, an expert on Iran and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology, in Rolla. “What we have witnessed over the last 10 weeks in general, and in the cities of Zahedan and Mahabad in particular, can be considered crimes against humanity.”
Moreover, a vote in the General Assembly, where all nations, including Iran’s allies, can express their views on the human-rights backsliding in the country, could signal to Tehran how the world perceives this sprawling crisis. The informal Security Council meeting on Nov. 2, led by Albania and the US, both of which have no diplomatic relations with Iran, could be dismissed by Iran as politically motivated. Iran claims these countries and others in the Council are driven by their adversarial relations with Tehran.
As long as the ruling elite strives to maintaining the status quo and holding its grip on power even through force, and while powerful nations such as China and Russia keep arguing that what’s happening in Iran is a domestic issue and not within the purview of world bodies, the choices of the international community could be limited.