The expulsion of a medical team from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), while helping to counter the spread of the coronavirus in Iran, is the latest example of conspiracy mentality and total disregard for the interests, health and lives of citizens.
This time, we are not talking about humanitarian and food aid, but about saving the lives of tens of thousands of victims who are suffering the consequences of poor crisis handling. If the authorities had been transparent and forthright, many victims who have perished in this health disaster could have been saved.
The international NGO says it has received official permission from the Iranian authorities to launch a field hospital for the treatment of coronavirus patients in Esfahan, the country’s second province most hit by the deadly virus after Tehran.
Iranian authorities, including the National Anti-Coronavirus Committee and the Ministry of Health’s Office of International Cooperation, supported MSF’s assistance in the coronavirus crisis, according to documents published in several Iranian newspapers.
But the hardline mullahs had something else in mind, and they couldn’t care less about the interests of the people. Instead, they bow down to their self-delusions and got behind the Supreme Leader. The latter believes that the virus hides an American conspiracy targeting the genes of the Iranian people. His followers did not shy away from expelling everything associated with the West, including a medical team that came to give the Iranian people a helping hand.
The people, for their part, are suffering from a serious shortage of medical personnel, as confirmed by the local media. MSF helped set up a field hospital and prepare equipment for intensive care units.
“Médecins Sans Frontières’ independent mission in Iran has been fully coordinated with the relevant departments in the Islamic Republic,” tweeted Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabei.
“Although there is currently no shortage of intensive care hospital beds in the country,” he added, “the equipment provided by Médecins Sans Frontières (50 beds) will be used in hospitals where the Iranian Ministry of Health needs it. ”
Then the Iranian Minister of Health, Ali Reza Wahhabzadeh, doubled down: “We don’t need to set up field hospitals by foreigners and we refuse the presence of this organization.”
The main reason to turn from accepting to expelling MSF aid was the declaration by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the allies of the US such as France, Germany and Britain “are unreliable,” that they are working to “clearly serve America” and want to “bring the Iranian people to their knees. ” After the arrival of the officially approved medical team in Iran, the mullahs’ backers launched a campaign against the team prompted by the Supreme Leader’s rhetoric.
Hussein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the Kayhan newspaper, loyal to Khamenei, described MSF as an “American puppet.” It is as if they have just discovered that it is actually from France. They invoked Khamenei’s statement that “America knows it doesn’t belong in Iran and it can’t be here.” They just assumed that the organization’s nine doctors and their assistants belonged to the US intelligence services, as if they were working in a vacuum and were able to carry out plots inside Iran, away from the eyes of the Iranian intelligence services and Revolutionary Guards.
Shariatmadari presumed that MSF could not be trusted, as it is “based in France and all anti-Iranian groups have a base in France. ” This kind of position mirrors the extent of the mullahs’ disinterest in the interests and fate of the Iranian people. Such insecurity will not be helpful in dealing with the pandemic that claims hundreds of Iranian victims every day.
It seems more likely to me that, in these circumstances, the mullahs wanted to send a message to the Europeans. They have found nothing but to expel the medical team of an organization that has been active in Iran for years. Worse still, they chose the wrong time to send this message.
Expelling medical teams after calling for them and then rejecting offers of aid that the EU has announced its intention to provide to Iran is sure not politics, but rather a hasty and foolhardy course of action. Politics is not about muddying the waters, but about playing the right cards, applying pressure, and choosing the right time and conditions while ensuring that maximum gains are made and losses avoided. This presupposes that societies are the end-goal of politics, not regimes and individuals with their own interests and narrow perceptions.
To mix up politics and health is no less dangerous than to mix up religion and politics. Confusing the two is not rational strategic thinking, but demagoguery that appeals to the feelings of followers, devoid of any consideration for the interests of the millions of people who get the brunt of the elite’s disastrous policies.
