The rigged election of Masoud Pezeshkian as Iran’s supposedly ‘reformist’ president in late June was quickly undermined by an unprecedented tsunami of executions. No less than 191 executions have been reported since Pezeshkian took office, including 29 in a single day. Thirteen were hanged on September 24, the very day Pezeshkian addressed the UN General Assembly in New York. Many of those hanged were sentenced to death for “waging war against God,” a catchall clause in the mullahs’ constitution that targets any political opponents of the theocratic regime. Three supporters of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), the main democratic opposition movement, including a boxing champion, have been sentenced to death.
Western political leaders, convinced that Pezeshkian could herald a new era of peaceful co-existence with the Iranian regime, were rapidly disconcerted by the ‘judicial’ killings, calling on the new president to intervene to stop the executions and to reform the judiciary. There is little likelihood of either taking place.
Desperate to reclaim his leadership role, Pezeshkian, who has admitted that his sole policy for Iran is to obey the diktats of the fanatical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stumbled through a disastrous press conference in September, when he displayed his lack of political skill or judgement, even at one point referring to Russia as the Soviet Union! His clumsy attempts to avoid making statements or answering questions led to him telling puny jokes and making vague assertions, leading to almost immediate criticism from the Iranian Raja News website, which described his performance as “weak, divisive, and cartoonish.” Nevertheless, his grim forebodings about the regime’s future did grab some headlines. Pezeshkian claimed: “In this situation, whether it’s energy, gas, electricity, the environment, or money, we are heading towards collapse. If we fail to manage resources and continue increasing consumption, we will definitely face destruction one day.”
The president’s alarmist comments caused turmoil in Iran, with many state-run media outlets blaming Pezeshkian’s advisers for the gloomy message, stating that his remarks, emphasizing the regime’s insoluble crises and the lack of any clear solutions, were likely to inspire a further popular uprising. Pezeshkian, a former heart surgeon, tried to wrest control of the debate by describing the regime’s economic woes as an illness requiring radical surgery. He said: “The patient is the economy we have; it needs medication, sometimes surgery, and sometimes anesthesia. Iran’s economy requires interventions.” Hammering home the message that what the country needs is a “national consensus” to unite the warring factions within the ruling elite, Pezeshkian’s plea appears to have had the opposite effect, with infighting escalating to new heights. The president’s surgical cure has actually accelerated the regime’s disease. One cleric and member of the Majlis (parliament) – Qasem Ravanbakhsh – editor-in-chief of the Partow-e Sokhan weekly newspaper, said: “This is not national consensus, but national division.” Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of Kayhan newspaper, Khamenei’s mouthpiece, also lashed out at Pezeshkian, saying that: “people with divergent views are placed in key positions under the code name of national consensus.”
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The beleaguered president’s calamities followed him to New York, where he addressed the UNGA, boasting that the mullahs’ regime “supported popular liberation movements of people that have been victims of four generations of the crimes and colonialism of the Israeli regime.” He then sought to persuade the Americans to resurrect the failed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal in coordination with the lifting of sanctions, pointedly calling for an end to the “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign introduced by President Trump in 2018. In a nutshell, Pezeshkian was suggesting that the ending of sanctions and the release of billions of dollars of frozen assets would enable Iran to continue to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, the Shi’ia militias in Iraq and Bashar al-Assad in Syria, pouring petrol on the flames of Middle East conflict.
But his speech provoked an outcry in Iran, with leading clerics accusing him of pandering to the Islamic Republic’s enemies.The state-controlled Kayhan newspaper warned Pezeshkian to “Beware of this conspiracy,” claiming that “a notorious and dubious past is plotting against Dr. Pezeshkian, inviting him to oppose Iran and Islam and to submit to humiliation in front of America.” In a follow-up article in Kayhan headlined “Ill-considered Remarks,” the editor stated the reason for the president’s comments were due to his “inability to articulate his intentions.” He added: “This weakness can be attributed to Mr. Pezeshkian’s lack of knowledge about politics, its sciences, and its established principles.”In other words, he has not yet learned the mullahs’ black arts of deception. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence website added to the criticism, noting that Pezeshkian has no way back: “It seems that a trap was set for the president in advance, and a psychological operation based on the likelihood of Pezeshkian’s verbal mistakes had been prepared, one which the president has easily fallen into, closing any escape route with repeated errors.” The IRGC’s Javan newspaper went one stage further labelling the president’s visit to the UN General Assembly as “a weak trip” and taunting him by saying: “He clearly lacks the specific skills needed for political speeches.”
Despite the regime officials’ admission that Pezeshkian has no authority, particularly in foreign policy, and that foreign counterparts do not take his words seriously, Iran is in such a crisis that even Pezeshkian’s worthless and empty remarks have disrupted the balance of the mullahs’ inner circle. They have warned him that he “might not see the winter snow in the presidential office!” Following the death of the former president Ebrahim Raisi – The Butcher of Tehran – in a helicopter accident, the regime has been in disarray and is spiraling towards irreversible decline. Various factions are now tearing each other apart in a bid to gain a last-minute share of the looting and plundering that has impoverished Iran’s 85 million population.
The clear strategy for the West is to maintain and increase sanctions, close our embassies, expel the Iranian regime’s diplomats and declare Iran a pariah state. Overthrowing this tyrannical regime and restoring freedom and democracy is the only objective demanded by the Iranian people. Backing them and their courageous resistance is the only option for ending conflict in the Middle East, the mullahs’ worldwide terrorism, and the looming nuclear threat.