Ali Khamenei, Iranian regime’s supreme leader finally broke his silence and spoke on August 13th on a number of hot political issues facing the nation. He was awfully quite these days. Yet the country is boiling in dissent. Listening to his speech leaves no doubt that he is desperate. He talked about problems his regime has no clue how to tackle. On the top of the list was the recent protests in cities like Tehran, Karaj, Shiraz, Esfahan, Mashhad, Ghahdarijan, and many other cities with such slogans as “Death to Khamenei” and “Death to Dictator.” He was off balance since people in the streets had him in their crosshair.
Khamenei wasted no time and took the bull by the horns. He called his cronies “cowards” and not trustworthy at hard times. Considering the recent unrests as the extension of January protests, Khamenei once again branded the protesters as agents of foreign powers such as the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia. He said that “they had planned for years to disrupt the country’s security in January this year, but the people came out with admirable awareness, and stopped the enemies’ years-long plans.”
He added: “The enemies then set their hearts on this (Persian) year, with some US officials saying that there’ll be some news from Iran in the next six months. They were clearly pointing to the events earlier this month which turned out to be so limited despite the enemies’ huge financial and political investments.”
Iranian citizens have pushed the regime to the edge before. The difference this time is that the regime has gone too far in putting pressure on all citizens. The gap between rich and poor is at its highest level in 40 years. It is a recipe for disaster and the top officials of the regime publicly confirmed it.
He used his admission of the guilt as a temporary band aid and admits that he made a “mistake” in the nuclear deal. “With regard to the nuclear deal, what I did was wrong, allowing some officials’ insistence to give a shot at nuclear talks, in which our red lines were not respected,” said Khamenei, according to regime’s official news agency.
He made it clear to his power base: the Revolutionary Guards and Bassij Forces that he has no intentions of taking the risk of going to war with the US. The mullahs’ supreme leader said: “There’ll definitely be no war. In Short, I have to inform the Iranian people that there’ll be no war and we will not negotiate, either.”
The leader of theocratic regime in Iran admits the deadly state of the country’s economy. But he makes sure to leave out his own massive financial conglomerate feeding off Iran’s poor economy. There is a rough estimate that Khamenei is sitting on top of a 95 billion dollars trust found. He is not the only one; there are other sharks in the tank related to his powerhouse that are taking their lion’s share of dying Iranian market.
Khamenei in his speech pictured himself as the champion of fighting corruption. A claim hardly anyone in his right-mind would take it seriously. He said: “The main cause of such problems is not sanctions, but domestic policies. This is what many officials and experts alike have confirmed. That however doesn’t mean that the sanctions have nothing to do with this situation. Of course they do, but the main factor is rooted in our performance. Among the measures that must definitely be taken into account is fighting against corruption. This was also reflected in the letter that the reverend head of judiciary wrote to me two days ago, in response to which I underlined that the proposed measures are an important and positive step toward fighting against corruption and punishing those who are involved.”
Fighting crime has never been a priority for the regime because the top criminals are well connected individuals with strong ties to Khamenei. To make it somewhat believable the security forces targeted some small-time currency dealers in the midst of currency crisis driven by a sharp decline in the value of Rial (the official currency). Khamenei and top Revolutionary Guards know better that Iranian citizens will not easily fall for their theatrics anymore and some heads needed to roll. The first to be sacked was the head of Iran’s Central Bank, Valiollah Seif.
Alarmed by public frustration with the way economy is run in Iran, Khamenei tried in his address to pour some cold water on the matter. He promised swift actions against fat cats. But people know full well that he is not willing to clip former Revolutionary Guards turned businessmen. They are running the country in a mafia style gang.
The bitter truth for the theocratic regime in Iran is plain and simple; the people are fed up with the mullahs and the regime is no longer able to force itself on them. This is the story of all dictators toward the end and Iran is no exception.
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