On September 28, in an interview with the Ofogh state TV, Saeed Ghasemi, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said, “The [PMOI] phenomenon alone, meaning Masoud and Maryam [Rajavi] and their group, have been working for the destruction of the entire regime… Right now, they are present in all ministries and carrying out missions. This phenomenon alone was sufficient to destroy the regime, and they did not need Saddam doing that.”
The statements of this senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, who has had close familiarity with the PMOI during the early years after the 1979 revolution until today, contain several important points. First, he says that the PMOI and its leaders alone are enough to eliminate the regime.
Considering that the senior military commander of the regime explicitly states that the force of the PMOI alone is capable of destroying the mullahs’ regime, it itself indicates the depth of understanding and intensity of fear among the regime’s leaders regarding the PMOI and their power within Iran to overthrow the entire regime.
Another noteworthy point made by Saeed Ghasemi is that the PMOI did not really need Saddam to overthrow the regime. This statement clearly demonstrates the baseless repeated claims by mullahs’ regime regarding the PMOI’s dependence on the former Iraqi government. Furthermore, it shows that the senior officials of the IRGC, the main force that has fought the PMOI, are fully aware of the insignificance of these accusations that are constantly repeated by the regime and its allies abroad.
This official states that the continuous threat posed by the PMOI to the existence of the regime is not limited to a specific period or related to the past. Rather, they are “present in all ministries right now” and “carrying out their mission.”
A deeper analysis of these confessions can reveal further meanings, including the fact that the PMOI did not need the war with Iraq to overthrow the regime. Rather, it was regime founder Ruhollah Khomeini who needed this war in order to avoid being overthrown by the PMOI, and for this reason, he regularly described the war as a “divine blessing.” He clearly recognized the PMOI as nemesis and bane of his regime, a reality that regime officials continue to warn about to this day.
Regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei also knows this very fact that the PMOI are capable of overthrowing his regime on their own. He is aware of the independence of the PMOI as a symbol of their ability and power. Therefore, like Khomeini, he has deployed all his propaganda apparatus to distort and invert this reality. As a result, all the organs of his regime, from the Ministry of Intelligence and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to his embassies in various countries, as well as the Ministry of Science, Education, and other institutions, are directing enormous efforts to confront the PMOI inside the country and across the globe.
In the nationwide uprisings that took place in 2017, 2019, and 2022, Khamenei attempted to portray these uprisings as engineered and designed by foreign powers. In a speech on January 9, 2018, he acknowledged the danger of his regime being overthrown by the PMOI, but tried to tie them to foreign powers.
Today, his closest allies are admitting that the PMOI is an independent movement that does not need the help of any foreign power to bring his regime down.