By Majid Rafizadeh, Gatestone Institute—
The Iranian regime has excitingly announced former U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden’s possible victory in the US presidential elections and is celebrating that the next US administration will, they hope, be from the Democrat Party.
Iranian authorities view the chance that Biden might take over the White House as a definite win for Tehran. Hesameddin Ashena, an advisor to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted that Iranians “stood their ground bravely until that coward’s time came to leave”. Headlines in the state-controlled newspapers, which celebrated the news, included, “World without Trump!” (Aftabe Yazd newspaper), “Mr Withdrawal is Close to Being Kicked Out of White House”, “Go to Hell You Gambler!” (Sobhe Now newspaper) “Trump’s Card No Longer Valid for Media!” (Aftabe Yazd newspaper), “The Bankrupt US President Got Humiliated” (Mardom Salari newspaper), and “Trump Must Leave” (Donyaye Eghtesad newspaper).
The last three years has indeed been a nightmare for the Iranian regime and its proxies. No US administration before the current one has imposed such a draconian pressure on the mullahs, their rogue state and their allies.
At the beginning, President Donald J. Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, which Iran never signed and which paves the way for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Then, the Trump administration re-imposed primary and secondary sanctions on Iran’s energy, banking and shipping sectors. During the last two years, several other Iranian entities were added to the sanction list. The killing of General Qassem Soleimani was also a huge blow to Iran’s regime, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies across the Middle East.
The sanctions, in fact, have imposed significant pressure on the Iranian government — to such an extent that the Iranian leaders have had to cut their funding to their allies, militia and terror groups.
A year into the pressure, the state-controlled Syrian newspaper Al-Watan reported that Iran halted its credit line to the Syrian government. Some of Iran’s authorities publicly announced that they also do not have money to pay their mercenaries abroad. In an interview with the state-run Ofogh Television Network, for instance, Parviz Fattah, the current head of the Foundation for the Underprivileged (Mostazafan Foundation) stated:
“I was at the IRGC Cooperative Foundation. Haj Qassem came and told me he did not have money to pay the salaries of the Fatemiyoun . He said that these are our Afghan brothers, and he asked for help from people like us.” Continue Reading….
