And they passed the JCPOA in 20 minutes.
Let's not overlook the fact that the parliament that passed the JCPOA, with the snapback mechanism inside it, was dominated by the conservatives.
It’s the whole system, much like the USSR if the system doesn’t work then everything decays. It’s not reformists, conservatives, Mullahs, etc it’s the collective at the end of the day. The reformists didn’t tell IRGC to neglect the airforce. They didn’t tell IRGC to build a ventilation shaft exposed to aerial bombers. They didn’t tell them to limit missile range to 2000KM and build everything in the west. Everyone made their own respective mistakes the past couple decades.
IR of Iran survived as long as it did from oil revenues (European/Asian nations didn’t cut Iranian oil till 2008 and beyond).
The rise of fracking oil technology also hurt iran in many ways because suddenly the U.S. was #1 in oil production and the Middle East no longer had a choke hold on oil. This meant the U.S. didn’t need the Middle East precious resource as desperately as it did in the 1970’s and 80’d. This was obvious by the Red Sea traffic being down 85% and Israel and Iran exchanging blows and oil not even crossing $90/barrel.
I am not sure if the IRI could even imagine such a day could come when it’s energy supply would be bought by only one country (China).
Right now Iran is becoming like Iraq under Saddam, Syria under imposed revolution, Afghanistan under Taliban, etc the system is barely holding it together and people are just SURVIVING not thriving. Sure Iran has made its share of advancements (Iranian ingenuity), but there is so much corruption and self inflicted wounds, we can’t all blame it on sanctions.
We have fallen behind in critical fields of the future like nuclear, fusion, semiconductor, AI hyperscalers, robotics, and more. With no strategic alliances (say China) we have no one to take our hand and raise us up economically, like the U.S. did to Japan and Korea after WW2 and Korean War respectively.
The resistance economy failed miserably, the IRGC alumni and the big factions used their power to enrich themselves from sanctions busting and supplying the people goods. Rather than squeezing other countries for money they squeezed the people.
Toman today is 100x worse off than 20 years ago (100,000 vs 900). This whole thing is unsustainable.
I think reformists are no different then the voices in the USSR that realized fighting the West and spending like the Empire on things like space race and massive military footprints was not sustainable under a communist system that didn’t have the same innovation and industrial production density as the American empire.
Iran too is learning that it cannot stand up forever against the West and be shunned out of the global economy and expect to not decay and spiral downward on the backs of corruption and theft.
There were always only two real options:
1) fight a pre emptive war where you inflict enough damage on the enemy to demonstrate your strength and negotiate a permanent solution on equal footing (ie after Hamas October surprise or in 2020 before losing Solemani)
2) Capitulation and a grand agreement where you drop the animosity and reform and reintegrate. Khamenai never wanted this because an Iran that is at peace with America and Israel is a republic that cannot survive because its entire existence was predicted on perpetual Cold War like conflict with these two countries.
Nukes wouldn’t have solved either situation it would have only prolonged the problem and in the end you would have to negotiate your nukes away to get any tangible agreement like Ukraine did or turn into North Korea and become a hermit country.
Right now it appears Iran’s plan is to hope the U.S. collapses in the next 5 years or some incompetent leader comes in and bows to Iranian pressure. Neither seem realistic.
Getting nukes now wouldn’t get the sanctions or embargo off us, would likely make it worse. At best we would have to negotiate those away as well.
