Minister’s Boast About Radars Irks Iranians Fuming Over Downed Plane
Remarks by the interior minister boasting about Iran's advanced radars have irked Iranians, who still demand justice over the downing of a Ukrainian plane.
Remarks by the interior minister boasting about Iran's advanced radars have irked Iranians, who still demand justice over the downing of a Ukrainian plane.
During a Thursday ceremony to commemorate the occasion of Iran’s Air Defense Day, Ahmad Vahidi -- himself a Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) general -- said the Islamic Republic is among the top countries in the world in terms of its air defense capabilities.
He said Iran is so advanced in radar systems that can detect and destroy all the enemies’ flying objects, and that in the missile sector, the country is again in the top tier in long, medium and short-range missiles, noting that “all these equipment are indigenous and domestically produced."
Similar remarks about the country’s air defense systems were made by the top brass of the military, including Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, the Army’s Commander-in-Chief Abdolrahim Mousavi, and IRGC’s chief commander Hossein Salami, as well as Ghader Rahimzadeh, the commander of the joint air defenses headquarters of the Army and IRGC.
Salami said some top powers in the world have purchased military and defense equipment from Iran and are now using them.
The remarks came as Russia has faced "numerous failures" with Iranian-made drones acquired from Tehran last month for use in Ukraine, and many people are still irate about the downing of Flight PS752 in 2020.
The airliner was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. All 176 passengers and crew, including 63 Canadians and 10 from Sweden, as well as 82 Iranian citizens died in the disaster.
According to security officials, at least four people were killed in the center of Basra, Iraq's main oil-producing center, in the latest bout of violence as the country is struggling with a political crisis that pits followers of the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr against Iran-aligned parties and paramilitary groups.
According to Iran International’s correspondent, among those killed overnight was an Iraqi army commander who was shot dead by the militias of the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq forces, affiliated with the Islamic Republic.
Urging the Iran-backed group to control their forces, Sadr’s spokesman warned Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq against reckless behavior.
Violence erupted in Iraq this week as armed supporters of Sadr fought with security forces and Iran-aligned gunmen in Baghdad in the fiercest street battles the capital has seen for years. Relative calm had been restored after Sadr urged all his supporters to leave the streets following the clashes that killed about 30 people. The unrest initially broke out on Monday, August 29, hours after Sadr announced he was quitting politics.
An intractable political deadlock between the two rival Shiite camps has left Iraq without a government since an October election, in which the Sadrist bloc won the most seats but was unable to gain its share of political power after months of haggling that has failed to produce a new administration. The Sadrists withdrew from parliament June 13, prompting supporters to storm the building in July and remain encamped outside ever since.
The calibre of the political figure and the media outlet that has interviewed him may be taken as a green light for Iran's embattled reformists to actively take part in the 2024 parliamentary elections.
Conservatives loyal to Supreme Leaser Ali Khamenei coined the ‘seditionist’ label for those who protested Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election in 2009.
The comment by Expediency Council member Mohammad Javad Bahonar came one day after friends and foes lashed out at President Ebrahim Raisi for giving a misleading report at a news conference about his success in tackling inflation. He had said that his economic policy reduced last year's 60 percent inflation rate to 35 percent.
Many critics, including government supporters reminded that same time last year the official annual inflation rate was around 42 percent, which remains almost the same despite claims of economic improvement.
Khamenei's advice to Raisi this week to follow a better and more convincing propaganda method was obliquely referring to the President's whitewashing of the failure of his economic team, after conservatives consolidated their power by taking over all three government branches and pushing aside ‘reformist’ politicians by barring them from elections.
Some reformists including former official and current political activist Ali Soufi were so disappointed by the situation marked by political barriers that they gave up running for any election. He said in his latest interview that "reformists no longer think of taking part in elections.”
Soufi complained that watchdogs including the conservative dominated Guardian Council that vets election candidates, tend to disqualify reformist figures and in such a situation competition is meaningless.
Pointing out the discriminatory situation Soufi said that while former president Hassan Rouhani had to submit the 2015 nuclear agreement for parliament’s approval, hardliners now say that their comrade, President Raisi does not need to do the same with the new nuclear deal. He pointed out that "the core of the Iranian pollical system simply does not trust anyone who is not a hardliner."
"The system even did not tolerate Iranian and US foreign ministers walking together during the negotiations," in 2015 he said. He also pointed out that many hardliners believe reformists are traitors only because they believe in dialogue and diplomatic relations. "Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader has said over and over that the West is not trustworthy," Soufi noted, adding that some hardliners characterize reformists as pro-Western elements.
He also noted that Iran's problem at the time being is that most Iranians, whether conservative, moderate or reformist, no longer trust the government and many evade the polls.
Nonetheless, the conservative figure Bahonar also criticized the current ultraconservative government "because many of their officials are not familiar with the way big jobs should be done." He added that the government makes ad-hoc problematic decisions such as announcing pay raise for workers that they cannot afford.
Assessing Iran's current political situation, Bahonar said that only less than 10 percent of Iranians are religious, revolutionary and follow the regime’s guidelines in every respect. He added that a lot of Iranians understand national interests and national security, but they are not interested in politics. They simply want to live. "I know many reformists who respect the Islamic revolution, the Islamic Republic and the Supreme Leader. Not all reformists are seditionists," he reiterated.
