Explained: There is more to the US-Iran FIFA World Cup match than football

Iran is set to take on the United States in a FIFA World Cup 2022 match in the early hours of Wednesday morning in a match that goes well beyond just a simple game of football. While one could argue this is nothing new for Iran and the United States –the two countries have severed diplomatic ties in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 when students held dozens of Americans hostage at the US embassy in Tehran – this time there is a difference. Let’s take a look at why this match, only the third time the two countries have met on the soccer field, is beyond football: Then and now The last time the sides clashed was at the 1998 tournament in France — a totally different time in the Islamic Republic. Iran won 2-1 in Lyon, a low point for the US men’s team as Iranians celebrated in Tehran. At the time, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the Iranian team, saying “the strong and arrogant opponent felt the bitter taste of defeat.” But off the pitch, Iran’s then-president, Mohammad Khatami, sought to improve ties to the West and the wider world. Inside Iran, Khatami pushed so-called “reformist” policies, seeking to liberalize aspects of its theocracy while maintaining its structure with a supreme leader at the top. Then US president Bill Clinton and his administration hoped Khatami’s election could be part of a thaw. The two teams posed for a joint photograph, and the Iranian players handed white flowers to their American opponents. The US gave the Iranians US Soccer Federation pennants. They even exchanged jerseys, though the Iranians didn’t put them on. They later played a friendly in Pasadena, California, as well. Now, the relationship is arguably at its lowest ebb. Iran protests Iran on Monday claimed 300 people have been killed in the unrest surrounding nationwide protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. That estimate is considerably lower than the toll reported by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a US-based group that has been closely tracking the protests since they erupted after the Sept. 16 death of a young woman being held by the country’s morality police. The activist group says 451 protesters and 60 security forces have been killed since the start of the unrest and that more than 18,000 people have been detained. The protests have escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy and pose one of the most serious challenges to the ruling clerics since the 1979 revolution that brought them to power. [caption id=“attachment_11638151” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Protestors from the Iranian diaspora in Germany carry a portrait of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl who died after she was arrested by the morality police in Iran, in Berlin. AP[/caption] Furious protesters in Iran have been venting their anger over social and political repression and the state-mandated headscarf, or hijab, for women The turmoil has overshadowed the start of Iran’s World Cup campaign, including the opening match against England on Monday. Iran’s players remained silent as their national anthem played before the game and didn’t celebrate their two goals in the 6-2 defeat. Unlike in their first match against England, the Iran players sang along to their national anthem before the match as some fans in the stadium wept, whistled and booed. After Iran’s 2-0 triumph, crowds of Iranian fans wildly waving national flags streamed out of the stadium. They thronged a group of protesters who held up photos of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old whose Sept. 16 death in the custody of the morality police first unleashed the protests, yelling “Victory!” to drown out chants of Amini’s name. Shouting matches erupted in lines outside the stadium between fans screaming “Women, Life, Freedom” and others shouting back “The Islamic Republic!” Mobs of men surrounded three different women giving interviews about the protests to foreign media outside the stadium, disrupting broadcasts as they angrily chanted, “The Islamic Republic of Iran!” Many female fans appeared shaken as Iranian government supporters shouted at them in Farsi and filmed them up close on their phones. One 35-year-old woman named Maryam, who like other Iran fans declined to give her last name for fear of government reprisals, started to cry as shouting men blowing horns encircled her and filmed her face. She had the words “Woman Life Freedom” painted on her face. “I’m not here to fight with anyone, but people have been attacking me and calling me a terrorist,” said Maryam, who lives in London but is originally from Tehran. “All I’m here to say is that football doesn’t matter if people are getting killed in the streets.” International, regional attacks The violence in Iran has also spilled across the border into neighbouring Iraq’s northern Kurdish region. Iran has blamed the unrest at home in part on Kurdish groups based in Iraq, and has targeted them with missile and drone attacks. Iran said Monday that its latest strikes were necessary to protect the country’s borders, while Kurdish officials condemned the attacks as unprovoked aggression. Iraq’s central government, which is dominated by parties close to Iran, also condemned the strikes. A strike late Sunday killed a member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, said Mohammed Nazif Qaderi, a senior official in the Kurdish Iranian group living in exile in Iraq. The group said Iranian surface-to-surface missiles and drones hit its bases and adjacent refugee camps in Koya and Jejnikan. The group also asserted that the strikes had hit a hospital in Koya. The Iranian strikes come in the wake of a visit to Baghdad last week by Esmail Ghaani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force. During the visit, Ghaani threatened Iraq with a ground military operation in the country’s north if the Iraqi army does not fortify the border. Some Kurdish groups have been engaged in a low-intensity conflict with Tehran since the 1979 revolution. Iran accuses them of inciting protests in Iran and smuggling weapons into the country, allegations the Kurdish groups have denied. Iran has not provided evidence to back up the claims. On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told reporters that Iran had acted to “protect its borders and security of its citizens based on its legal rights.” He alleged that the government in Baghdad and the Irbil-based administration of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region had failed to implement purported commitments to prevent threats against Iran from Iraqi areas. The government of the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq condemned the strikes as a “gross infringement of international law and neighborly relations.” Qaderi told The Associated Press the Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq support the protests in Iran, which he described as a reaction to “the policies of this regime” he said oppresses its people. He denied that his group has sent fighters or weapons to Iran. He said that his group had moved fighters away from the border to avoid giving Iran an “excuse” for further attacks. He called on the international community to prevent further aggression by Iran. The United States condemned the latest Iranian strikes. “Such indiscriminate and illegal attacks place civilians at risk, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and jeopardize the hard-fought security and stability of Iraq and the Middle East,” Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, who heads U.S. Central Command, said in a statement. Sunday’s Iranian strikes in northern Iraq come a day after Turkey launched deadly airstrikes over northern regions of Syria and Iraq, targeting Kurdish groups that Ankara holds responsible for last week’s bomb attack in Istanbul. On Monday, Turkish officials said suspected Kurdish militants in Syria fired rockets into the border town of Karkamis in Turkey, killing two people, including a teacher and a 5-year-old boy. Expanding nuclear programme, stalled negotiations Iran has begun producing enriched uranium at 60 per cent purity at the country’s underground Fordo nuclear plant, official media reported last week describing it as a response to a resolution by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. The increased enrichment, reported by the official news agency IRNA, was seen as a significant addition to the country’s nuclear program. [caption id=“attachment_10993681” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The Iran nuclear deal oculd be dead and buried once and for all. AFP[/caption] From Vienna, the UN nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA — said the 60 per cent enrichment at Fordo comes on top of similar production at the Natanz plant in central Iran. The IAEA also said that Iran plans a “significant expansion” in its production of low-enriched uranium at Fordo and a second production building at Natanz. Fordo is some 100 kilometers south of the capital of Tehran. Enrichment to 60 per cent purity is one short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Non-proliferation experts have warned in recent months that Iran now has enough 60 per cent enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb. IRNA did not give details on the amount of the enriched uranium being produced at Fordo. A joint statement from Germany, France and Britain — the three Western European countries that remain in the Iran nuclear deal — condemned Iran’s latest action to further expand its nuclear program. “Iran’s step is a challenge to the global non-proliferation system,” a statement from the three said. “This step, which carries significant proliferation-related risks, has no credible civilian justification.” “We will continue to consult, alongside international partners, on how best to address Iran’s continued nuclear escalation,” the statement added. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, said his country was taking the steps in reaction to a resolution adopted last week by the IAEA. The resolution, approved by the IAEA’s board of governors, called for Iran’s cooperation with a probe by the agency into man-made uranium particles found at three undeclared sites in the country. The joint statement by Germany, France and Britain said that Iran’s claims that its latest actions are a reaction to that resolution were “unacceptable.” The impasse over the agency’s probe comes as wider talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal are stalled. The years-long probe has been a key sticking point that led to a similar resolution criticizing Tehran in June. At the time, the Islamic Republic responded to it by removing surveillance cameras and other equipment from its nuclear facilities. The 2015 agreement Iran reached with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States gave Tehran relief from sanctions in return for guarantees it could not develop an atomic weapon.

Iran has always denied wanting a nuclear arsenal.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said it believes that Iran has further increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. As recently as last week, the agency criticized Tehran for continuing to bar the agency’s officials from accessing or monitoring Iranian nuclear sites. A separate report said IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi is “seriously concerned” that Iran has still not engaged on the agency’s probe into man-made uranium particles at the three undeclared sites — the key sticking point in the talks for a renewed nuclear deal. It has been nearly two years since IAEA officials have had full access to monitor Iran’s nuclear sites, and five months since the surveillance equipment was removed. The IAEA’s assessment came as efforts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which eased sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear program, have stalled. The United States unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear deal — formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — in 2018, under then-President Donald Trump. It reimposed sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to start backing away from the deal’s terms. The semi-underground enrichment facility in Natanz is home to thousands of centrifuge machines. Iran began 60% enrichment in Natanz in 2019. Natanz was target of sabotage in 2021 , an explosion that hit new halls for installing centrifuge machines as Iran called that a “nuclear terrorism” and a shadow war between Tehran and Israel, the prime suspect in the sabotage, raged. The flag controversy Simmering tensions flared up at the weekend after the US Soccer federation posted a modified version of the Iranian flag on their social media feeds. The move infuriated Iranian football chiefs, who lodged a complaint with world governing body FIFA demanding sanctions. US Soccer initially said the altered flag was intended as a gesture to show support for women protesters in Iran, before subsequently deleting the various posts. [caption id=“attachment_11705601” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A US soccer federation screenshot displaying Iran’s national flag on social media without the emblem of the Islamic Republic. AP[/caption] As comments raged online, Iranian state television described the US federation as “removing the symbol of Allah” from the Iranian flag. Iran s Tasnim news agency said on Twitter that the US team had “breached the FIFA charter, for which a 10-game suspension is the appropriate penalty”. The US team “should be kicked out” of the World Cup, it added. The US state department told CNN it had nothing to do with the move from the USSF but would continue to “find ways to support the Iranian people in the face of state-sponsored violence against women and a brutal crackdown against peaceful protestors.” Defender Walker Zimmerman said the US players were unaware of the posts. “We didn’t know anything about the posts but we are supporters of women’s rights,” he said. “We’re focused a lot on Tuesday, on the sporting side, as well. … I think it’s such a focused group on the task but at the same time we empathize and we are firm believers in women’s rights and support them.” On Monday, coach Gregg Berhalter confirmed his players and team staff had been in the dark about the flag gesture and sought to de-escalate tensions by emphasising that politics would not be a factor on Tuesday. “When I think about this match I know that a lot of other constituents have a lot of other feelings towards it,” Berhalter said. “But for us it’s a soccer game against a good team and it’s not much more than that. It’s a knockout game between two good teams that want to get to the next round.” Iran counterpart Carlos Queiroz brushed off suggestions that the flag furore would be used to motivate his players. “If after 42 years in this game as a coach I still believe I can win games with those mental games, I think I’ve learned nothing about the game,” the Portuguese coach said. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.