Iranians are waiting for an opportunity to overthrow the entire regime…

Finally, after some propaganda shows, which are window dressing of the dictatorship in Iran, and after speculations about who will pass the filter of the Guardian Council, on Tuesday, May 25, at Khamenei’s behest, name of seven people who will be allowed to enter the June sham election, was announced!

In fact, Khamenei took one step closer to appoint his candidate and put an end to this show. Of course, out of the seven people who were allowed to enter the final stage of the elections, everyone knows that six of them have no chance, and Ibrahim Raessi is the one who will be selected as president, and the rest have been included so that it would not be a one man show. Because Khamenei, given the past experiences and the very critical situation in Iran, decided to finalize the issue of the next president at this stage so that what happened in 2009 does not happen again.

A few months ago, he announced the conditions for the next president, saying that the upcoming elections should not be bipolar, meaning that there should be no competition in the elections. He announced the characteristics of the person he wanted in his Nowruz message, which, of course, made it clear that the ideal person for Khamenei was Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by US forces in Iraq last year, and with Qassem Soleimani killed, Khamenei received a huge and unbearable blow, since it was very difficult to find someone like him.

But who is Ibrahim Raessi?

After Soleimani’s assassination, Khamenei’s clear choice was Ibrahim Raessi, who Khamenei had failed to appoint him as president four years ago. To this end, the Guardian Council, at Khamenei’s behest, disqualified all those who might have run as rivals for Ibrahim Raessi and polarized the election.

Even those who had repeatedly proved their allegiance to Khamenei, such as Ali Larijani, the two-term speaker of parliament, and one who was a IRGC commander for 10 years, or Ahmadinejad, who was Khamenei’s two-term president, as well as Jahangiri, who is the current deputy President of Hassan Rouhani and all others who were likely to polarize the election.

Raessi, was a young seminary student in the 1979 revolution and first worked as a deputy prosecutor in the city of Karaj in 1980 and was later appointed prosecutor of the same city. During this period, he was noticed by regime leaders for his atrocities in suppressing Khomeini’s opponents in 1981, and in 1982, while he was Karaj’s Prosecutor, he was given the responsibility of the Hamedan City Prosecutor’s Office as well, a position he held for three years. During this period, he harshly suppressed the regime’s opposition.

In 1988, Raessi was selected as a member of the death committee that massacred 30,000 political prisoners at Khomeini’s behest. The names of members of this death committee were later revealed by Ayatollah Montazeri (Khomeini’s successor, who opposed Khomeini’s order and for this reason Khomeini ousted him), and since then Raessi has been hated by most people.

However, after Khomeini’s death and Khamenei taking the power, Raessi moved up the ladder rapidly due to his allegiance to Khamenei. In 1989, he was first appointed as Tehran’s Prosecutor and after 5 years as the head of the General Inspectorate. He worked in this position for 10 years. In 2004, he was given the post of First Deputy of the Judiciary, and then in 2014 he became the Attorney General for a year, but after a year, Khamenei appointed him as the head of Astan Quds Razavi, one of the richest institutions in Iran with tens of billions of dollars of capital.

Astan Quds Razavi is one of the organs of theft and plunder of the Iranians’ wealth. At the same time, he was the Special Prosecutor General of the Clergy, and since 2006 has been the representative of South Khorasan in parliament and a member of the Presidium of the Assembly of Experts.

Khamenei wanted to make him president in 2017, but in fear of another uprising like the one in 1988, he chose not to take that risk at the time, and thus endured Hassan Rouhani for another four years. But after that election, Khamenei appointed him a member of the Expediency Council for five years, and two years later, even though Sadegh Larijani still had a few months left, Khamenei appointed him as the new head of judiciary.

In Iran, the head of judiciary holds the second spot of power right after the president. Khamenei by appointing him to this position provided him with a tool to remove all his opponents.

Now Khamenei knowing the very critical situation in Iran and while the public is opposed to his rule, is determined to appoint a new president because he thinks after his death, which, according to experts, is not far off, any rift at the head of the regime imminently will lead to the disintegration and overthrow of the regime. For this reason, he has chosen the policy of maximum contraction to eliminate any opposition by deploying IRGC and various security forces.

According to many, this sham election is the last show of this kind. Because on the one hand, 80% of the people live below the poverty line due to institutionalized corruption, and on the other hand, people want an end to dictatorship and oppression. They want regime change and establish a democratic government.

Regardless of who will be the president next month, Iranians are waiting for an opportunity to overthrow the entire regime in an uprising like what happened in November 2019. This is what Ahmadinejad acknowledged in a recent speech before being dismissed by the Guardian Council, saying that a flood would soon engulf the entire regime.

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the middle east countries in general and Iran in particular.

That’s why the military president in Iran will strengthen the ideology of exporting Iran’s revolution by IRGC’s regional activity.

“I am not a colonel, I am a lawyer. I never have thought military, I never have done military,” said President Rouhani during the competition of Iran’s presidential election in June 2013 to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a military candidate in a television debate.

After Iran’s revolution in 1979, the presence of the militants in political positions has always been under question. So far, Iran has not had a military president in office, but many military veterans have been in political positions such as ministry and member of parliament.  This is while Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of Iran’s revolution clearly banned militants from political activities including candidacy in elections.

Iran’s presidential elections are scheduled to be held on June 18, 2021. As yet, some military personnel especially members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have expressed their willingness to run the election, and the competition to choose a final candidate is processing in military think tanks. However, they do not see a powerful civilian candidate as a contender.

The military president theory in Iran was strengthened by propaganda for the leader of the foreign wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [G. Qassem Soleimani]. Some analysts believed he is the next president of Iran, but after his assassination by the Trump administration other names came up.

In the process, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf the speaker of Iran’s parliament and a former IRGC commander has already started his election campaign informally. Another man is Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan who is a former air force General of IRGC and former defense minister. Dehghan that is currently serving as defense advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has declared his nomination to run the presidency. Also, Saeed Mohammad that was the commander of Khatam Al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters (KAA), the engineering firm of the IRGC, resigned a few days ago and has started his election campaign. Rostam Ghasemi as the economic deputy of Quds Force and the former oil minister of Iran is another military candidate.  

Moreover, the former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaei, who has been a presidential candidate three times in 2005, 2009, and 2013 is now ready to run. Rezaei as a militant with economist gesture has taken out his military uniform several years ago. Also, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani, who served as the commander of the IRGC navy with the rank of rear admiral on 1985-1987 is another man that some media in Iran names as nominate. Moreover, the former speaker of parliament Ali Larijani who also has a background in the IRGC is a possible nominate for the presidency, but he has not declared his nomination so far.  

On another side, the civilian possible candidates are an Iranian conservative politician Saeed Jalili, Ebrahim Raisi as Chief Justice of Iran, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, and Ali Motahari as a reformist and former member of a parliament.

Ahmadinezhad disqualified four years ago for the presidential election. Also, the qualification of Motahary rejected in the recent parliament election. Many analysts say that Ahmadinezhad and Motahari will be disqualified again by the Guardian Council of Iran. According to the Iran constitution, all candidates of presidential or parliamentary elections in Iran have to be qualified by the Guardian Council.

“The meaning of the military president is that we have not a civilian at the level of the presidency in the country, and this is not in the interest of the country,” said Ali Motahari the civilian candidate of the next Iran’s presidential election to Khabar Online News Agency. “The concentration of powers of military, political, economic and media in a person often leads to tyranny and corruption.”

Analysts say the main competition is between militant candidates, but Saeed Jalili and Ebrahim Raisis are close politicians to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei; therefore, they have a chance to be chosen as the final candidate from Principlists of Iran. Another possible candidate is Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Iran. Although he rejects any nomination willingness, many reformists and moderates in Iran support him. However, he sent recently a positive signal for the run to the presidency in an interview with an Iranian Newspaper. If he can revive JCPOA, Zarif will be a choice with a high chance for the presidency. Otherwise, a hardliner candidate becomes the president.

In fact, a military president from Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could weaken reviving the nuclear deal. He also could increase the tensions between the two sides because the U.S designated IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization during the Trump era. And so far Biden has not withdrawn the IRGC from the list of designated terrorist groups. That’s why the military president in Iran will strengthen the ideology of exporting Iran’s revolution by IRGC’s regional activity.

But the intellectual difference is in the political space of Iran. “A president from members of IRGC can solve the problems strongly. The members of IRGC are different from militants, they ran the war and saved Iran from defeat,” said Mohsen Rafighdoust, the Minister of Revolutionary Guards in early Iran’s revolution. But Behzad Nabavi an Iranian reformist politician said to ILNA News Agency, “If a military figure from a military force resigns apparently from his position and be a candidate, it means the rule of that military force over the destiny of the nation and country. It is a coup thorough peacefully.”

Mohammad Javad Mousavizadeh is a journalist and analyst in international affairs and foreign policy. He has written many articles for digital publications around the world such as Khabar Online News Agency, Foreign Policy News, The Levant News, Eastern Herald, Modern Diplomacy, and South Front.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

As admitted by many Iranian regime officials, brutal suppression and the execution of dissidents, reduction in the oil price, reduction of exchange reserves, governmental corruption, and the government’s mismanagement regarding the spread of Covid-19 with more than 106,000 deaths at this time, has brought Iran to the point of a potentially unprecedented socio-political revolt around the anniversary of the November 2019 uprising.

Analyst Hasan Bayadi, from Iran, expressed how much the regime fears new revolts. On August 30, 2020, he told the state-run Entekhab website: “There is a possibility of unprecedented socio-political events before the end of December. Due to the government’s mismanagement, people believe in no political current. They are discontent and former dialogues have borne no fruit. So we must rigorously analyze the existing problems.”

Mardomsalari state-run daily wrote on August 31, “The way out of a dead-end is using offensive tools… The protest movements of December 2017 and November 2019 and the wrong response to them was not a good example. It is clear that violent acts can have very negative consequences.”

MP Hashem Harisi said on June 29, 2020, “The current situation of Iran’s society is not tolerable. Each day the gap between the people and the government widens. The situation is too fragile. We cannot sit and wait for the problems to solve themselves.”

Under such circumstances, the regime is planning preventive measures as before. According to reports obtained from inside Iran, on Monday, September 14, Mohammad Yazdi, commander of the ‘Mohammad Rasool-allah’ corps of Tehran announced that a plan called ‘Neighborhood Security’ would be carried out. This plan will use the capacity of the Basij paramilitary bases and will form ‘hit squads’ in different regions of Tehran to, as he puts it, provide the security of all the capital’s neighborhoods. He said that these squads are tasked with confronting ‘thugs, thieves and security disruptors’ but the regime is actually getting ready to confront the danger of any popular uprising, ready to erupt at any moment. Other than that, addressing petty crime such as theft has always been a police task.

So far, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as the main apparatus of the mullahs’ rule, has always come up with the security and anti-humane plans for suppressing people’s protests. It disguises this under the pretext of ‘giving a hand to the police force’. In 2008 and then during the controversial elections of 2009, the IRGC carried out the plan of having Security Patrols in groups of five in 1000 points of various cities throughout the country.

The regime knew that after the outcome of a predetermined election in which Ahmadinejad would once again become the president, protests would erupt. In the late fall of 2017, a month before the January 2018 uprising and while there were severe economic crises due to the return of the sanctions, another security plan was carried out using IRGC patrols, called “the epic of security and service” by which the regime committed the crime it did in the killings of that month.

With the current state of Iranian society, when the coronavirus pandemic and the regime’s inaction leaving more than 106,000 deaths are added to the economic crisis, poverty and hunger, the regime is clinging to the plan of ‘Neighborhood Security’ and forming the ‘hit squads’, spoken of for a long time. These squads are the force of suppression, spreading fear and horror throughout the cities.

A month ago, Mohammad Yazdi announced: “Reinforcement of Neighborhood Basij bases is one of our main priorities in the current year. These bases have become weak but as the honorable leadership has ordered (Basij must be present in all the neighborhoods) we are trying to carry out this order the best way we can.”

“The enemy has plans to take advantage of the improper economic condition and provoke people to confront the Nezam (Islamic Republic regime) and provoke riots,” he had formerly said.

‌But the people of Iran both know and have experienced in all these years that what Khamenei and other regime officials, as well as its security apparatus, have done in planning for the suppression of nationwide protests radiates from the nightmare that has shadowed them all. Khamenei and other regime officials know that it is not only the regime’s Basij force and its bases that have weakened, which they confess to, but the regime in its entirety is trembling in fear of popular revolt.

The people of Iran now want the UN and especially the UN Security Council (UNSC) to trigger the sanctions stated in six resolutions against this regime in response to its executions and mass killings; if not Khamenei will continue with more of the same because this is the tool of his regime’s survival. Khamenei well knows that the instant he stops execution and suppression nothing will be left of his regime.

Navid Afkari’s execution has revived a new wave of revolt amongst the youths of Iran. Protest and uprising have found an opportunity to show itself.

The poor, the army of hungry people, and an army of mourning people hurt by this regime throughout the 41 years of its rule will find the appropriate moment. When that moment comes, none of all these suppressive plans, nor its IRGC or its security apparatus will be able to stop the flood of this army that will erase this regime from the face of Iran.

Hassan Mahmoudi is a Europe-based social analyst, researcher, independent observer, and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iranian Politics. He tweets under @hassan_mahmou1.