Shiite Caliphate Is Cornered Again

His new President is as tall as his old one and nothing more.

JCPOA is stalled until the new government of President Raisi (the Caliphate’s) assumes office in Tehran, Iran. It was not an unexpected move on the part of the Caliphate, given the Caliphate and his IRRGC cronies, generals, are in charge of decision-making in Iran.  

The question now is what are they going to do—or can do when their appointed president is in the office that current President was unable to accomplish? After all, Presidents and their respective governments are only the crew of the same Islamic State’s ship where the Caliphate and his cronies are in charge of the ship. 

President Biden administration is telling us that they want to further expand on the 2015 agreement to have a tighter regime added to it. That is both in terms of contents, restrictions and its possible sunset clauses, they indicated. Understandably, they are to cover the ‘spirit’ of the JCPOA, the nuclear and ballistic missiles programs and activities undertaken by the Caliphate regime. So, what does the stall of the negotiation mean for the US and its Western allies, in terms of a new president's choice and authority? Nothing.  

That is because presidents or their respective governments have never had any decision-making authority in the history of the Shiite Islamic State since its inception in Iran. Their only task is to manipulate the legitimacy of the Caliphate regime which otherwise vanishes without the people’s votes.  

So, the answer to the stall negotiation is not the new President Raisi and his government’s position at the table with the US and its Western allies. The answer rather lies at the US suggested expansion, added-terms and conditions to the 2015 JCPOA which the Caliphate and his cronies appears to have serious difficulties committing to. The Caliphate and his cronies were unable to reach a conclusive and tangible outcome at the negotiation table now that President Rohani is still at the helm. Nor would they, more likely than not, be able to reach the agreement on the US and its allies’ demands with the new President Raisi government too.  

Why would then the Caliphate who, owing to the ‘maximum pressure’ policy of the former President Trump, gave out of desperation a green light to the Rohani government to sit at the JCPOA table stall the negotiation now? What difference does it make which president is sitting at the table, in terms of the ‘maximum pressure’ policy, sanctions and the Caliphate’s fragile position within Iran as well as the shrunk, soon depleted, coffers of his proxies’ terrorist organisations? The only logical inference can be drawn is that the Caliphate is bluffing.  

Bluffing to get away from the “difficult” and “unresolved” differences the Biden administration now refers to—in other word the “spirit” of the 2015 agreement former Presidents Obama, and Trump, expected the Caliphate regime to heed but proved to fail.  

Further inference drawn is that the Caliphate regime sees itself cornered again as it was in 2015 and the subsequent 2018 US withdrawal caused. In that case, the Caliphate and his regime need to make tough decisions—albeit detrimental. Like refusing to commit to any further terms and time extension the US and its allies demanding and consequently facing the detrimental responses such as all sanctions remained in place; with the possibility, already on the President Biden desk, further and harder sanctions to come. Such decision results, in light of daily protests for economic pressures on tens of millions of the ordinary Iranians, in more civil unrests which is now a prevalent occurrence in Iran. Daily protests which so far, the Caliphate regime brutally crashed.   

The Caliphate regime then would have no choice but to try shifting the pressure on the US and its allies by way of mobilising its proxies’ terrorist organisations against the US interests in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere in the region or possibly beyond. That surely ensues a significant risk of the US response and retaliation for which the US must already have a contingency plan in place—one can only expect.  

Shiite Caliphate finds himself between rock and hard place--the US, West, and the people of Iran.