When the Supreme Leader Speaks, Who Still Listens?

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  By: Struan Stevenson Mojtaba Khamenei inherited the most powerful office in the Islamic Republic. Yet six months into his tenure, a question once considered unthinkable is surfacing in Tehran. When the Supreme Leader speaks, who still listens? For almost five decades, the answer was obvious. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created a system in which factional warfare could rage beneath the surface, provided everyone ultimately bowed to the Supreme Leader. Ali Khamenei preserved that arrangement for more than three decades. Presidents came and went. Clerics competed. The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) accumulated power. Yet one principle remained sacrosanct. The Supreme Leader had the final word. Today that principle is under strain. On August 28, Mojtaba Khamenei warned officials against creating false choices between war and negotiation, compromise and confrontation. He urged them to avoid publicizing weaknesses and declared that anything damaging social cohesion was forbidden. The mess...
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The mullah’s 43-year Iran report card

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  by Hossein Beizayi

Iran’s 1979 revolution is considered one of the most important events of the late twentieth century. The overthrow of Iran’s previous monarch and dictator Mohammad Reza Shah and the emergence of a religious regime reshaped Iran, significantly shifted the power balance in the Middle East, and created serious challenges to the global geopolitical order—challenges that continue to this day. 



Tip of the iceberg of incompetency, mismanagement, and corruption

As the regime marks the 43rd anniversary of the anti-monarchy revolution that brought the mullahs to power it’s worth taking a look at the regime’s report card.

1. The 8-year Iran-Iraq war that was initiated by the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – approximate cost: $3 trillion.

2. Iran’s nuclear program – approximate cost: $9 trillion.

3. Iran’s extensive military, financial and civilian support of its terrorist proxies in various countries in the region – approximate cost: $5 trillion.

4. Mismanagement of Iran’s rich resources and extensive damage to Iran’s mining infrastructure and parent industries, underground oil and gas resources, and rail, sea, and air transportation – approximate cost: $4 trillion.

5. Irreparable damage to the environment and colossal mismanagement of water resources – approximate cost: $3 trillion.

6. Financial problems and collapse due to the regime’s belligerence over the past 43 years towards the international community, the most prominent of which are nuclear sanctions and the destruction of tourism – $6 trillion.

7. Iran’s share of the Caspian Sea which was 50% before the revolution is now 13% present.

 8. Iran’s currency has steadily fallen since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979, dropping from 70 rials during the last years of the monarchy to the current 280,000 rials to the dollar.

9. Iranian passport ranks 191 from 199 globally, one of the lowest trusted passports in the world.

10. Inflation is inching towards 50%, according to state figures.

11. Around 333,000 people fall below the poverty line every month.

12. According to the NCRI, more than half a million Iranians died during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran due to the regime’s mismanagement and a ban on vaccine imports by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

13.  According to a government official, as many as 23 million Iranian women are unemployed, and 17.8 million of them are educated and literate.

14. On December 2021, in its 76th session, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses. Passed with 78 affirmative votes, this is the 68th UN resolution on the human rights situation in Iran since the mullahs rose to power in 1979.

15. Citing the statistics of the Central Bank, the head of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce said that between the years 2011 to 2019, $98.4 billion of capital had left the country.

16. Two-thirds of the Iranian people are now living below the poverty line.

17. Brain drain has damaged the Iranian economy 300 times more in recent years than the Iran-Iraq war. According to studies conducted in 2019, Iran ranked the second-largest brain drain in the world with the migration of nearly 180,000 educated professionals.

18. The departure of more than 2000 nurses from Iran, last year alone, due to lack of job security and low wages

19. The regime’s financial and military support of terrorist groups in the region and beyond has become an international concern and has awarded the regime as “the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world”.

And the list goes on…

What lies ahead

Traveling back through the 43 years that have passed since the inception of the religious dictatorship in Iran reveals two undeniable and opposite tableaus. One tableau signifies the colossal mismanagement, corruption, and brutality of a regime that has imposed its reign on the people of Iran. Another tableau signifies the resistance of the Iranian people of all strands of life against this religious dictatorship. This is a battle that began 43 years ago, and all signs indicate that sooner than later, the world will witness another Iranian revolution, in which freedom and democracy will be established.

This article was first published by irannewswire

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