The Regime in Iran Has Weakened
Increase in executions & arrests in Iran, parallel to vicious killings in Syria & Iraq
By: Keyvan Salami
Increase in executions & arrests in Iran, parallel to vicious killings in Syria & Iraq
The situation in Iran has actually worsened and the regime has weakened following the agreement Tehran signed with the West aimed at curbing its suspicious and controversial nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. In the wake of the June 2015 nuclear agreement there were those who believed moderates would draw a rise to power in Iran and take over the ruling authorities through the farce February elections, and actually go on to engage in balancing the regime’s aggressive policies.
However, subsequent to the nuclear agreement the circumstances in Iran have turned for the worse in all aspects: executions and arrests have skyrocketed, the economy is ringed in suffering its lowest conditions, poverty has increased and the Revolutionary Guards’ already decried warmongering measures in Syria and atrocious killings targeting the Iraqi people have escalated to alarming scales.
“The Syrian regime under Bashar Al Assad is, of course, indebted to Iran militarily, politically and financially. Indeed, without the help of Iran’s surrogates – such as Hizbollah and Asaib Al Haq – the regime would have collapsed years ago at the beginning of the Syrian civil war,” The National wrote recently.
“Iran has historically relied on three militias to exercise influence in Iraq. The groups all predate the threat of the Islamic State, and each of them publicly supports Iran’s supreme leader, as well as its revolutionary ideology. And at least two of the groups have been linked to deadly attacks on American troops during the 2003 to 2011 U.S. occupation,” as Foreign Policy rightfully noted.
Instead of moderates, a monster has emerged from the February polls. This includes hardline extremists Mullah Ahmad Jannati who is hysterically loyal to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. While coming in 16th in Tehran’s ballots, he somehow set aside all other candidates and became chair of the Assembly of Experts.
“In other words, the notion that ‘moderates’ had won a great victory in February has now been even more conclusively disproved. The ‘Assembly of Experts’ where hardliners supposedly were defeated has now elected just about the hardest-liner of them all as its head,” as Newsweek elaborated.
The situation has deeply deteriorated inside Iran, and here are the details.
Firstly, there are no moderate elements in the mullahs’ regime. Secondly, the mullahs are engulfed in crises and extremely weakened as they cannot show any flexibility before the Iranian people. This is exactly why Tehran desperately needs to increase its crackdown measures throughout the society and export its terrorism and war across the region. And recently, the Iranian parliament went on to literally declare the country’s banking system as bankrupt.
“The international anti-money laundering and terror-finance watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), recently warned of Iran’s ‘failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system,’” as the Business Wire shed light.
The Iranian Interior Minister has also issued a report officially announcing the annual arrest of over 600,000 people across the country. Naturally, the actual figure is much higher as Iran is not known to report true statistics. Iranian authorities have also been seen publicly lashing protesting workers and college students who attended night parties, as the regime is facing a powder-keg society ready to explode.
Iran is suffering from major governmental instability in reference to all aspects of everyday life and the mullahs simply have no remedy on how to contain and rein in such a chaotic environment.
“The regime has a penchant for repeated arrests of activists, and also of other political prisoners who have been arrested in the past for expressing dissent, speak up against the apparent injustice or for indicating secular leanings,” Lord David Alton of the British House of Lords wrote recently.
Dictatorial practices, vehement oppression and hawkishness have been alarmingly on the rise, as the wary ruling establishment in Tehran understands very well its days are numbered without such an approach.
A delicate situation the likes of this sends a strong message for those attempting to seal economic contracts and agreements with the regime: you are anomaly trekking the wrong track by currying the mullahs and extending an olive branch to Tehran.
“Iran was expecting a bonanza in unfrozen funds and new business opportunities after sanctions that had been imposed because of the nuclear program were lifted. But the continued presence of nonnuclear sanctions has slowed the process to a crawl, and foreign banks have been afraid to lend to Iranian companies because of potential penalties imposed by the United States,” The New York Times explained.
The economy in Iran, on one hand, is in hysteria has lost all capacity to welcome an opening of signing new economic agreements, and has come under near-complete control of Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards, as they continue to rule over a heavily-rooted black market rankling and destroying Iran’s economy from within. Any contract crafted with Iranian companies is tantamount to engaging in trade deals with the Revolutionary Guards and providing it the financial and substantive support it desperately needs.
“The World Bank aims to eradicate global poverty, but its push stops at the Iranian border despite the easing of sanctions against Tehran and the country’s pressing economic needs…The Washington-based development bank seems reluctant to reengage in a country where it stopped all new projects in 2005 in compliance with the international sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program.
But since those sanctions were removed in January in the wake of a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, the World Bank has not shifted,” Your Middle East clarifies.
And courting the Guards will lead to the expansion of further terrorism and warmongering in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. This is the integrated face of a dangerously weakened regime that will resort to any and all measures to maintain its grip on power.
Follow Keyvav on @SalamiKeyvan