Iran will push terror acts: MPs

 Members in the Shura Council fear that after lifting of the international sanctions against Iran, the Iranians would now pump in more money into terrorism to destabilise Bahrain and the GCC countries.

Speaking to DT News, Shura Council member Bassam Albinmohamed said that the lifting of sanctions was definitely going to affect the region negatively. “We wish that Iran would direct the money they will get due to sanctions being lifted for the prosperity of the Iranian people but we know that this will not happen,” he says.

He said that the whole world was watching the negative and destructive role Iran was playing in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere yet they were doing nothing to stop Iran from continuing their destructive policies.

After lifting the sanctions, Iran will no doubt create more tension in the region because the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran deals only with the nuclear aspect of Iran’s problematic relation with the rest of the world. “Obama, stop trying to justify your disastrous deal with Iran. The issue isn’t the nuclear weapons – it’s Iran’s support to terrorism,” says Albinmohamed.

“The main issue is that Iran is not acting as a state but rather as a revolution and trying to export its revolution to the rest of the world and starting out from the Gulf,” he says.

He said that unfortunately there would not be any change in Iran’s behaviour even now and it would continue supporting terrorism in the region and in other sovereign states as it used to be. Everyone knows that Iran was at the back of the armed militias like Hizbollah and Houthis of Yemen who are interfering negatively in the affairs of other states and using sectarianism as a tool to spread chaos and tension in the Gulf.

“These are some of the things we need to deal with but the nuclear deal has practically nothing to do with them in spite of the encouraging statements of the countries negotiating with Iran including the US,” he says.

Bassam said that in the same week that the sanctions were about to be lifted, they saw the Saudi embassy and attaché being attacked in front of the Iranian police who didn’t try to stop them. They also fired ballistic missiles in front of an American navy ship violating the terms of the nuclear deal and captured two American military boats with 20 American soldiers onboard.

Shura member Fatema Abdul Jabbar Alkooheji said that the impact of the lifting of sanctions would be disastrous on the whole Gulf region. With far less money, Iran is already creating problems inside Bahrain and other GCC countries. “Right now $100 billion of Iran’s money is blocked. Half of the money it will get immediately,” she says, “Just imagine what Iran will do after it gets so huge amounts of money.”

She said that Iran would equip itself with more weapons and compel its allies to work against the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. It will instigate Iran for more interference in the region. “We don’t know how the US was doing this while President Obama himself had issued a statement that ‘Iran is sponsoring terrorism’,” she says, “The US needs to reconsider its policy toward Iran.”    

“No matter whatever the economic effect comes we are not going to end boycott with Iran as there is no change in its policy of interfering in the internal affairs of its neighbouring countries,” she says, stressing that they strongly believed in the wisdom of King Salman of Saudi Arabia.

She said that no matter what the US or Russia did, they would be strong again after five years overcoming the economic collapse that has resulted after the slump in oil prices.

The results of the economic sanctions against Iran were disastrous for the Iranian economy as the inflation rose to 42 per cent and the economy went down. Its oil and gas infrastructure destroyed as there remained no proper investment in the country. After the lifting of sanctions, the deputy oil minister of Iran Rokneddin Javadi said that Iran could add 500,000 barrels per day to its output but some analysts doubt that Iran could deliver so huge production. Anyhow the Iranian oil will get free access to the oil market after the lifting of international sanctions by the US. How impacts the GCC oil market, time will tell.