Fault lines continue to deepen in Iran

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“The Iranian people are fed up. They don’t want to be international pariahs,” writes Struan Stevenson, in an article for the Huffington Post.

Stevenson is the President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association and he explains that Iranians obviously don’t want to witness people hanging from cranes in their city squares. Despite the lifting of sanctions the Iranian currency – the rial – has continued to fall.

Welfare handouts are being savagely cut, food prices continue to rise; the black market is burgeoning. While the top leaders live a life of luxury, anger is building amongst the poor. Increased repression, mass arrests, public hangings and floggings have been the regime’s response, because what they fear more than anything is popular fury spilling over into a new revolution.

It is in this context that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has now ordered the disqualification of hundreds of hassan Rouhani supporters from standing for election, favouring instead ‘hardliners’ who will owe their entire allegiance to him. Elections to the 88-member Assembly of Experts will take place on February 26th with elections to the 290-seat parliament being held on the same day.

Many among the Iranian elite regard Rouhani as a reasonable alternative to the corrupt and pathological Khamenei, a lesser of two evils. But the greater evil is trying to scramble for space.

This is so because the nuclear agreement was a major setback for him. He had coveted the top-secret project to develop a nuclear bomb for the past 20 years and was dismayed when its existence was revealed to the West back in 2003 by the main organised opposition PMOI (MEK). Their continuous revelations and international campaigns, did not allow Iran to surprise the world like North Korea.

Khamenei’s loss of face has now become a key focus for Iran’s beleaguered population. “He is like a cornered hyena, baring his teeth and lashing out at anyone whom he regards as a threat”. But his gerrymandering of the election lists may turn out to be the last straw for people who have had enough of fascist oppression, terrorism, corruption and brutality.

This political terror is coupled with the fact the end of sanctions may not be the panacea for the economy that Iranians were hoping for. Although the ending of sanctions will lead to more than $150 billion in frozen assets being released, much of this capital is owed to China and other nations who have lent money to Iran during the sanctions era. The some 80 million Iranian citizens who are looking forward to a new economic boom with the lifting of sanctions are going to be sorely disappointed. Iran’s economy is in a mess. The plummeting oil price has caused a massive problem for the mullahs. Their future budget was predicated on oil prices rising from $112 to $130 a barrel. Today it has fallen to $30 and some experts predict it will fall to $20.

Stevenson says that this is catastrophic for Tehran, whose main export is terror. “They currently fund not only the brutal Shi’ia militias in neighbouring Iraq, but Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the Houthi militia in Yemen; they also continue to pour money into expensive missile technology, in direct breach of UN resolutions.”

He predicts that fault lines will continue to deepen as more and more cracks appear. “2016 will be a pivotal year for Iran and it may well be the year that sees an end to the world’s most dangerous regime.”

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