Islamic Republic Set To Hold State-Sponsored Anti-Israel Day

In an article in Israeli newspaper Maariv, four officials revealed the country’s focus on Iran’s internal divide, its economic woes, its nuclear program and its foreign policy implications.

The four experts from the Iran branch of the AMAN unit, the Israel Defence Forces’ intelligence division, spoke about the turning point of 2015’s nuclear deal, which emboldened the regime to expand its influence across the region, not least, in Syria.

However, by 2018, under the Trump administration, everything changed when a raft of sanctions came down hard on the regime, with support and pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iran was made an international pariah state. Rather than stem the tide, this only hastened the race to arm, said the intel chiefs.

Aligning its proxy militia Hezbollah with President Assad's fight in Syria against opposition elements, an alliance to which the Russians also joined, Iran’s net has only grown wider. It has led to a tit for tat shadow war in Syria which has become a battleground between Iran and Israel, and even drawn in US forces.

This becomes more complex as was seen last week, when threats grow ever closer to Israel’s borders, with rockets raining down on Israel from Gaza, all with the guiding hand of Tehran.

But much more than only the nuclear threat, the Iran branch of the intelligence unit analyzes Iran’s internal affairs, from the protests to its economic crisis, all of which play a role in better understanding a country whose regime pledges to destroy the Jewish state but is more concerned with internal threats.

The unit claims that roughly 80 percent of the Iranian public does not support the regime, a figure which few could question in the light of mass protests since September, part of its bi-annual assessments on the domestic situation.

The internal strife facing Iran is a huge focus of the Iran unit, reaffirming the belief that the regime’s power is waning. "This protest expresses deep trends that exist in the Iranian public of moving away from the regime's values and a dramatic decrease in trust in it,” one officer said.

However while they say it is the most significant event in recent history, set to influence decision making in the years to come, the protest still lacks leadership and an alternative political system to the regime.

"It is impossible to separate the Iranian nuclear issue from the internal protest in the country", explained one of the officers. "There are very limited forums of people who make decisions in Iran, and they do so on many issues. When an Iranian decision-maker has to decide on a certain issue, he also has to think about many other things that are not necessarily related to each other."

Its research has found several elements that influence the decision-making of the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards. In order or priority, the first is the internal situation in the country and regime’s stability, then there is the economic situation, security, industrial strength and finally, its place on the world stage.

There is no doubt that its nuclear program has helped Iran leverage its international might, the focus of the foreign branch of the Iran unit, concentrated on the leverage Iran utilizes from its nuclear power.

Recent diplomatic rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates only compound the fear Iran is sending rippling through the region. This has in turn, alarmed the security establishment in Israel, admits the intelligence team.

“Iran's relations with significant countries have strengthened and its nuclear program is at its most advanced point ever. It manages to leverage it in the diplomatic arena as well," senior security officials explained with concern.

Iran knows the US has no plans to launch an attack of any kind and the diplomatic crisis under the Biden administration only plays into the Iranians’ hands, yet further emboldening the regime. In its softly-softly approach, hoping to revive the JCPOA nuclear deal, Biden has only given Iran the green light.

As is clear, Iran is nearing the upper end of enrichment to 90-percent and AMAN’s experts say even a return to the nuclear deal cannot change this.

"In our opinion, Iran does not seek to develop nuclear weapons in the immediate term," said a senior officer. "And even if they reach 90% enrichment now, then even once they decide to develop a bomb and assuming no one prevents them from doing so, it will take them between two and three years." Even from reaching fissile material, there is some way to go to turning that into an airworthy missile.

"Iran understands that the development of nuclear weapons is a very dangerous issue, and no one in Tehran wants to take a step that they will regret,” explained one official.

“We currently define Iran as a nuclear threshold country. They mainly conduct a policy of trial and error during their enrichment, every time we are taking another step in the plan and are waiting to see how the world reacts. Diplomatic ties with Europe, for example, are very important for the Iranians." Even Iran’s new bosom buddies Russia and China have no interest in Iran having nuclear weapons in their hands, AMAN’s team admits.

While much recent focus has looked at the Iranian presence in Syria, it does not pose as much of a threat as that of its role in Iraq, says AMAN’s analysts. "Iran wants to keep Iraq as close as possible," explains one Major in the team. "The Iranians are successful in the diplomatic arena vis-à-vis Iraq, they have a pro-Iranian government there and the goal in Tehran is to perpetuate the situation as it is. Iran still has dozens of affiliates in Iraq, which include thousands of people. This is a force that Iran has actively supported for several years and invests hundreds of millions of dollars in it annually."

From an intelligence point of view, the immediate danger from Iraq is the hundreds of armed UAVs that are already stationed there and could be sent to Israel in the event of a conflict, made all the more difficult for Israel as its hands are tied by complicated military limitations, mainly due to the caution being exerted in the area by the US.

Iran would relish the idea of a weakening relationship between Israel and the US, seen recently since Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms and proposals to bring in more orthodox religious laws across the country. Protests have rocked Israel since the right-wing coalition took hold in January and Iran loves to see this as the sign of the state’s imminent collapse, rather than its standing firm in its democratic values.

Israel makes no secret of the fact Iran is the Jewish state’s biggest threat, an honor once held by its proxy, Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. However, the team in AMAN is aware that before Iran, comes the threat much closer to home, Hezbollah, an entity which was born of the desire to exterminate Israel. Neither Israel nor Iran seems keen to take the conflict into the arena, but for Hezbollah, that is another question.

“Today we are preparing much more for a possible attack on Iran, and are making much more offensive and defensive military preparations in the Iranian context,” one official said, but this really is a last resort in a game which could have horrific ripple effects for the whole region.

Iraee, a writer, accountant, political prisoner and a human rights defender has advocated passionately against the practice of stoning in Iran.

During the mass arrest of activists amidst the Mahsa Amini protests in September 2022, Iraee was arrested by security forces in her house.

She is now sentenced to six years in prison on charges of "association and collusion to commit crimes against national security" and to one year on the charge of "propaganda against the government".

The activist has also been given a two-year travel ban, a two-year ban on living in Tehran, a two-year ban on attending parties and gatherings and has had her mobile phone confiscated.

The security institutions and the judiciary have put pressure on Iraee and her family many times, saying the only way for her to be released from prison is to write a personal pardon request to Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.

In September 2014, Iraee and her husband were both arrested by the Revolutionary Guards after the discovery of writings about the stoning of women. Iraee was released from prison in April 2022 after enduring years of imprisonment. However, her release lasted only four months.

In her letter which has been widely shared through social media, Vasmaghi has warned Khamenei that he will personally be responsible for all the “financial, physical, social, ethical, psychological and political” consequences of enforcing compulsory hijab rules as he has recently demanded.

“Discarding hijab is haram (sin) based on Sharia and also politically,” Khamenei emphatically declared at a meeting with state officials on April 4 while claiming that foreign intelligence services were encouraging Iranian women to disobey mandatory hijab.

Taking their cue from the speech, officials have been competing to re-establish control over women which has somehow waned following anti-regime protests, and they made a host threats, including expulsion from universities, against hijab-less women.

Vasmaghi has argued that the strict hijab rules have no foundation in the Quran which never specified that women have to cover their hair. According to Vasmaghi, there is also no evidence that women were harassed or punished for not covering their hair and body during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammed.

“On what specific and unbreakable religious foundations and what logic the Islamic Republic’s prescribed dress code for women, which you also approve and stress, has been based?” she wrote and asked Khamenei to elucidate his religious and political arguments for demanding enforcement of his personal views over the society.

She also argued that Sharia scholars may insist that following the model prescribed by the Islamic Republic is religiously required but there is no absolute religious basis for coercing all women to obey such edicts by using government resources and force and at the cost of violating women’s dignity, and harm to the society.

Vasmaghi who taught Fiqh, the science of ascertaining the precise terms of the Sharia (Islamic law) at Tehran University before being banned from teaching due to her political view is famous for her poetry. She left Iran in 2011 and taught Islamic studies at University of Göttingen in Germany and University of Uppsala in Sweden as a guest professor until 2017 when she returned to Iran.

Vasmaghi who used to wear a black veil for years has relaxed her own hijab in recent years and no longer covers all her hair as she used to.

Only five months after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, then leader of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini banned women from appearing without a veil in government offices. The ban gradually spread to the entire society within the next two years.

All women eventually gave in to covering their hair, even if partially, with headscarves and shawls and wear tunics and trousers that could be tight-fitting and/or colorful. The hardline religious and political establishment considered this level of compliance faulty and called these women ‘bad-hijab’.

Most Iranian women, however, resisted wearing the long black veil, called chador, that the hardline religious and political establishment considered as ‘the ultimate hijab’ and tried to impose by making it mandatory in some government offices and universities. Many women would wear the chador to work or school, if they absolutely had to, but would remove it as soon as they were within a safe distance.

In the past few years, however, some women began to wear their headscarves on their shoulders rather than their heads, in their private vehicles and anywhere else they could not be harassed by the police and vigilantes.

Since the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police and the protests that engulfed the country for months many women have discarded their headscarves altogether and vowed never to wear it again so instead of ‘bad-hijab’ women, the Islamic Republic is now facing the phenomenon of ‘hijablessness’ as a form of civil disobedience.

Travelling to other cities, historic sites and seaside resorts has been very popular Nowruz activity for Iranians since the advent of modern transportation in mid-20th century.

While four- and five-star hotels remained busy during the holiday season, two- and three-star properties were vastly under their usual seasonal average.

The chairman of the Iranian Air Travel and Tourism Offices, Hormatollah Rafiei, admitted the trend reflects the economic woes of the country as it battles through some of its worst financial crises of recent history with rising costs of living and declining incomes.

"A large part of four and five-star hotels, which are more expensive, were fully booked, while two and three-star hotels, which are cheaper, remained empty,” he said this week, suggesting little impact of the crisis on the top echelons of the country's rich.

It suggests a trend of those in the middle-income brackets either not traveling or opting for more affordable options such as schools, pilgrimage centers, and municipal camps, he added.

Echoing the trend, Iran's hoteliers’ association announced a 70% drop in occupancy levels during the holidays.

While annual inflation hovers around 50 percent, prices for necessities such as food have risen much faster. Official figures published by Statistical Center of Iran show food prices rising by 70-100 percent in the past year.

As the national currency has halved in value since mid-2022, monthly salaries for ordinary people have dropped to less than $150.

The two sides agreed steps to resume consular services and flights and agreed to cooperate to fight drug trafficking and facilitate Syria's return to the Arab fold.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad landed in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah on Wednesday in the first visit by a senior Syrian diplomat to the kingdom in more than a decade, a major sign that Syria's regional isolation is nearing an end.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with Damascus amid Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's brutal crackdown on peaceful protests in 2011 and backed rebel groups that fought to remove Assad from power. Syria was also suspended from the Arab League.

The resumption of Saudi-Syrian ties marks the most significant development in moves by Arab states to normalize links with Assad.

Assad, with the help of his main allies Iran and Russia, regained control over much of Syria, and Saudi Arabia has said isolating him was not working.

In a joint statement at the end of Wednesday's visit, both sides agreed on the need for the Syrian state to assert its control over all its territories "and end the presence of armed militias".

Mekdad's trip to Jeddah came two days before Saudi Arabia hosts another meeting of regional foreign ministers that will discuss Syria's return to the Arab League.

Saudi Arabia plans to invite Assad to the Arab League summit Riyadh is scheduled to host on May 19, a move that would formally end his regional isolation, sources have told Reuters, though it is unclear if there is Arab consensus on the matter.

Reporting by Reuters