There are few personalities or institutions left in Iran that Donald Trump has not sanctioned.
It would come as no surprise if the unhinged Trump imposes sanctions even on his successor, Joe Biden whom he accuses of “stealing” the election, before his inauguration on January 20.
The Trump regime’s latest sanctions on Iran’s ambassador to Yemen and the Qom-based Al-Mustafa International University should not be viewed simply as the last desperate attempt to pressure Tehran before he is evicted from the White House.
Domestic factors are certainly at play in Trump’s latest sanctions move.
He is deliberately pushing the incoming Biden regime towards a collision course with Iran.
The matter, however, is bigger than that.
The US state machinery realizes that Trump threw everything he could at Iran and yet the Islamic system is standing strong.
Thus, Iran has nothing left to “fear.”
Washington’s ruling caste knows well that it has run out of sticks and leverages at its disposal to use against Iran.
The upcoming Biden regime cannot pressure Islamic Iran in any meaningful way other than direct military attack.
Washington wants to avoid that realizing the huge costs not just financially but in other fields as well, to the US.
Due to his ignorance of state operations, Trump assumes that he is cornering the new regime and will leave it with no option but to confront Iran.
The opposite, however, might turn out to be case.
The Biden regime will be engulfed in serious domestic problems upon assuming office.
It will simply not have the stamina to take on Iran.
The inner circle of US imperialism knows well that Iran has withstood Washington’s pressure for decades.
Biden has announced that he will be a one-term president (because of his advanced age; he is already 78).
It is unlikely that he will achieve any major breakthroughs with Iran in four years when past presidents have failed in forty.
Thus, due to domestic turmoil in the US, the Biden regime may well be seeking routes to decrease as much pressure as possible on itself.
It might use Trump’s failed approach to justify cancellation of irrational and hardline political and economic policies against Tehran.
This might take place out of expediency rather than reasonableness.
Sanctions on Al-Mustafa International University reveal another key weakness in America’s war on the Islamic revolution in Iran.
Al-Mustafa International University is an Islamic educational institution.
Sanctioning it is a manifestation of the reality that the US is not winning the soft-power war against Iran.
It’s an acknowledgment that an Islamic educational institution with far smaller resources than Washington’s soft-power institutions is capable of countering America’s cultural colonization.
Al-Mustafa’s ethos is to establish a paradigm outside the Western secular-liberal paradigm.
The fact that the US had to resort to the crude tactic of financial sanctions to suppress its intellectual work is a badge of honor for the institution.
This aspect, if utilized properly, will further increase Al-Mustafa’s intellectual credibility and influence.
…But it may well be that you hate a thing the while it is good for you; and it may well be that you love a thing the while it is bad for you; and Allah knows, whereas you do not know. - Surah Al-Baqara, Ayat 216