Rouhani Links U.S. Withdrawal from JCPOA to December 2017 Protests

Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, stated that the protests in December 2017 led the U.S. to develop a "misguided perception" of the Islamic Republic and withdraw from the JCPOA. Rouhani made these remarks while presenting the 2019 budget to the Islamic Consultative Assembly and predicted that this December would be a "blessed month for our people," unlike last year. The nationwide protests in December 2017, which began in the cities of Mashhad and Nishapur in response to rising prices, quickly took on a political tone, questioning the entire structure of the Islamic Republic. During these protests, slogans supporting the Pahlavi regime and expressing regret over the 1979 revolution were chanted in many cities, including the religious city of Qom, resulting in at least 25 deaths on the streets. The Iranian president, without providing details, said, "We faced problems at the beginning and end of December last year," and that "the events of early December caused the Americans to take a new stance against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the nuclear agreement by misunderstanding and misperception." He stated that U.S. officials "later shouted, spoke, and provoked at every stage and step to achieve their misguided goals." He referred to the U.S. announcement of withdrawal from the JCPOA in May of this year due to Iran's missile activities and its "destabilizing" behavior in the region. Following the U.S. withdrawal, sanctions against the Islamic Republic returned, causing severe fluctuations in the currency and other markets in Iran. U.S. officials, including Brian Hook, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, have not hidden that they have been monitoring protests in Iran, including the December 2017 protests. However, discussions about the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA began at least a year and a half earlier, during Donald Trump's election campaign, where he labeled the JCPOA as the "worst deal" in history. In a September report by Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, regarding human rights in Iran, the December 2017 protests were mentioned, with Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani stating that 42 instances of protests in 100 cities faced violence, involving between 40,000 to 45,000 people. Nevertheless, Rouhani continued on Tuesday, stating that the "main goal" of the U.S. from what he called "conspiracies, sanctions, and direct pressures on the great nation of Iran and the people of the region and the world's commercial and economic companies" was to "bring the Islamic Republic to its knees." The Iranian president claimed that Iran's "achievements" were intolerable for "our enemies, especially the U.S.," and they created "tensions initially in the currency market and then in the goods market and, presumably, in other markets" at the beginning of this year. He described the U.S. intention as "to instill despair in the Iranian people regarding the future of the regime and the country and to convey the inefficacy of the regime and the government's lack of control over the situation." Rouhani also acknowledged in another part of his remarks that the tensions at the beginning of this year were due to the fact that "sanctions were able to impact the currency market, both psychologically and practically." The increase in the dollar price in Iran, which began in Farvardin of this year, not only put pressure on Iran's economy but also politically destabilized the country, increasing pressure from opponents of Hassan Rouhani's government, leading to a change in the Central Bank governor. Following currency fluctuations, many currency and coin market activists in Iran were arrested, and several of them were executed on charges such as "exploiting the existing conditions." Some of these cases remain open, and Iran's judiciary regularly publishes news about the defendants and the proceedings of these cases.