Pundits Say Iran Regime Should Make Concessions Now Than Later
An Iranian historian says the Islamic Republic may survive if it gives concessions to the people while it is still maintaining some measure of authority and power.
An Iranian historian says the Islamic Republic may survive if it gives concessions to the people while it is still maintaining some measure of authority and power.
Speaking on Iran's state television in a debate with Lawmaker Abolfazl Amoui on Saturday, October 15, Majid Tafreshi, a London based researcher, claimed that Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's regime did not survive because it offered its concessions to the people too late when his power had waned after months of protests.
Nour News, a website close to Iran's Supreme Council of National Security quoted Tafreshi as having also said that many Iranians living abroad are scared to go back to Iran because they fear arrests based on fabricated charges. He also said that Iran's state-owned media have done very little to attract between 6 to 10 million Iranians living abroad.
Tafreshi’s appearance on Iran’s tightly controlled state TV is part of a recent attempt by the government to showcase some public debates to attract viewers as the large government broadcaster, with 40,000 employees has lost its audience in recent years.
Tafreshi held government posts when he lived in Iran and although he has published critical articles, he is not part of the opposition and hence his appearance on state TV.
As part of the discussion about the media in the program, Nour News quoted lawmaker Amoui as saying that social media platforms and foreign media outlets do not reflect a true image of Iran. Tafreshi responded that "We cannot ignore foreign-based Persian speaking media's errors, but at the same time, we cannot blame them for the problems that exist in Iran."
While Amoui complained about Iran's isolation in the international community, Tafreshi said: "When you do not communicate with the international community, do not accept the terms of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and want to create a new South Korea with North Korea's policies, of course you will be isolated."
In another development, former Majles Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Aderl, who is a close relative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in an interview also claimed that foreign media portray Iran as a country on the verge of collapse. However, he did not say what the right characterization is for a country where two major prisons in Tehran and Rasht were set on fire within a week and over 200 people including 23 children were killed in less than one month according to human rights watchdogs, while the country's leadership has not changed for more than 30 years while people in the street call for his removal.
In yet another similar development, as the second month of nationwide protests began, Hossein Mousavi Chalak, the chairman of the Association of Iranian Social Workers, warned that "If the people's demands as voiced in recent protests are not met, next time, similar protests will be much more violent."
Chalak said: "A national research conducted between 2015 and 2021 showed that the government's legitimacy has been on decline." He added that "coupled with the government's chronic inefficiency in meeting the people's demands will lead to more violent protests even if this round of uprising in Iran recedes."
An early and extended furlough to Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the sons of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been cited as evidence to support the conjecture.
Yasser Hashemi Rafsanjani, the youngest son of the former president who for years was a kingmaker in the Islamic Republic, revealed the information about his brother’s unusual furlough in a Clubhouse discussion on Sunday.
He said that his brother Mehdi – who is serving a 10-year sentence over financial corruption in Evin – was usually let out of the prison on Wednesdays on a two-day leave and had to be back in the prison on Fridays. But this week, he was sent home early and told not to come back until after Saturday, when the fire broke out in the prison.
This has added to speculation that the prison blaze might have been an intentional act by the government, although others believe it could have been a coincidence.
Sources in Tehran told Iran International Sunday morning that four of the inmates had been seen in body covers after the incident, a report later confirmed by Iran's judiciary. Over 60 inmates were also injured in the incident, four of them in critical condition.
Human rights advocate and lawyer Mostafa Nili, in a tweet Sunday said some of the inmates have been removed from Ward Eight, where both political and financial prisoners are held. According to Nili and others, political prisoners in Ward Four were only affected by tear gas and none have been taken away.
Fararu, which is a pro-reform website, interviewed Iranian economist Vahid Shaqaqi Shahri who said if the regime fails to clinch an agreement with the West over its controversial nuclear program and revive the JCPOA, the country may experience higher inflation that might bring its economic growth to zero in 2023.
Shaqaqi told Fararu that while Iran’s neighbors including Turkey and Saudi Arabia have experienced double-digit growths in the past few years, the economy of the Islamic Republic has shrunk in the face of sanctions and skyrocketing inflation.
Iran’s economy is almost completely state-run and the decision-makers in the country show no flexibility or interest in reform even though many warn the system needs drastic changes. The average annual inflation in the sixth months of the current Iranian year reached 42.1%, the Statistical Center of Iran announced in a report in September.
As the streets of many cities have turned into scenes of antigovernment protests since mid-September in the latest wave of anger at the totalitarian approach of the clerical regime towards cultural, political, and economic issues, there seems to be no glimpse of hope for any reforms by the authorities.
The people who are currently venting anger against the Islamic Republic in the streets and demand regime change are fed up with economic pressure and see a gloomy future for themselves; however, the government keeps cracking down, showing no interest in reforms.
In his Saturday interview with the Fararu news website, Shaqaqi said that the Iranian “economy has no more capacity to tumble down further.”
This university professor also referred to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which has forecast high energy and food prices and tougher economic conditions in 2023, warning that without “economic reforms, empowering the private sector, development of non-oil exports, and increase in investments,” Iran might see a more crippled economy next year.
Earlier this week, the IMF reported that with “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic all weigh heavily on the outlook, global growth is forecast to slow from 6.0 percent in 2021 to 3.2 percent in 2022 and 2.7 percent in 2023.”
This Iranian expert further noted that there are two more possible scenarios for the Iranian economy next year. “The optimistic scenario is that the JCPOA will be revived, and with the removal of the sanctions, the inflation rate will decrease to 20 percent and an economic growth of five percent could be achieved.”
With a slight increase in oil sales, Iran's economy has gained about 40 billion dollars from non-oil exports and imported a total worth of 45 billion dollarsin goods, Shaqaqi said, adding that the country has achieved economic growth of two to three percent, as predicted by the International Monetary Fund. However, he said, “if the conditions remain the same and sanctions are not increased,” one or two percent economic growth along with a 40 percent inflation can also be seen for Iran in 2023.
Iran’s economy is mostly influenced by political power. The government believes that in case of losing control over the economy, it will lose political authority.
A notable example is the Revolutionary Guard that plays a very significant role in the economy by monopolistic practices. Several cases of corruption and mega-size embezzlements have diminished popular trust in the regime.
Protesters in the past four weeks have been routinely setting fire to large street garbage bins to block streets and prevent security forces from approaching demonstrators, and to protest themselves against tear gas.
A host of top officials have called this a costly destruction of public property, with the chairman of Tehran City Council warned recently that the government cannot replace the trash bins so quickly as each cost around $500.
Aftab News, a reformist website has taken issue with these officials, saying that in the first place, the price quoted is almost four times higher than the retail price for these large, square containers.
In an article on Sunday, Aftab News has then listed a series of large-scale corruption cases linked with government officials, regime insiders, banks and pension funds in the past three decades, arguing that these cases cost taxpayers the equivalent of billions of trash bins.
Iran’s economic system is controlled by the government, large religious and military conglomerates, largely based on political influence networks, nepotism and corrupt arrangements. Although the country has exported well above one trillion dollars of oil in this period, economic growth has been anemic and people have become poorer, especially in the past decade.
Aftab News argued that in contrast to officials criticizing protesters, some reformists and others argue that many top figures have remained silent throughout the years regarding government corruption and what people in the streets do is nowhere as destructive as what officials have done. The website pointed out that in the 2021 global corruption ranking Iran was in the bottom quarter, ranking 150 among 180 countries.
Some regime insiders recently have raised their voice saying that corruption has become alarmingly systematic. Ahmad Tavakoli a member of a constitutional body and Mahmoud Sadeghi a former lawmaker are among those who have raised the alarm.
Aftab News quotes others as saying corruption cases that reach the government-controlled media are “the tip of the iceberg,” pointing out that in one $60-billion state “charity” organization not even one employee has been fired or reprimanded over four decades, while the conglomerate is not accountable to parliament or the government.
It also points to one corruption case in government petrochemical exports that reached the courts in recent years and totaled $7.4 billion, equivalent to more than 60 million trash bins.
Aftab News then goes on listing a dozen other large corruption cases, including a decade-old case of $3 billion disappearing from the central bank and the perpetrator now living in Canada. It mentions the case of Babak Zanjani, an insider businessman tasked with exporting oil during international sanctions in 2010-2013, who pocketed at least $2.7 billion and is now in prison sentenced to death.
Just this year in August, a $3 billion case was revealed in the semi-public Mobarakeh steel plant and after two months no one has been arrested, let alone indicted.
Aftab news says that funds lost in just a few of these corruption cases could buy more than 50 billion trash bins, while high-ranking officials, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian make a fuss about a few hundred set on fire by protesters.