Since the outbreak of COVID-19 crisis, US authorities have been claiming their affiliated government is ready to send humanitarian assistance to Iran, denying the imposition of sanctions against the Islamic Republic. These two claims were uttered by Donald J. Trump, Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of state and Brian Hook, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran. Trump’s standing did not deny the possibility of lifting or exempting sanctions, yet the decision was conditioned to change in Iran’s behavior.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, however, refused any help offer from the US and stated that the US itself is busy with corona virus and cannot offer help to other countries. Analyzing the current documents indicates the US incapability of controlling COVID-19 outbreak and discrepancy in its official standing against Iran.
The US Help Offer to Iran in its Fight against COVID-19
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 crisis, US authorities have stated two claims: First, the US is ready to send humanitarian assistance to Iran to combat Corona Virus. Second, the US sanctions have never been a blockage to send food and medicine to Iran, the US Secretary of Treasury said. So, these sanctions are not any issues regarding Iran’s medical requirements. Albeit, Iran officials and independent institutes, whose job is to observe the current condition of the world crisis of COVID-19, rejected such claims made by the US authorities.
The most important standing was made by President Trump himself, who did not deny the possibility of lifting sanctions, yet it was conditioned to change in Iran’s behavior. In his Nowruz video message, Secretary Pompeo expressed his sadness following the death of Iranians caused by corona virus, adding that the proposal to send medical and humanitarian assistance to Iran is still on the table, which was made a few days prior to Persian New Year. In addition, Brian Hook, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran in the US department of State and senior political advisor has been encouraging the use of Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA) in order to help Iranian people. “The SHTA will help ensure that humanitarian goods continue to reach the Iranian people without diversion by the regime,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “We thank our Swiss counterparts for their dedicated efforts in establishing the SHTA and we look forward to our continued collaboration.” Nothing beneficial (except for one and only one shipment) for Iranians has ever happened through SHTA, though. Also the channel has faced delayed trade and delivery issue.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Reaction towards the US Help Offer
In his speech for Nowruz, the Persian New Year and Eid al-Mab’ath, the Islamic commemoration known as Isra and Miraj, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected any help offer from the US government and continued the Americans are still struggling with Corona Virus and its shortages in their own country and the US government which has been accused of creating this virus as a means of bioterrorism has no right to offer help to other countries. Not only did he question America’s ability in controlling corona crisis, but he also revealed true intentions of the US towards Iran, which are disingenuous.
Analyzing Discrepancies in the US Claim to Aid Iran
Considering the current evidence in controlling corona crisis inside the US and practical behavior of the US government towards Iran, the Supreme leader’s analysis has been well and truly approved, revealing the fact that not only the US government is incapable of controlling corona crisis inside the United States of America, but it also is not completely sincere in its standing towards Iran and the aforementioned help offer.
- The US Government Inefficiency in Combating the Corona Virus Crisis
It is believed that President Trump and his cabinet were not successful in controlling the outbreak of corona virus, and Trump himself has been severely denounced for that matter, resulting in aggravating the crisis. The US government has been criticized from a few different aspects: complacence towards alerts from health authorities and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, known as CDC, primary secrecy and late response to COVID-19 outbreak, supporting anti-science viewpoints and opposing medical authorities, discriminating behavior towards states and nepotism (Trump put his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in charge of Corona Crisis Management) are amongst the most important criticisms towards the US government.
These feeble attempts have brought the USA two negative results: one, severe outbreak of COVID-19 with many casualties, which put the US among top five countries being affected by corona virus. Two, a damage to the US economy that could have been stopped with urgent actions.
- Blockage to Stop Iran from Fighting Corona Virus via Imposing Sanctions
The US authorities’ boastful rodomontade that US sanctions do not affect food and medicine trading with Iran soon proved otherwise, as the US seeking to damage Iran more during the corona crisis. Such discrepancies were addressed by the blockage on exporting medicines before and after COVID-19 and sabotaging the loan giving process for Iran to combat corona that have also been stated by international institutes and the US press.
Moreover, the conservative and far-right institutes like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) firstly disagree with any forms of exempting, waivering or lifting Iran’s sanctions that could express, to some extent, what really the politicians are thinking about in Trump’s government. Secondly, this institute that is near to John Bolton and Mike Pompeo was pleased from the mixed influence of the US policy of “maximum pressure”, Corona Crisis and decrease in oil price on Iran, disagreeing with Iran’s receiving any international help, whether the US help or the international loan.
In a nutshell, no matter if President Trump or his Secretaries of State and/or Treasury claim to help Iran—in the name of supporting Iranian people, as in reality they are willing to maximize the pressure by all means, including but not limited to creating economic crisis via sanctions. On the other hand, in the outbreak of corona crisis, the US government need to look back to the statistics of COVID-19 in their own country, before trying to reach out to other nations.
