These days, Iran’s state-run media are filled with the warmongering propaganda of regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the senior authorities, as well as the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Particularly, Khamenei-affiliated media outlets have extensively written about the regime’s regional influence. Khamenei tries to create the impression that his regime has fulfilled its ambitions for expanding its strategic depth. However, other factions within the regime warn that not only Khamenei has not achieved his strategic goals in the region, on the contrary he has severely weakened the Iran’s geopolitical advantages over the years. For instance, October 14, the state-run Ham-Mihan newspaper wrote, “We have passed the stage of geopolitical erosion and entered the stage of geopolitical crisis; a crisis that targets the territorial integrity of Iran.”
On October 8, the state-run Etemad newspaper in an article titled “The Danger is Closer than You Think!” wrote, “The sale of raw natural resources does not add anything to the wealth of this land. Instead, it will make us poorer day by day. If we continue in the same way, we will face conditions where there will be no cultivable land anymore. In the course of this wrong and unregulated development, we have built hundreds of dams, the results of which we are witnessing today… Building dams in inappropriate locations will have its consequences. We have several dams in the country that not only have not had a positive role in irrigating agricultural land, but have also dried up ancient gardens and vast palm groves by salinizing the region’s waters. As a result, Iran’s position in the world’s date trade and production has been completely lost. Moreover, thousands of people have become unemployed and sedentary, and fertile hectares of land have turned into salt marshes.”
The article does not mention the names of the IRGC and affiliated organizations close to the Khamenei, who are the main owners of dam construction projects, petrochemical industries, and the sale of raw natural resources. But who doesn’t know that the Khatam al-Anbiya Garrison belongs to the IRGC? With the construction of 40 dams on the Karun River, it has caused drought in Khuzestan and cut off the main water artery of this province. And, once again, with the revenue it has gained from this project, it has designed another 50 dams on the same river.
In another section of the same article, Etemad mentions the destruction of the Zayandeh-Rud River and the annihilation of forests, asking, “How many thousands of hectares of northern and western forests have we cleared to replace them with villa construction and establish petrochemical and industrial factories?”
Today it is clear to everyone that the regime uses warmongering and tools of suppression and destruction for its survival. A regime that, over more than four decades, has plundered the national resources and public wealth of the people, spending a large portion of it on warmongering and repression. Today, it is in a crisis of survival, facing the accelerating cycle of uprisings that are bringing it closer to its overthrow every day.
As the Iranian Resistance has stated, the dominance of IRGC and Khamenei’s regime over Iran’s economy is part of a flawed cycle that results in the destruction of industries, agriculture, the environment, and the banking system, as well as a severe recession in the consumer market. In this cycle, the regime and the IRGC resort to plundering the country’s economy to finance their apparatus of suppression and war, while preventing the fulfillment of the society’s needs. This ruthless exploitation leads to public discontent and the emergence of protests. Then, to suppress the uprisings, they intensify their repressive measures and further plunder the country’s economy to ensure the funding of their apparatus of suppression and war, creating more restrictions on meeting the society’s needs and the country’s infrastructure. This is an escalating cycle of economic destruction, which also explains why the uprisings are unstoppable.
