Eurasia Press & News
US Vice President Mike Pence’s meeting with Iranian opposition leader Maryam Radjavi at the Mojahedin’s headquarters in Albania and his strong support for the Democratic Alternative (National Council of Resistance of Iran) signal the prospect of the end of the regime in power in Iran.
Lessons from history
This is particularly true when Mr. Pence states, “The greatest proof of the growing weakness of the Iranian regime is the recent election of Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s president. As you all know and as history has recorded, 30 years ago, Raisi was the head of the Ayatollah’s death squads.”
On Tuesday, June 21, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s website published the text of Khamenei’s remarks addressed to several regime-supporting nomads under the title, “Congress of Nomads.” At the meeting, Ali Khamenei said, “Today, the enemy is trying to make people believe that they have no future, that the future is a dead end. People should come to the conclusion that those in charge of the country do not know how to manage the country.”
If these words are intended to justify the position of the Iranian regime, they also clearly show that this feeling is shared by a large part of the Iranian people. And if we only needed one proof, the brain drain from Iran is a glaring example.
Brain drain, a persistent bad sign
According to the International Monetary Fund, in 2009, under the mullahs’ rule, Iran ranked first among 91 developing and underdeveloped countries in the world. In the past three years alone, about 4,000 doctors and 300,000 specialists with master’s and doctorate degrees, including 900 university professors, have left Iran. In addition, 90 of the 125 elite Iranian students in the last three years are studying at American universities. Finally, in 14 years, 63% of Iranian elite students have emigrated from Iran.
According to the Shahrvand Online report dated December 24, 2021, a quarter of Iranian doctors who have emigrated to Europe and the United States have done so for three reasons: insufficient income due to high and uncontrolled inflation; critical shortage of medical facilities and equipment; and political and social instability in the country.
The massive capital flight from Iran is one of the reasons for the country’s economic instability and the Iranian government’s futility. According to official statistics, 160 billion dollars have left the country in the last ten years. The head of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce himself has made the damning observation of a 100 billion dollars loss between 2020 and 2021.
Anger and inflation, two irreconcilable evils
In the past few months and weeks, slogans such as “Death to Raisi” and “Death to this demagogue government” have resounded in the streets of the country’s cities. Pensioners, workers, students and almost all corporations are protesting continuously against the high cost of living and the soaring inflation throughout the country.
“The price of goods in the market is rising by the hour,” admitted Sadif Badri, a member of parliament, on June 20. “People are being crushed by economic pressure due to mismanagement.”
Since Ebrahim Raisi’s selection, he and his government have continued to receive Ali Khamenei’s full support. Any attack against Ebrahim Raisi is, in fact, aimed at the Supreme Guide. And even more so since the latter has cleaned house on the regime’s officials to make room for his favorite. Officials such as Ali Larijani, the former speaker of parliament, have paid the price.
The questionable choice of Ebrahim Raisi
In the speeches that preceded the last presidential campaign, the Supreme Leader did not hide his preference for the former mujahedin executioner. Meeting virtually with representatives of some student organizations on Sunday, May 10, 2020, he said, “It is necessary to make a good and desirable choice of someone who is a believer, revolutionary, competent, popular, hopeful, who believes in the youth and internal capabilities.” While the leader of the Iranian regime did not name a specific candidate that day, the traits he listed are those used by fundamentalist groups in recent years to refer to Ebrahim Raisi and his performance in the judiciary, which they consider “positive.”
Thus, he tried to oust all the government candidates in favor of Ebrahim Raisi, who is the most obedient and loyal to him. Ebrahim Raisi is Khamenei’s last option. He is not just one of the available options. No. The last one! To try to avoid new uprisings or riots or to nip them in the bud, to keep a free hand in the atomic program, or to try to increase the regional influence of the Iranian regime, Raisi is Khamenei’s last move.
Giving the keys to the government, having weeded out internal resistance, to a man who, according to the United Nations and Amnesty International, was directly involved in the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988, ultimately means nothing more than the impasse in which Ali Khamenei finds himself. And it is probably for this reason that Ali Khamenei denies the obvious with such intensity.
On Iranian New Year’s Day, March 21, 2022, Khamenei declared that Ebrahim Raisi’s accession to power was “the sweetness of the Iranian New Year.” Apparently, the candy was poisoned…
