing compared to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey
or the UAE. Workers from Pakistan and India are leaving the Persian Gulf in
droves. Dubai is dead. So, in comparison, Iran did better in dealing with the
virus. Moreover, harvests last year and this year have been positive. We are
more self-reliant.”
Hashemi
adds a very important factor: “The Covid-19 crisis was so massive that people
themselves have pitched in with effort, revealing new levels of solidarity.
Individuals, civil society groups and others have set up a range of initiatives
seeking to help the government and health workers on the front line of
countering the pandemic.”
What a relentless Western
disinformation campaign always ignores is how Iran after the revolution is used
to extremely critical situations, starting with the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq
war in the 1980s. Marandi and Hashemi are adamant: for older Iranians, the
current economic crisis pales in comparison with what they had to put up with
throughout the 1980s.
Made
in Iran soars
Marandi’s analysis ties up
the economic data. In early June, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht – responsible for
planning Iran’s state budgets – told the Majlis (Parliament) that the new
normal was “to sideline oil in the economy and run the country’s programs
without oil.”
Nobakht stuck to the numbers.
Iran had earned just $8.9 billion from the sale of oil and related products in
2019-20, down from a peak of $119 billion less than a decade ago.
The
whole Iranian economy is in transition. What’s particularly interesting
is the boom in manufacturing – with companies focusing way beyond Iran’s large
domestic market towards exports. They are turning the massive devaluation of
the rial to their advantage.
In
2019-20, Iran’s non-oil exports reached $41.3 billion.
That exceeded oil exports for the first time in Iran’s post-revolutionary
history. And roughly half of these non-oil exports were manufactured goods. Team Trump’s “maximum
pressure” via sanctions may have led to total non-oil exports going down – but
only by 7%. The total remains near historic highs.
According
to Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data published by the Iran Chamber of
Commerce, private sector manufacturers were seriously back in business already
in the first month following the relaxation of the partial lockdown.
The fact is Iranian consumer
goods and industrial products – everything from cookies to stainless steel –
are exported by small and medium enterprises to the wider Middle East and also
to Central Asia, China and Russia. The myth of Iranian “isolation” is, well, a
myth.
Some
new manufacturing clusters bode well for the future. Take titanium – essential
for myriad applications in military, aerospace, marine industries and
industrial processes. The Qara-Aghaj mine in Urmia, the provincial
capital of West Azarbaijan, which is part of Iran’s mineral belt, including the
country’s largest gold reserves, has tremendous potential.
Iran features in the Top 15
of mineral-rich countries. In January, after getting the technology for
deep-level mining, Tehran launched a pilot project for extraction of rare earth
minerals.
Still, Washington pressure
remains as relentless as the Terminator.
In
January, the White House issued yet another executive order targeting the
“construction, mining, manufacturing, or textiles sectors of the Iranian
economy.” So Team Trump is targeting exactly the booming private sector – which
means, in practice, countless Iranian blue-collar workers and their families.
This has nothing to do with forcing the Rouhani administration to say, “I can’t
breathe”.
The
Venezuelan front
Apart from a few scuffles
between the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Health Ministry
about China’s response to Covid-19, the Iran-China “comprehensive strategic
partnership” (CSP) remains on track.
The
next big test is actually in September. That’s when Team Trump wants to extendthe UN arms embargo on Iran. Add to it
the threat to trigger the snapback mechanism inbuilt in UNSC resolution 2231 –
if other Security Council members refuse to support Washington and let the
embargo expire for good in October.
China’s
mission at the UN has stressed the obvious. The Trump
administration unilaterally abandoned the JCPOA. Then it reimposed unilateral
sanctions. Thus it has no right to extend the arms embargo or go for the
snapback mechanism against Iran.
China, Russia and Iran are
the three key nodes of Eurasia integration. Politically and diplomatically,
their key decisions tend to be taken in concert. So it’s no wonder that was
reiterated last week in Moscow at the meeting of Foreign Ministers Sergey
Lavrov and Javad Zarif – who get along famously.
Lavrov said, “We will be doing everything so that no
one can destroy these agreements. Washington has no right to punish Iran.”
Zarif for his part described
the whole juncture as “very dangerous”.
Additional conversations with
Iranian analysts reveal how they interpret the regional geopolitical
chessboard, calibrating the importance of the axis of resistance (Tehran,
Baghdad, Damascus, Hezbollah) in comparison with two other fronts: the US and
its “stooges” (the House of Saud, UAE, Egypt), the master – Israel – and also
Turkey and Qatar, which, like Iran, but unlike the “stooges”, favor political
Islam (but of the Sunni variety, that is, the Moslem Brotherhood).
One of these analysts, pen
name Blake Archer Williams, significantly remarks, “the main reason Russia
holds back from helping Iran (mutual trade is almost at zero) is that it fears
Iran. If Trump does not have a Reagan moment and does not prevail on Iran, and
the US is in any event driven out of the Middle East by the continuing process
of Iran’s weapons parity and its ability to project power in its own pond, then
all of the oil of the Middle East, from the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, to
Iraq, of course, and not least to the oilfields in Saudi Arabia’s Qatif region
(where all the oil is and is 100% Shi’ite), will come under the umbrella of the
axis of resistance.”
Still, Russia-China continue
to back Iran on all fronts, for instance rebuking the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) for giving in to US “bullying” – as the IAEA’s board last
week passed a resolution submitted by France, Britain and Germany criticizing
Iran for the first time since 2012.
Another key foreign policy
front is Venezuela. Tehran’s soft power, in quite a spectacular manner keenly
observed all across the Global South, de facto ridiculed Washington’s
sanctions/blockade in its own Monroe Doctrine “backyard”, when five Iranian
tankers loaded with gasoline successfully crossed the Atlantic and were
received by a Venezuelan military escort of jets, helicopters, and naval patr
That
was in fact a test run. The Oil Ministry in Tehran is
already planning a round two of deliveries to Caracas, sending two or three
cargos full of gasoline a month. That will also help Iran to offload its huge
domestically produced fuel.
The historic initial shipment
was characterized by both sides as part of a scientific and industrial
cooperation, side by side with a “solidarity action”.
And then, this past week, I
finally confirmed it. The order came directly from Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei. In his own words: “The blockade must be broken”. The rest is – Global
South – history in the making.
Reprinted
with the author’s permission.
Copyright
© Asia
Times
