Iran’s Ex-President Rouhani May Be Trying A Come Back

Several cities in the province of Sistan-Baluchestan, where most Sunni Baluch people live, were scenes of protests against the Islamic Republic on Friday while the regime also organized pro-government rallies in many cities across the country. 

This was the 13th consecutive Friday that people in the Sunni-majority cities such as the provincial capital Zahedan and Khash held gatherings and chanted slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard. As usual people poured into streets following Friday prayers.

Mowlavi Abdolhamid, the top religious leader of the Sunni Baluch, led the Friday prayer in Zahedan, and during his sermon criticized the regime’s arrest, sentencing and killing of children. 

Elsewhere in his sermons, Abdolhamid debunked the Islamic Republic’s accusation of separatists among the protesters in Sistan and Baluchistan, saying that "We are staunch opponents of separatism. Baluch, Kurd, Arab, Persian, Turk, Turkmen, Lor, Gilak and all other ethnic groups are against separatism.” “All Iranians are one and together. Today, Iran smells of love," he added. 

"We sympathize with all Iranians and all Iranians are dear to us; Muslims and non-Muslims, we must respect human rights and humanity. Jews, Christians, Baha'is and others should enjoy human rights. The law has not taken away the nationality of any person; even if he does not accept God," he said. 

Pointing out that Baha'is are being persecuted by the Islamic Republic, Abdolhamid called for respect for the rights of "all Iranian citizens." Touching on the issue of apostasy verdicts for the Baha'is, he said that "The new generation of Baha’is were not Muslims who wanted to divert from Islam. They were born non-Muslims so they cannot be sentenced to apostasy."

Fereydun Vahman, Professor Emeritus at Copenhagen University, in an interview with International Friday praised Abdolhamid’s remarks and said he is a rare unifying force among Iran’s religious figures. He also hailed his ideas about equality of women and men as well as the equal rights for Baha’is. 

Contrary to the Sunni cleric, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representatives who led Friday prayers across the country, tried to focus on the pro-government commemorations, known in the state media as the occasion of “Day 9 Epic”, the ninth day of the Persian calendar month of Day, which falls on December 30.

Another issue discussed by Khamenei’s representatives – the so-called Friday prayer leaders – was the third death anniversary of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander IRGC’s extraterritorial Quds Force. On January 3, 2020, the United States killed Soleimani, as well as the deputy commander of Iraq's popular mobilization units, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport.

The contents of Friday Prayer sermons delivered by clerics appointed by Khamenei in various cities are dictated by two state bodies reporting to his office, officially known as "The Policy-making Council for Friday Prayer Imams" and the "Friday Prayer Headquarters," both dominated by hardliner clerics.

Firebrand Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Guardian Council, claimed that the Islamic Republic is “invincible,” saying that “dictators want to achieve their goals under the guise of democracy and the defense of women's rights and freedom." He added that the US’ intention to liberate women is to enslave them. 

He also described the current wave of protests – which he calls riots – as the deepest conspiracy facing the regime. "In the events, for the first time, the Supreme Leader was insulted, which is actually insulting religion.” Khatami was referring to derogatory slogans chanted by protesters against Khamenei, that anger his religious followers.

The high-ranking clerics have spoken against President Ebrahim Raisi's ultraconservative government, only after the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (Qalibaf) who calls himself a neo-conservative went to see them in Qom.

This might be the starting point of a shift from policies based on conspiracy theories inspired by presidential adviser Saeed Jalili to more pragmatic ideas Ghalibaf has been offering as a prelude to what he called a move toward "a new governance" in Iran. Some social media users have called the move "a soft coup by pragmatists against the ultraconservatives," who try to blame most problems on machinations by “enemies”, meaning the United States and its allies.

The move comes while the Iranian government is at its lowest point of popularity after three months of street protests and another sharp devaluation of the Iranian currency in a matter of a week which brought the rate of exchange for the US dollar to 440,000 rials.

The clerics, the "sources of emulation" as they are known in Qom, hold the highest ranks in Iran's brand of Shi'ism and they are supposed to lead the nation by example in all matters of everyday life. Nonetheless, it is not clear how many people follow them and their advice.

Following meetings with Ghalibaf, Ayatollah Nouri Hamadani, a clerics who has been always silent in the face of whatever that the government has done to the economy, criticized Raisi for bragging about the country's progress and the state of the economy: "No prices have fallen and none of the people's problems have been solved. The only thing that has certainly happened is the devaluation of the Iranian currency."

Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi who has usually supported the Raisi administration and all the government's hard-line policies, said, "Not only the economic situation is not improving, but the inflation rate has been rising. People ask us why we do not warn the government about the situation. In factو we do warn, but the state television never broadcast our warnings."

Despite his criticism of the government's economic policies, Makarem Shirazi strongly supported the crackdown on protesters.

Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani said that "the Raisi administration has been always promising to solve the people’s problems but this promise has never been met." And Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli referred to inept officials and said, "We should not appoint good but otherwise inept individuals or capable but bad individuals who will embezzle government funds."

One of the first outcomes of the ayatollahs’ remarks against the Raisi administration was the replacement of Iran's Central bank Governor Ali Salehabadi who resigned on Thursday. The new Central Bank governor Mohammad Reza Farzin is no different from Salehabadi in terms of policies. However, the shock in the Iranian market because of rial’s steep fall forced the government to make a change to pretend that it cares. The actual change was a slight boost for the rial.

The Jomhouri Eslami newspaper, a conservative daily critical of the Raisi administration's ultraconservative policies, wrote in an editorial on Thursday that it would be a big mistake by officials to get the message of the ongoing protests wrong. And, not acknowledging the government's errors could be an even bigger mistake."

The daily pointed out that there is no silent majority in Iran. The people are suffering from injustice, economic corruption, high inflation and government's broken promises and they feel humiliated as the government does not seek their political participation. All of this and the government's insistence on its mistakes will inevitably escalate the people's dissatisfaction.

As the dollar surpassed 430,000 rials , President Ebrahim Raisi replaced the chief of the Central Bank of Iran and ordered his economic team to come up with ideas to support the collapsing rial. 

Raisi appointed Mohammad Reza Farzin as chief banker. Farzin, who has been the CEO of Bank Melli Iran since last year, was also chairman of the board of Karafarin Bank before that. 

During the cabinet meeting where Farzin was appointed, Raisi stressed the importance of controlling the value of foreign currencies, asking central bank chief to “manage” the situation. 

Since the current wave of protests began in Iran in mid-September the rial has fallen to record lows, losing more than a third of its value against the dollar, fueling inflation of around well over 50 percent. The rial has now lost about 80 percent of its value compared to mid-2021 and close to 50 percent since December 2021. Inflation is also skyrocketing. Food prices have jumped much faster than the overall inflation, with some items registering 100-percent increase in one year.

The impact of rial’s devaluation is still not fully felt in the market, but Iran faces the danger of hyper inflation in the coming months.

On Wednesday, Khabar Online, an Iranian conservative website published an article that said the historic devaluation has proven to be divisive among the country’s hardliners. Hardliners in parliament and some in the military have begun harshly criticizing the presidential administration that they were praising just recently. 

Numerous officials and insiders, including senior clerics are issuing warnings about the rial’s fall that puts people’s livelihoods in jeopardy, but no one is willing to take responsibility.

Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said, "The dollar rise and rial’s fall is one of the plots by the Americans," adding that the US wants people to be fed up with the economic hardships so they took to streets to protest.

He was probably referring to tough sanctions imposed by the United States since 2018, when the Trump administration withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear accord known as the JCPOA. The Biden administration held talks with Iran for 18 months to revive the agreement but the diplomatic effort stalled in late August, because Tehran made unacceptable demands, according to Washington. 

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi claimed that "There is plenty of foreign currency in the country," a statement which might anger ordinary people even more, who would blame the government for not supporting the rial. 

Professor of Economics at California Lutheran University Jamshid Damooei, described the situation as an unprecedented “economic storm” whose root cause is the lack of confidence in the government’s economic policies. He told Iran International that the majority of the Islamic Republic’s income has always been from selling oil, which has been impeded due to US sanctions. Rial’s fall will lead to higher inflation, which in turn will drag the currency lower, he argued.

Abolfazl Ghadiani (Qadiani), openly called for Khamanei to step down in 2018, which led to a three-year jail term in 2019, but he was not forced to serve it.

In a new video the BBC Persian aired this week, Ghadiani says that Khamenei and his minions are the real culprits who commit “corruption on earth” and “fighting God”, a reference to Islamic Sharia crimes punishable by death. The regime has accused many dissidents and protesters of these two crimes, and some have received the death sentence.

The former revolutionary and an ex-comrade in arms of Khamenei said the ruler and his soldiers are the clear example of people committing these crimes because “all their zeal and intention is to create fear and terror in society and not allow this society to free itself from their tyranny.”

He argued that protesters are not ‘mohareb’, or God’s enemies, because they defend themselves against regime agents who use violence against them and kill unarmed people.

Ghadiani (76), who is a founding member of a revolutionary group before 1979 called the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution of Iran Organization (MIRO). He and his comrades helped the clerics consolidate power 43 years ago. But he became a critic of Khamenei when in 2009 the Supreme Leader backed the disputed official results of the presidential election that kept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in office, and triggered months of protests.

He was arrested and spent a year in prison for demanding the real results of the vote to be announced.

Ghadiani expressed satisfaction that “people have realized that the source of all the calamities is Ali Khamenei himself.”

The former political prisoner attacked Iran’s 83-year-old ruler, insisting, “I will say again that Khamenei is the biggest enemy of the Iranian people, and I have said this from prison. Presiding over the state that kills people is Khamenei. They want to spread fear and terror…”

Perhaps the most important characteristic of the current protests is the clear and persistent rejection of Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Republic. Never before public hatred toward Khamenei was expressed so ferociously and sometimes in vile and disrespectful language.

This has destroyed the last vestiges of any commanding public image he might have had in the past and any semblance of political or religious legitimacy, except for a minority of military officers, Basij members, clerics and other elements still committed to preserving the political order.

Ghadiani in his message has also pointed to a weakening of Khamenei’s power among loyal forces, who he said are telling the Leader to make compromises but have been told “to shut up.”

Ghadiani who in the past believed in reforming the Islamic Republic, said, “Reforms are not possible.” He argued that the reform movement failed to produce any results in 25 years. “Ebrahim Raisi, an illiterate murderer has become president.”

He went on to say that Islamic Republic’s ruling class “is unique in corruption and exporting corruption among its peers and tyrants around the world. They have turned religion into a tool for repression.”

Massoud Pezeshkian, a member of the Iranian Parliament from Tabriz told Didban Iran website that "a large number of people are protesting to the problems in the Iranian society." He added, "These are real problems and that government had better listen to the people's grievances and attend to their demands." Meanwhile he called on the Iranian government to treat the nation compassionately.

He added that the difficulties Iranians are currently facing stem from the government, the Judiciary and the behavior of Iranian clerics. Pezeshkian said, "some 98 percent of Iranians voted for the Islamic Republic in 1979. What have we done in the meantime that so many people have turned away from it?"

In another development of Tuesday, which showed Iran's top officials are still in denial of the country's problems, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi claimed that everything is in good shape and the country has had eye-catching progress, angering the enemies who instigated the protests in Iran.

Not only the president denied the country is facing a multi-faceted crisis, he also vowed not to have any mercy on protesters and those who stand against the government.

Meanwhile, in an interview with ISNA, which was also carried by several other media outlets in Iran, centrist politician Hossein Marashi said that an association of top clerics who have called for the execution of protesters and amputation of their fingers and toes should apologize to the nation.

Marashi, who is the deputy chief of Iran's Reform Front, hoped that the Association of Seminary Teachers would deny the contents of the statement that called for violent treatment of protesters and prisoners. He said the statement came as a surprise, adding that if this approach continues, it will lead to a form of Talebanism in Iran. Marashi reiterated that statements like this are an insult to Islam.

Referring to previous calls by some officials about holding dialogue with reform-minded individuals, Marashi said that "there is no reason to continue the dialogue under the current circumstances although we generally support the idea of dialogue."

Meanwhile, referring to the statements made by several Friday prayers imams who have accused government's critics of apostasy, Marashi called on the imams to apologize to the nation and pay attention to what the critics say in order to find out a way out of the country's crisis.

In another development, in an article on Etemad Online website, reformist commentator Abbas Abdi warned that a full-fledged economic crisis is going to hit Iranians soon.

Abdi referred to a forecast by the Raisi administration at the beginning of its term in the summer of 2021 about economic growth by 2027. The forecast said that if US sanctions remain in force at the end of the period economic growth will be just 1.7 percent, inflation rate will reach 54 percent and the Iranian rial will fall by 50 percent.

All these have already happened, and it is just 2022.

The forecast, which was generally ignored and was forgotten by even some experts. At the time, the authors of the forecast were accused of portraying a bleak image to force the government to accept to return to the JCPOA, Abdi said.

Abdi noted that the situation is even worse as the government has currently forgotten about its promises to create millions of jobs and build millions of homes. He added that in the best-case scenario, even if Iran returns to the JCPOA, although the situation will look slightly better, overall the future Iranian economy does not look good.