Coronavirus Poses a Greater Threat to the Ayatollahs than US Sanctions Do

By Con Coughlin, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  April 2, 2020 at 5:00 am

• The Iranian regime’s failure to grasp the significance of the outbreak in its own country has led 16 other countries in the region to claim that their own outbreaks originated in Iran. These include Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates.
• The European aid package, which is said to be worth $548,000, is the first transaction conducted under a trade mechanism known as the Instrument In Support Of Trade Exchanges, or Instex, which has been set up by the Europeans to enable them to barter humanitarian goods and food with Tehran after the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.
• Tehran would be well-advised, though, not to regard the aid delivery as raising the prospect of the sanctions being eased. The new trading arrangements set up by Europe have been designed not to breach the Trump administration’s policy of applying “maximum pressure” against Iran, so that Instex can only be used for the delivery of humanitarian aid and food.
• This means that, while the aid delivery might help to fight the coronavirus pandemic, it will do little to alleviate the pressure on Iran’s incompetent, and increasingly unpopular, leadership.

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