Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, May 24, 2019 – These days, among warnings and messages Iranian officials are voicing to their followers, in addition to the usual name-calling and blaming the opposition for the crises and dead-end the Iranian regime faces, there is also a shadow of a more serious horror to be seen that is not explicitly mentioned.
The May 21 open session of the Iranian Majlis (parliament) was another of regime officials expressing grave concerns about the end of the Islamic Republic.
“Usually, in a hodgepodge of political, media and societal controversies, the truth about the country’s problems stay unknown and therefore, most of the time, no real solution is found,” said Majlis member Homayoun Youssefi.
Mohammad Kianoushrad, former Majlis member and close to Iranian regime President Hassan Rouhani’s camp, said: “structural problems, not only in the constitution but also in lower levels in the executive, cultural, political and security fields have rendered the government unstable.”
He then went on to vaguely mention the regime’s atrocities in the early 1980s while admitting that raw and violent crackdown doesn’t pay off anymore.
“If in the early 1980s we could loosely accept that some decisions were made out of the scope of the law, today such a demand and image is not wise at all,” he said. “Currently, it appears that there is pessimism and examples of that can be seen in the developments at the end 2017-2018 [the popular uprising all around Iran]. So, if an optimistic climate is not created, the people’s pessimism won’t lead to anything but further crises.”
Asghar Massoudi, another Majlis member from Rouhani’s camp, expressed his concerns about widespread corruption and the regime’s inefficiency, warning about a popular explosion. “Corruption is a beast with seven heads that will destroy public trust. Negligence in fighting corruption is like complicity with the corrupt,” he said. “When people feel that the government is oppressing them, they’ll become intent to retaliate… We need to be careful that usury, hypocrisy, nepotism, economic rent, and bribery don’t pull all the efforts of the [Islamic] revolution in vain and shake the roots of the regime,” he added.
Another Majlis member, Amir Khojasteh, acknowledged the crumbling economy and said about the government’s currency policies that “the government has no written plan for the currency section in the country… Printing banknotes won’t solve the mayhem in the market. Removing four zeros from the national currency means that the national currency is devalued… The government has faced defeat in all of its measures to control the inflation,” he added.
“Impeachments don’t solve anything because over the past year we have impeached several ministers and the situation has worsened and not improved… The government’s economic team passes by the people’s economic problems indifferently and this issue has rendered the people sad and angry.”
Such remarks are not limited to the Majlis. Iranian state-run media also publish frequent articles about the dangerous mood of Iranian society.
“We should pay close attention to the society. If the Iranian society, which always acts as a group, reaches the point of total distrust regarding the state’s internal narrative, it will swiftly cross the threshold of legitimacy [for the regime] and the situation will deteriorate many folds,” the Ebtekar newspaper, close to Rouhani’s camp, wrote in a May 20 article. “The situation is in a way that the developments in the Iranian society are accelerating towards ‘radicalism’.
“These days, the special situation of the country tells us that you can’t, and maybe shouldn’t, be optimistic about the usual and already tested approaches and plans of recent years. Experience shows that you can’t find the ‘feeling of security’ and the ‘feeling of trust’ only in legal prosecution and police crackdown. Such approaches would not only be a containing measure, considering the type of these actions, there will also sometimes be an impact that is contrary to the initial goals.”
The writers of Ebtekar use the typical vague language of Iranian mullahs or people who themselves fear prosecution living in an autocratic regime. However, what they really mean is plain and simple: The Iranian regime should fear the wrath of ordinary Iranians and violent crackdowns will not help the regime much like in the past. It may actually have the opposite effect of igniting a population who have already had enough.
