Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks to Iranian Air Force officers and personnel in Tehran [Iran's Religious Leader Press Office/Handout]
Sina Toossi, Foreign Affairs: Iran’s Hard-Liners Are Sitting Pretty
Maximum Pressure and Pandemic Pressure Have Consolidated Their Power.
Now is a time of soul-sickening worry for many Iranians, but perhaps not for the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The leader’s insouciance may seem perplexing, with Iran reeling from the novel coronavirus, U.S. sanctions, the assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani, and the specter of war with the world’s leading superpower. But Khamenei and his worldview are on the ascent in both domestic and foreign policy.
The coronavirus crisis has had tragic consequences in Iran, with the number of registered infections skyrocketing to 73,303 as of April 13 and the number of deaths hitting 4,585. And it has simultaneously brought to the fore divergent approaches to governance in the Islamic Republic.
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WNU Editor: Iran's theocracy has been in power for 40 years, and I do not see them losing power in my lifetime. In the current crisis they will do what all authoritarian governments facing a crisis will do, consolidate their power and eliminate their opponents. They can do this because their control of the country's security apparatus has not changed, nor has their core support among their supporters in Iran. Where the influence and power of Iran's hardliners has changed is outside their borders. I am old enough to remember when they had tremendous power on influencing the price of oil and global supplies. No more now. They are now like everyone else, running around the world begging countries and customers to buy their oil, and at cut-rate prices. Iran's hardliners are also having trouble in suppressing anti-Iranian sentiment in satellite countries like Iraq, and even more so in Sunni-dominated countries, Syria included. My prediction. Their influence will continue to decline as their main revenue stream .... oil sales .... continue to decline. Iran's hard-liners may want to be the Middle East's regional power, and by being the regional power ensure their status in Iran. But that is not going to happen.
3 comments:
OOh yeah... regime change any day now!
Don't stop believing. Neocons will be vindicated and what a wonderful, sunny day that will be! They're such nice people.
First things first. 1:26 FO
Second reading Hamid's article was a schooling. What WNU is correct. In the immediate aftermath of the cessation of the Iran Iraq War, the Iranian regime turned around murdered 30,000 Iranians. That gives one pause.
"Iran's Regime May See a Grim Opportunity in the Coronavirus Pandemic"
BY HAMID ENAYAT APRIL 16, 2020
My takeaway form reading of that genocide by the regime is that you after be more vicious tan them. They (The regime) have to fear you coming. They have to be so afraid of you that they desire to make peace because the alternative is too terrible to consider.
Anon 1:26 liberals braying nonsense should have their vocal chords forcibly removed with a sharp cutting instrument. No loss to the world! A favor, in fact!
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