Unfair Policies Polarize Iran's Population, Says Sociologist

A Taliban official appeared in a video holding a bucket at the edge of a reservoir and saying he wants to give water to Iran. He ridiculed the Iranian regime’s president Ebrahim Raisi who had earlier used threatening language. “I want to give water, so Iran’s president does not launch a military attack.” The video went viral on social media.

Iran's foreign ministry Friday “strongly refuted” Taliban’s claim over lack of enough water in the river Hirmand (Helmand in Afghan) due to draught to release Iran's share of the river’s waters.

The foreign ministry also said Taliban’s statement over the issue contained “contradictory and false information”.

Energy Minister Ali-Akbar Mehrabian said Friday that the government is determined to pursue Iran's water rights according to the Afghan-Iranian Water Treaty of March 1973 to regulate the use of the river.

The Taliban’s claim that there is not enough water to flow from Kajaki dam towards the Iranian border is not acceptable and is in contradiction to the experience of the past few years, he said.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also accused the Afghan government in a tweet Thursday of not allowing Iranian experts to investigate the matter in Afghanistan despite his repeated requests. “Proof of existence or lack of water is technical and actual visit [by experts], not a political statement [by the Taliban],” he wrote.

Spokesman of Iran's Aerospace Organization, Hossein Dalirian, said in a tweet Thursday that images from Iran's Khayyam satellite indicate that the government of Afghanistan has stopped the waters from reaching Iran by changing the course of the river in some areas and building “numerous” barriers.

The halt in the flow of water from Afghanistan has seriously affected the lives of hundreds of thousands in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.

100%

While Afghanistan says it needs dams to store water for agriculture or to produce electricity, which it imports from neighboring countries including Iran, many environmentalists are critical of large-scale water engineering projects.

The Iranian government, and environmentalists, argue constructing the dam on Helmand River will deepen problems in Iran’s eastern provinces, particularly in Sistan-Baluchestan where water resources are scarce. Declining rainfall since late 1990s, which caused prolonged droughts in the Helmand basin, as well as water mismanagement both in Afghanistan and Iran, has had serious ecological, economic and social impact.

Wetlands in Sistan have largely turned into salt flats, the once rich wildlife has disappeared, and many local villages abandoned. In 2019, after nearly two decades of drought, water from Helmand reached the wetlands of Sistan and partially revived the Hamoun-e Hirmand Lake. The lake is a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

The dispute between the two countries over water is long standing but it has escalated in the past few years.

In March 2021 in a televised speech inaugurating the Kamal Khan Dam in Nimroz province, former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said that while Afghanistan remained committed to the treaty but added that "anything beyond the stipulated quota" required further discussion. He suggested that Iran should pay for ‘extra’ water from the Helmand River by providing oil to his country.

His remarks appeared to refer to Article V of the 1973 treaty, which stipulated Iran in "a normal water year" was entitled to a flow of 22 cubic meters per second from the 1,150km (700 mile) long river.

Hirmand rises in the Hindu Kush before flowing west into Iran and feeding an area of wetlands in the Sistan region including Hamoun Lake. Iran has not always received this amount – in 1999, for example, the Taliban turned off the flow completely.

President Ebrahim Raisi's special envoy for Afghan affairs, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, said Tuesday that Iran received 27 million cubic meters of water out of the 820 million cubic meters it was entitled to under the 1973 treaty.

According to Fars, firefighters are attempting to extinguish the blaze after the warehouse for automobile and motorcycle parts caught fire in Razi Square, in the south of the Iranian capital.

Seventeen people have been injured, and several have been taken to hospital, Tehran Emergency Service said.

The cause of the fire and the value of property damaged are unknown.

Last month a large fire broke out across three warehouses of a home appliances manufacturer in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

The semi-official ISNA news agency reported that the building belonged to Electrosteel, a large and well-known company in Iran.

There have been a number of explosions and fires near Iran’s military, nuclear and industrial facilities in recent years.

Earlier this month, media in Iran reported that a large fire broke out at a power plant west of the Iranian city Esfahan (Isfahan) and was extinguished within a few hours.

Several unconfirmed sources reported hearing an explosion at the plant, claiming that it was a result of drone attacks, but this was not confirmed by officials.

The Esfahan thermal power plant – also known as Shahid Abbaspour – in Dorcheh near the central city of Esfahan has five units with a total generation capacity of 830 Megawatts.

On January 28, a huge fire erupted at an Iranian military industry factory following a suspected drone strike in the central city of Esfahan.

Iran blamed Israel for the drone attack, vowing revenge.

The judiciary's Mizan Online news website said that Shahrouz Sokhanvari was hanged Saturday morning after his sentence was confirmed in the supreme court.

The report said that Sokhanvari was charged with "corruption on earth" for "establishing and managing a wide network of prostitution at the international level that has been attracting Iranian and foreign girls".

Sokhanvari left Iran in 1983, living in India, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the US before authorities captured him overseas and returned him to Iran in 2020, according to Mizan.

The report did not mention the country of detention or the process that led to his arrest.

The execution of Sokhanvari came a day after three men were hanged for killing three members of the security forces at a demonstration in Isfahan on November 16.

Human rights organizations based outside Iran strongly condemned both Friday's executions and the earlier trials that led to the convictions of the three men without any reliable evidence against them.

According to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights, more than 220 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of the year.

Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, claim that the country executes more people every year than any other nation with the exception of China.

This year has seen at least 582 executions in Iran, the highest number since 2015, according to the two groups.

Khamenei addressed foreign ministry officials and ambassadors at a time when his foreign policy of defying the West has become more controversial in Iran amid a serious economic crisis.

Khamenei set out to explain and clarify the principles and standards of “a successful foreign policy” focusing on three keywords: Honor, wisdom, and expediency.

A foreign policy based on supplication in words or in essence, and begging for favors from foreign powers is doomed, Khamenei said. He urged diplomats to respond to the words and actions of others reciprocally and “with honor.”

The 83-year-old authoritarian ruler also emphasized the need for wisdom in foreign policy. In a statement urging caution, he said that “uncalculated and dismissive” decisions and actions in the past have harmed the country.

Iranian officials and politicians, however, usually take their cue from Khamenei, especially in foreign policy matters. His past statements against regional countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, or the United States and Europe have led to more provocative statements by his underlings.

100%

But the Supreme Leader often speaks with double meanings, leaving room for himself to shirk responsibility if a certain policy proves to be a failure.

Khamenei used this tactic during nuclear negotiations a decade ago. While approving the policy of talks and compromise, he also warned that other nations could not be trusted, and a nuclear deal might prove to be disadvantageous.

He followed the same tact on Saturday, saying that the principle of using ‘wisdom’ also means not to unnecessarily trust what other countries say, although sometimes they are sincere. He has repeatedly said in the past that the United States and its allies cannot be trusted.

Khamenei in his speech used the Islamic concept of 'Taqiyya' to describe the regime's decision to accept the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal with the West. Taqiyya means the permissibility to deny or conceal one's real beliefs to secure a worthy goal.

Khamenei’s emphasis on “expediency” as the third principle in foreign policy was particularly notable, as he urged flexibility “in necessary instances” and circumventing “tough barriers” to continue a set course.

His mention of ‘flexibility’ was a reference to his famous phrase of “heroic flexibility” in 2013, when he signaled his permission for nuclear talks to begin.

“Of course, a few years ago when ‘heroic flexibility’ was mentioned, some abroad and in Iran had the wrong take on it. Expediency means finding ways to circumvent difficult obstacles and pursuing the same path,” Khamenei clarified.

In the context of Iran's nuclear program, this remark could mean that Khamenei justifies negotiations as a way of continuing to pursue the same goal by going around the opposition of other countries.

Commentators and many politicians in Iran have been increasingly calling for a flexible foreign policy and accommodation with the West, while the public knows that Khamenei makes all the key decisions.

With annual inflation reported to be near 70 percent and the Iranian currency losing half its value in the past year, with popular anti-regime protests and labor strikes, Khamenei finds himself in a tough position. However, so far, there is no indications of a foreign policy shift, except an agreement to restore diplomatic ties with regional rival Saudi Arabia.

Khamenei in his speech urged his foreign policy establishment to work hard for improving ties with regional countries, blaming “the enemy for doing everything” to drive a wedge between Iran and its neighbors.

In Khamenei’s lexicon, ‘the enemy’ refers mainly to the United States and Israel and to a lesser extent to other US allies, including European powers.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former reformist President Mohammad Khatami's chief of staff told Rouydad24 website on Wednesday that "if the people do not feel that it is a free election, they will not take part in it." 

"My understanding is that the Guardian Council is not going to soften its policy on the disqualification [of reform-minded candidates]. It is not likely that those who have gone out of their way to create a unified political system will come short of their hardliner policies."

Other Iranian media outlets such as Khabar Online have also pointed out during recent days that ten months before the vote in March 2024, there is no election mood in Iran unlike previous rounds when campaigns started at least a year before the elections. In the meantime, many Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have expressed concern about a likely low-turnout next March. 

100%

Khamenei told Iranian officials in late March that a high-turnout election will make the country powerful and will stop international pressures on the Islamic Republic. He called for a "healthy election" as he was aware of criticisms of the way the latest Iranian elections were held in 2020 and 2021 presumably under his supervision. 

Many politicians, particularly reformist figures such as Abtahi and Mohsen Mirdamadi, the leader of banned reformist party Mosharekat have said that the regime in Iran has lost its social capital, a polite word for legitimacy, as a result of the disputed presidential election of 2009 and the protests that have rocked Iran since 2017. 

Abtahi added that those who currently hold the power in Iran are not interested in increasing the turnout in the upcoming elections, as only a low turnout can ensure their victory.

Meanwhile, lawmaker Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh told Khabar Online website on Wednesday that the current ultraconservative-dominated parliament is working hard in extraordinary sessions to pass an amendment to Iran's Election Law to serve the hardliners by giving even more power to the conservative-dominated Guardian Council to disqualify any candidate who does not belong to the ultraconservative camp. 

100%

Ghezeljeh characterized the new legislation as "a law against the republican system," however, he said that hardliners are working hard to enact the legislation before the upcoming elections. 

On Tuesday, prominent conservative politician Mohammad Javad Bahonar had said that the Majles should not be involved in changing the Election Law, as the incumbent lawmakers tend to manipulate the legislation to ensure their own re-election. 

Ghezeljeh said that in the draft amendment the Guardian Council has been given the power to disqualify even those who get elected. He said such a legislation will weaken the parliament altogether. 

Some Iranian politicians have also expressed concern about the next presidential election which usually takes place in the year after the Majles election. 

100%

Former lawmaker Gholam AIi Jafarzadeh Imenabadi said in an interview on Wednesday that President Ebrahim Raisi's chances for re-election is limited. "He can score only if they put him in front of an empty goal post," he said. 

Imanabadi reiterated that "In a competitive election neither Raisi nor 90 percent of current lawmakers have any chance to get re-elected."