The New Islamic Republic of Iran

'We consider Iran a big country with huge natural gas reserves and high technical capabilities."
"Iran is a major country in supplying natural gas and we are seeking to buy gas from Tehran under suitable conditions."
"We will continue negotiations until the conditions for Engie presence in Iran are prepared for the company and will start activities as soon as international restrictions are removed from Iran."
French multinational Engie Company spokesman

Islamic Republic News Agency

Europe and Asia are champing at the bit to enter into business deals and investment with Tehran, now that the nuisance of the nuclear agreement has been formalized and the international community has conveniently set aside any nigglingly-inconvenient thought that the world's foremost supporter of terrorism might be setting a course for the manufacture of a nuclear weapons arsenal. Iran, so formidably skilled in denials if ill intent and feinting innocence has managed to manipulate events to its purpose.

news.yahoo.com

French President Francois Hollande (L) welcomes his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani for a meeting

The world wanted to believe that with the departure of Iran's sinister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country was prepared to abandon its embrace of state-sponsored terrorism and its destabilization of the Middle East, its frequently stated intention of destroying Israel, its stark domestic oppression of its population, and above all, the threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran's insistence that it had a right to become a nuclear power, despite its violent Islamist threats.

This wishful thinking served to consider the incoming president -- Hassan Rouhani, who was the leading candidate for the presidential election approved by the ruling Ayatollahs, and himself a former nuclear negotiator of high ranking who had boasted that he had succeeded in putting Iran's adversaries off scent in earlier negotiations -- as a 'moderate', whose ascension would bring a newer, more cordial and human-rights-observing Iran to the fore.

But while President Rouhani's name is always elaborated in the news with the appendage "moderate", during his time in power state executions have increased markedly. In any event, it is not the president of Iran who has the ultimate power, but rather Grand Ayatollah and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. And along with him, the Republican Guard Corps' hierarchy. Yet world leaders have expressed a sigh of relief that the nation that has gulled them on previous occasions has done so again.

And those same world leaders, eager to take advantage of another source of energy, from the world's fourth-leading source of oil and leading gas reserves, are eager to do business and in so doing enhance the ability of Iran to emerge stronger than ever, an influential power-broker in the Middle East and beyond. China has recently stated through its foreign ministry spokesman that the admission of Iran to the BRICS group of emerging economies that include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is imminent.

Economic cooperation with Iran is of great attraction to so many countries, heedless with a reckless determination of what exactly they are dealing with. A country that has supported a vicious civil war in Syria, prolonging it with its al Quds Republican Guards and Hezbollah terrorist militia and Shiite militias aligned with Iran helping Bashar al-Assad to butcher his own people, and create a mass migration of Syrians frantic to escape into neighbouring countries and to Europe.

As the global petrochemicals market opens its door wide in welcome for Tehran, its export targets will go to the Asia-Pacific, to China, India, Japan and South Korea, and countries like France are confident that their business leaders will be investing in Iran to make the most of the new opportunities opening up at huge benefit for all. A conference is set to take place in London in February where Tehran is set to provide details of new oil and gas schemes.

But nothing has changed in the political/ideological sphere for Iran. Its opposition to the Arab countries in the Middle East, and relations with Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia remain fixed in amber. Iranian financial and military support for militant terrorist forces like Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthi rebels and Iraqi Shia militias remains a constant.

Iran remains what it has always been since the Iranian Revolution, a Persian-power-in-waiting. And nothing will dissuade it from its goals.