Ordinary Iranians did not need to hear it, but nonetheless top Iranian officials stated the obvious many times in the last few days:  this year has been the toughest so far on Iranians.

The economic situation is getting worse and coronavirus infections remain remarkably high despite three months of lockdown. US sanctions are getting more severe and thus Iran’s capabilities to financially support its people or allies in Lebanon and Iraq are declining.

And amid all of that, Iran appears to be facing a covert war targeting some of its medical and nuclear facilities.

On Sunday, the government confirmed that a damaged building at the underground Natanz nuclear site was a new centrifuge assembly centre.

Iranian officials said initially there had only been minor damage at the plant caused by fire. But later Iran admitted that “significant damage” had been caused by the mysterious incident.

According to a statement by Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, the damage could set back the country’s nuclear programme by months.

Iranian officials hinted that the Natanz incident was “sabotage” by Iran’s enemies. But they stopped short of accusing Israel or the US.

 

MYSTERIOUS INCIDENTS: The incident was the latest in a series of six involving sensitive Iranian sites.

The first incident was on 26 June  — an explosion at a weapons depot in Parchin near Tehran. Footage captured by locals showed a huge arc-like fireball lighting up the sky.

The Iranian Defence Ministry claimed it was the consequence of a “gas storage facility” leak at the Parchin military base.

Hours later the same day, and 600 miles to the south of Parchin, a power cut hit the city of Shiraz.

Shiraz is home to a major air base and the Iranian military’s 55th Airborne Brigade. No explanation has been given for the cut.

Then, on 30 June, an explosion killed 19 people at a medical clinic in central Tehran. State media showed extensive damage, with injured people stretchered to ambulances. Iranian media said the explosion was the result of a gas leak.

On 2 July, an “incident” was reported by Iranian media at the Natanz nuclear facility. The explosion happened at about 2am.

And on 3 July, a huge fire in Shiraz, the same town hit by the power outage days earlier.

On 4 July, a fire knocked out a power station transformer in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. There is no known military or nuclear facility in Ahvaz.

 

ACTIONS BETTER LEFT UNSAID: No one claimed direct responsibility, but Israeli officials hinted that the country might be behind the massive fire at the Natanz nuclear site, potentially intensifying a long-running covert war.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi noted that it was Israel’s long-term strategy to prevent Iran from gaining the ability to build a nuclear weapon. He made no mention of the Natanz incident but noted that Israel takes “actions that are better left unsaid”.

Asked about the incidents at strategic sites in Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters: “Clearly we can’t get into that.”

If Israel was responsible for the fire at the heavily fortified Natanz facility, it would mark another in a series of daring strikes against Iran’s nuclear programme attributed to Israel. 

A group calling itself the “Cheetahs of the Homeland” has claimed responsibility for the fire. The fact that Iran experts have never heard of the group, and that Iranian opposition groups denied involvement, has raised questions about possible foreign involvement. The group, claiming its members were dissidents from Iranian security services, referred to the site as “Kashan,” the home of a one-time Jewish community, instead of the modern name of Natanz.

Israel and the US are believed to have created the “Stuxnet” computer virus, which attacked Iran’s nuclear programme a decade ago. At the time, Ashkenazi was Israel’s military chief of staff.

Earlier this year, Israel was suspected of crippling an Iranian port in a hacking attack in response to an alleged Iranian cyber attack that targeted Israel’s water supply.

The very alarming incidents prompted Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy chief Ali Reza Tangsiri to declare, “Iran has established underground onshore and offshore missile cities all along the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that would be a nightmare for Iran’s enemies.”

The announcement comes after the European Union’s top diplomat said he received a letter from Iran that triggers a dispute mechanism in the international agreement limiting Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, citing concerns that Britain, France and Germany are not living up to their side of the deal.

The nuclear accord has been unravelling since President Trump pulled out in 2018, unleashing sanctions designed to cripple the Iranian economy.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell gave no details about the nature of Iran’s “implementation issues” with Britain, France and Germany.

In a tweet 19 June, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif said the three countries “must stop public face-saving and muster the courage to state publicly what they admit privately: their failure to fulfil even (their) own JCPOA duties due to total impotence in resisting US bullying.”

Zarif’s letter to Borrell was sent a day after the fire broke out at the Natanz underground facility.

 

EMOTIONS RUNNING HIGH: The growing problems in Iran are political assets that the hardliners in the country are willing to exploit. And they blame all the country’s difficulties on moderate politicians like President Hassan Rouhani who trusted the West and agreed to the nuclear deal.

No wonder Iranian lawmakers heckled Zarif at the Iranian parliament on Sunday throughout his speech, with some even chanting, “Death to the liar!”

An angry Zarif told the hardliner lawmakers with a forced smile that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei had once called him “honest” and “brave”.

The aim of the ugly confrontation in parliament could be purely internal; that is, to increase the isolation felt by reformists in Iran, who are going through a difficult time.

But the message the hawks in the US administration will get is that the impact of sanctions is devastating. Thus, they must continue and increase.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 9 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly