On the impact of protests that have not subsided in the country since The killing of the Iranian Kurdish young woman, Mahsa Amini At the hands of the morality police in September last year, the problems are getting worse in Iran.
A new audio recording revealed official fears that the regime in the country might collapse due to what is happening.
Mohammad Reza Salehi, a former assistant to the Iranian Presidency in Rouhani’s government, warned at the recent meeting of governors of the internal collapse of the Iranian regime, calling for defining the powers of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to the “Iran International” website.
3 options
The sources added that the recording is linked to a meeting that took place on January 30, which was also attended by Eshaq Jahangiri, the first deputy of Rouhani’s government.
Mohammad Reza Salehi, who was the assistant to the presidential institution in Rouhani’s government, and before that the governor of Khorasan (in the north), Bushehr, and Mazandaran, saw in it that there are several options in the current situation, the first of which is “hope for foreign intervention to overthrow the regime.”
He also made it clear that this solution is achieved through military intervention or by methods such as Reza Pahlavi’s proxy.
The second option is to join the demonstrators and “help the revolution,” while the third comes by waiting for “the spread of increasing social and economic corruption,” and thus “the collapse of the regime from within.”
Dangerous and wrong actions
In addition, the former senior official in the Iranian regime described what was recently called the “productivity” of government property with the support and orders of Khamenei as a prelude to a kind of collapse and “political corruption”, explaining that what is worse is the parliament’s plan to ban criticism and criminalize expressing a different point of view. From the Governor’s View” and “Regulating Oil Delivery to Project Creditors”.
And he considered that the next year’s budget bill submitted to the Iranian parliament by the government of Ibrahim Raisi is the reason for “widening poverty” and said that the increase in financial support for the poor in this law is “zero percent.”
Demonstrations in Iran
He also described the proposed options as “dangerous”, calling on the reformists and officials in Rouhani’s government not to join the demonstrators for the revolution, but rather to demand Ali Khamenei’s “guidance” and reduce his powers.
In another part of the recording, Salehi addressed Jahangiri and asked him to explain to the Iranian guide the current situation in the country, because: “There is no other way.”
Salehi saw that Khamenei is now 80 years old, and in this case he should be talked to to accept the change.
What after the death of the guide?
He also warned of the period following Khamenei’s death, stressing that if nothing is done during this period, it is not known who “will dare to hold a referendum in the future, for example.”
He called for reducing the scope of Khamenei’s authority and changing the constitution of the Iranian regime, including the abolition of the term “absolute” in Article 57 of the constitution.
In addition, he believed that the economic relationship with America, the military’s non-interference in politics, and the implementation of the nuclear agreement were among other solutions.
This senior official of the former Iranian government also warned, in part of this file, against the execution of young demonstrators, describing it as “systematic killing,” adding that the procedures in the trial and execution of the demonstrators were not fair.
Salehi said that in the early days after the killing of Mahsa Amini, the police chief at the time, Hossein Ashtari, announced to the Interior Minister that he could apologize and dismiss some of the forces involved in the incident, but the Interior Minister stood against his offer and demanded to deal with the protesters.
Noting the severe repression of protesters, including in Girkan, he said he told the city’s mayor that the people on the street were “protesters” and not “troublemakers.”
It is noteworthy that Salehi’s statements come while during Rouhani’s presidency, the government dealt with popular protests in Iran on several occasions and killed demonstrators.
An unprecedented example of this was the handling of the November 2019 protests.