What Hardliners Really Think Of UN Resolutions

“Resolutions” are a familiar concept in the Islamic Republic. For years, Iran has been the source of numerous resolutions issued by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States alike, due to a combination of war, human rights violations, sanctions and terrorist activity.

Of all the resolutions in the past three decades, nothing was more discussed or significant than UN “Resolution 598”, which ended the Iran-Iraq war. In Iranian foreign policy literature, this became known as the “poisoned drink,” as it is what Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, called it.

Since then, hardliners have interpreted the term as the former leader’s reluctance to end the war, and it is the same expression they use to refer to the recent nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries. They say that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif forced the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei, to “drink poison.”

“Junk,” as in “junk paper,” is also commonly used to refer to resolutions. A term that was first coined by Ayatollah Khomeini, and memorialized in Sahifeh Nour - a book of former speeches by Ayatollah Khamenei - quotes Khomeini as saying, “The decisions of the UN Security Council and other organizations are worthless and just junk paper worthy of a veto.”

Then in 2006, in reaction to a UN resolution, former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, “Do you think by compiling and issuing junk paper, you can stop the Iranian nation?” Then in June 2010, he said: “These resolutions have no value in our nation.” And, lastly, in spring 2013, during his final days as president, Ahmadinejad said, “The resolutions that sanction Iran are all but junk.”

But he is not the only high-ranking Iranian official to challenge and ridicule international resolutions. Hardliner Tehran Friday Imam, Ahmad Khatami, said sanction resolutions have encouraged young people to procreate. While Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly highlighted how Iran has managed to progress despite the “illogical and brutal” nature of sanctions against the country.

The Iranian authorities have also reacted to resolutions regarding human rights abuses. Chief Justice Sadeq Larijani tends to refer to them as being lies, biased and ill-motivated. Equally, Guardian Council Secretary Ahmad Jannati has described the same resolutions as “worthless,” as “lacking any legal legitimacy” and as being “disgraceful.“

And this harsh language has not stopped since the nuclear deal was signed. For a start, the Revolutionary Guards commanders have made it no secret that they do not approve of, in any shape or form, the UN resolution that sanctions weapons in Iran. Mohammad Ali Jafari, one such commander, suggested that the UN `’shouldn’t waste its time issuing such resolutions because the Revolutionary Guards wouldn’t respect them anyway.”

And reactions only get harsher in tone with regards to human rights violations. Just recently, judiciary spokesperson Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei described last week’s UN resolution on human rights violations in Iran as “comical.” Similarly, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called the resolution “the irony of history.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has also had his say on human rights resolutions. Referring to an EU resolution, he said, “The EU parliament is so insignificant and therefore it cannot insult the great Iranian nation. There have been a total of 60 resolutions, many with harsher tones over the last four years, but none of them are of any value.”

Also, Iran’s president, much like the foreign minister, have repeatedly said during the last two years that UN resolutions are intended to promote Iranophobia but that the nuclear deal has helped to counteract this - hardliners do not agree.

Guardian Council Secretary Ahmad Jannati even went so far as to say that the West’s ultimate goal is “regime change” in Iran, which is not dissimilar to commander Jafari who argued that the West wants to bring about a new “sedition” [Green Movement] by issuing resolutions against Iran. 

Resolutions have long been a hot, and contentious, topic in Iran, especially among hardliners. And it seems the nuclear deal has and will not change this anytime soon. Until the day Iran stops violating international law, the resolutions will keep coming and hardliners will continue to have their say.