April 03, 2018
By Mustafa Fahs (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13) has accused Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of misappropriating $190 billion of public funds. The criticism follows the arrests of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s two closest allies, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei and Hamid Baqaei. Mr. Mashaei, who served as Ahmadinejad’s First Vice President and Chief of Staff (2009-2012), was arrested on March 18 on unspecified charges. Mr. Baqaei, who served as Ahmadinejad’s vice president in charge of administrative affairs (2011-13), was convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to 63 years in prison in December 2017.
The disclosure of Mr. Khamenei’s wealth is not a demonstration of Ahmadinejad’s exceptional power. Instead, it exposes deep divisions between various factions inside the Islamic Republic. Untreated lumps have festered in the past four decades, developing into a malignant tumor. The regime is suffering from an incurable disease. Cortisone, chemotherapy, and radiation offer the last hope for patients who have terminal cancer. These treatments usually have unpleasant side effects.
The medical analogy could apply to the world of politics. A military coup d’etat is a shock treatment which a despotic regime uses as the last resort to maintain its hold on power and delay its impending demise. Will the Islamic Republic resort to a military coup to prolong its political life?
The Islamic Republic has been a failed political and governing system. It has been negligent in its duty to manage the country’s domestic and foreign policies. The authorities’ inability to address public concerns was evident in the crackdown on the recent nationwide protests. Security forces brutalized ordinary citizens who were demanding their fundamental human rights. Police arrested more than 8,000 people.
“More than 85 percent of those arrested are under 35 years old. Most detainees have no prior records. We must point out that 70 percent of the country’s population is under 40 years old. The civil unrest was political,” Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaqari said after the government crackdown on the protesters. Zolfaqari’s statement shows that the protesters were not merely voicing their anger over the government’s failure to tackle economic problems, but were calling for regime change.
Even the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, criticized the suppression of the popular protest. “These protests are positive events. Instead of silencing them, we must listen to people’s demands. If unanswered, economic demands, which are not political, will turn into a state of frustration and disappointment in society, paving the way for the collapse of the regime, or control by a populist, authoritarian, repressive and elusive government that uses excessive violence but cannot last long,” Hassan Khomeini said at the time. His remarks expose the regime’s existential fears, which may ultimately force it to stage a military coup to ensure its survival.
The infighting among various factions within the regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) fear of U.S. pressure and increasing tension between President Hassan Rouhani and the IRGC could pave the way for a military coup as Hassan Khamenei has warned.
Meanwhile, the IRGC is blaming Rouhani’s government for the perceived failure of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal. There is a strong possibility that President Donald Trump might decide to withdraw the U.S. from the JCPOA in May when the agreement is up for a review. The move will give the IRGC an excellent excuse to escalate its attack on the government and increase its influence inside Iran. The IRGC is positioning itself as the only viable successor to Ayatollah Khamenei.
Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev, the first and only Vice President of the Soviet Union, and the Committee on the State of Emergency (Gang of Eight) deposed Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev during the August coup of 1991. After three days, the coup collapsed, due to the popularity of Boris Yeltsin. The coup not only failed to preserve the Soviet system, butit facilitated its demise. Similarly, any coup attempt by the IRGC will most likely hasten the downfall of the Islamic Republic regime.
Kudos, a great article but this falling regime already has been ruled by these thugs, I RG C, for many years. Their financial control on policies and their transactions has made them the worst,biggest corrupt BUSINESS in the world. They supervise the so called Department of Justice, an endemic feature of illegal and laughable judgments .They have put the dictator clown in a golden cage, they protect him, light his charcoal grill and feed him dollars and gold. He is only a dying old dog, he only can bark,none sense and garbage viciously. This is only a falling regime ,going down, day after day.,INDEED