Hardliners Appeal To Reformists To Help Save Islamic Republic

Jalal Mahmoudezadeh, who is representing the people of Mahabad in the Iranian parliament said Wednesday in a tweet that he has been summoned many times over the past few days but did not provide any details which organization has summoned him.

“Instead of following up on the rights of the protesting people and the families of the victims of Mahabad and Kurdistan cities, the judiciary has filed a lawsuit against me as a supporter of the same bereaved people!!!” added Mahmoudzadeh.

However, he vowed “I will stand by my honorable people in any situation.”

Following the killing of people in Mahabad by the regime forces, Mahmoudzadeh November 19 strongly criticized the crackdown on people in Kurdish cities saying that the protesters must be heard.

In an interview he said most of the people are unemployed in Kurdish cities and they are angry, so the security forces must stop harming civilians.

He added the people are being killed by live rounds, but instead of identifying those who have killed people, “an organization has filed a lawsuit against me.”

Since last week, the Islamic Republic has intensified its repression of Kurdish-majority cities and towns in western provinces of the country following reports that parts of some small towns have fallen into the people’s hands. The majority of Iran's 10 million Kurds live in the western parts of the country.

How to deal with the protests and solve the biggest crisis in the clerical regime’s 43-year history is one of the main subjects that divides Iran's conservatives who have already lost the nation's trust. They have been controlling all three branches of government for more than a year, with disastrous economic consequences.

Although Iran's situation is currently more serious to allow any room for factional infighting, the hardline conservatives who have refused any reforms during the past four decades, and the neo-cons who want to appear open to some changes, are currently at loggerheads.

Hardliner conservatives refuse to accept any suggestion of reforming the political system in the face of an uprising, while the neo-cons have made vague references to better governance.

According to Rouydad24 website, the difference over the approach to the protests could be the starting point of delineations among various parts of Iran's conservative camp. One of the signs of emerging differences occurred when an influential member of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's office, Mehdi Fazaeli, cautioned Mashhad’s firebrand Friday Prayer Imam Ahmad Alamolhoda earlier this week over his insulting comments about Iranian women.

This, at the same time, could mean that the Islamic Republic can shrewdly expel insiders when the regime's survival is at stake. Although Alamolhoda has been criticized on many occasions for his radical fundamentalist comments, this was the first time he got a serious slap in the mouth in public by someone he cannot respond to.

On the other hands neo-cons such as Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Tourism Minister Ezzatollah Zarghami have called for "a change in governance" in the interest of some open-mindedness that would appease and calm angry protesters. Khabar Online wrote that the duo do not want to tie their political future to the fate of an inefficient president and that this is part of their attempt to rebrand themselves for the 2025 Majles elections and 2025 presidential race.

At the same time, ultraconservative Raja News has likened the neo-cons to "flags in the wind" and accused them of lacking steadfastness and compromising conservative values such as compulsory hijab.

The two sides' media outlets are also fiercely fighting over a vacancy in Raisi's cabinet afterf Roads Minister Rostam Ghassemi resigned. The IRGC's weekly newspaper Sobh-e Sadeq has also harshly criticized Ghalibaf, who is still an IRGC general, for his idea of "reforming governance," nonetheless, the IRGC's weekly newspaper elsewhere admitted that "The country's governance needs essential changes," probably meaning that change is needed but it should not be made by Ghalibaf.

A statement by lawmaker Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi in an interview on November 23, revealed that the infighting is deeper and wider than quarrels between two politicians or their media outlets. Jahanabadi who is a member of the National Security Committee of the Iranian Parliament said: "The heads of the three powers of the Iranian government, i.e., President Raisi, Judiciary Chief Ejei and Parliamentary Speaker Ghalibaf, are constantly swearing at West and East instead of trying to solve the country's problems."Meanwhile, he pointed out that the "violent security approach" to protests cannot solve Iran's problems.

Although for the first time a politician has taken criticism of the government to a higher level, still, like all Iranian politicians, Jahanabadi was too intimidated to name Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the man responsible for Iran's problems.

"The pressures by the enemies, the sanctions, the system's inefficiency and the government's weakness have left the political system in a situation that it cannot meet the people's demands," said Jahanabadi who also pointed out that views of officials are in sharp contrast to what people think. Meanwhile, he harshly criticized "non-elected" conservative individuals such as the editor of Kayhan newspaper who constantly invade people's privacy and speak for the people without having any credentials.

The infighting among Iran's unwanted conservatives is reminiscent of a Persian saying: "Two guests hate each other, but the host hates both."

Israel’s Channel 11 reported Monday, November 21, that Mossad informed Britain’s spy agency about the threats facing two journalists working for the London-based channel.

According to further information obtained by Iran International, threats against its journalists, revealed by the Metropolitan Police earlier this month, came from the same team that sought to target Israel’s former consul general in Istanbul, Yosef Levi Sfari, who was rescued by authorities and sent back to Israel.

In June, Israeli and Turkish media reported that a terror cell sent to Turkey by the Islamic Republic was busted, and its eight members who had entered the country with fake Tajik and Italian passports were arrested.

The agents were staying at the same hotel in which Levi Sfari and his partner Roni Goldberg were staying for their vacation, with reports alleging that their other targets were Israeli tourists. "The Iranian squad was caught red-handed at the last minute," the reports added. According to Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT), the eight were arrested in raids on three houses in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district. 

The mastermind of the plot was Rouhollah Bazghandi, the deputy head of IRGC’s counterintelligence (Unit 1500). A former senior IRGC official had earlier told Iran International that by using amateur agents to carry out the attacks against Israeli targets in Istanbul, Bazghandi dealt a heavy blow to IRGC Intelligence Organization. He was also in charge of thwarting plots against Iran's security officials inside Iran; however, his involvement in the Turkey plot, and apparently his absence, among other reasons, turned Iran into a safe haven for Israeli Mossad agents who launched several sabotage operations and assassinations.

An intelligence source told Iran International that Bazghandi is the man who was in charge of the failed attack against its journalists.

London’s Metropolitan Police formally notified two of our journalists early in November of “imminent, credible and significant risk” to their lives and those of their families. Other staff members were informed directly by the police of separate threats.

The Scotland Yard has also placed armed police forces outside Iran International’s headquarters since mid-November, following further public threats by the Islamic Republic’s authorities – such as the intelligence minister and top Revolutionary Guard’s commanders against the channel.

Britain’s MI5 said on November 16 that UK authorities have discovered at least 10 “potential threats” since January to “kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime.”

Faced with nationwide antigovernment protests since mid-September, the Islamic Republic has blamed foreign-based Persian broadcasters such as BBC Persian and Iran International of “fomenting unrest”, while all media in the country are under tight government control and present protesters as “rioters” and “terrorists”.

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib on November 9 said the Islamic Republic regards Iran International as “a terrorist organization,” adding that its workers and anyone affiliated with the channel will be pursued by the Ministry of Intelligence. 

Iran has a long record of targeting dissidents and independent journalists who found refuge in other countries. In the latest example of terror operations abroad, Iranian intelligence abducted dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam who was visiting Iraq in 2019 and took him back to Iran where he was executed in 2020.

In response to questions sent by Iran International, the State Department said that the US is particularly worried about violence in Mahabad, a Kurdish majority city in western Iran. Government security forces escalated violence against protesters in Kurdish majority cities in the region on November 16 and since then more heavily armed units have been deployed to the region.

“Iran's leaders are blaming so-called separatists, and they continue to blame the United States, for the protests unfolding across their country. In fact, Iran's leaders have no one to blame but themselves,” the State Department said in an email.

Since the protests began in mid-September, top officials of the clerical regime have been blaming foreign “enemies” for fomenting the uprising, the biggest since the establishment of the Islamic Republic 43 years ago. After government intelligence and security forces failed to end the unrest, the government began blaming “separatists” for encouraging and supporting the protests and particularly targeted Iranian Kurds.

But the State Department said, “The regime's brutal crackdown, along with years of denying Iranians their human rights and perpetrating state-sponsored violence against women, show that Iran's leaders seem incapable of listening to their own people.”

Activists have called for large protests Thursday across the nation to support the Kurdish cities targeted by military units. Already there have been protests in other cities to condemn the violence. A significant number of Kurds in Iran are Sunnis and this week a prominent Sunni religious leader, Mawlana Abdolhamid of the Sunni Baluch population in southeastern Iran voiced support for them. The Baluch have also also brutally targeted by government forces since September 30.

“We continue to pursue accountability for those involved and support the Iranian people in their pursuit of freedom,” the State Department said.

More uranium enrichment

On the question of Iran expanding its nuclear program by more uranium enrichment at a new atomic site, the department said the US is aware of Iran’s claims that it is enriching at 60-percent and already has a large stockpile of highly enriched fissile material “for which it has no credible civilian use.”

After 18 months of negotiations to revive the Obama-era nuclear accord known as JCPOA, talks came to an impasse in August, with the US dismissing Iranian demands that it said were outside the JCPOA framework.

Last week the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution that censured Tehran for lack of cooperation with the UN watchdog. Iran responded by threatening “an appropriate response” and later announced it had started enrichment at its Fordow nuclear facility.

“Iran's apparent notion that it could somehow pressure the IAEA or its Member States on the issue of ongoing safeguards investigations into possible undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran by further escalating its uranium enrichment activities is deluded,” the State Department wrote to Iran International.

The dispute with the IAEA concerns undeclared nuclear activities two decades ago, but the international watchdog is demanding clear answers from Tehran. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Thursday that Iran expects the IAEA to shelve its investigation before a deal is made to revive the JCPOA.

“As we have made clear, Iran's continued nuclear escalations are unconstructive, and they will not provide Iran with any leverage,” the State Department told Iran International.

The Kurdistan Human Rights Organization in a report announced, "during the three days at least 14 Kurdish citizens have been killed in the cities of Javanrud, Piranshahr, Sanandaj, Dehgolan and Bukan” in western Iran.

Hundreds of people have also been arrested and a large number have been injured, it stated, adding that there is no information about the condition and whereabouts of many detainees.

On Tuesday, Hengaw Human Rights Organization stated that during popular protests in Kurdish cities from November 15 to 21, “at least 42 Kurdish citizens were killed by direct fire from government forces and over 1,500 people were injured.”

Last week protests were held to mark the anniversary of the November 2019 uprising in Iran as part of the ongoing nationwide protests to topple the Iranian regime, but demonstrations were met with more violence in Kurdish cities.

A series of nationwide protests in Iran, sometimes known as Bloody November, took place in 2019. Initially triggered by a 50 to 200-percent increase in fuel prices, the demonstrations quickly turned into calls for the overthrow of the government and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization in its latest report announced Tuesday that at least 416 people including 51 children and 27 women have been killed by security forces in the ongoing nationwide protests.