Just a couple of weeks ago it was reported that the Iranians had started to worry about the possibility that Britain and the rest of the EU would trigger snapback sanctions due to Iran refusing to go to the negotiation table.
The warning has prompted urgent internal discussions in Tehran. “The Islamic Republic does not have the financial or military capacity to endure the snapback of UN sanctions. It would make the people protest again and this time it might be different,” a senior Iranian official told The Telegraph from Tehran.“They are more damaging than war,” a senior Iranian official said. “The supreme national security council has asked the presidential office to find a way for talks before it is too late.”
Instead of it just being rumored that there was a split in the country it has become public.
The split became public when a senior Revolutionary Guard official criticized President Masoud Pezeshkian’s statements defending negotiations. Aziz Ghazanfari, deputy political chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Mr. Pezeshkian’s “verbal mistakes have increased” since taking office.Mr. Pezeshkian had asked critics: “If you don’t talk, what will you do? Do you want to fight? Well, they hit us, we rebuild, and they’ll hit us again.
Compared to 10 years ago Iran faces a much much more difficult situation even with just rebuilding after the brief war and attacks. Russia was by far the most significant partner for Iran as there civilian nuclear program was built in partnership with Russia and the majority of air defenses and other major things came via there partnership. China has also been a huge partner but China already accounts for the vast majority of Irans oil exports and they are also stuck in trade issues with the US and still with the EU.
The price of materials have done nothing but increase and the price of oil has fallen further compounding rebuilding issues. Right now as it stands Europe serves as Iran's life line but that is crumbling. When you add in critical things like power outages across the nation as well as the country running out of water the situation for Iran's leadership is becoming very very dangerous. Yesterday we learned that Iran INCREASED its nuclear weapons grade uranium stockpile before the US struck them destroying or damaging main facilities across the country.
The clocks ticking for Iran to get itself together and choose peace.