On November 2, the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei once again attributed the ongoing revolution to foreign foes. This speech was Khamenei’s fifth public appearance since the anti-regime demonstrations resumed on September 16.
He claimed, “The U.S. and its allies are planning to overthrow the regime! The people of Iran slammed them and will do so from now on.”
As is the case with many dictators before him, Khamenei has deliberately ignored his regime’s 43 years of heinous crimes, systematic corruption, and merciless suppression and misogyny. Canadian historian, Gwynne Dyer explained, “When dictators who deem themselves infallible make mistakes, there’s a steep cost for all.”
Khamenei laid the blame on the U.S. and its ‘allies’, even though the current U.S. administration has significantly appeased the regime. The U.S. has done whatever it took, such as offering political and financial concessions, in a bid to resume nuclear negotiations. However, the mullahs have stressed their maximalist demands, failing many of the talks in Vienna, Muscat, etc.
Khamenei futilely tries to portray his regime as a national government, comparing it with the Mosaddeq government, but the Islamic Republic regime has done nothing but auctioned national resources to ensure its sovereignty.
What Mosaddeq Did for Iran; What Mullahs Do Against Iran?
Dr. Mosaddeq was the leader of Iran’s oil nationalization movement, which inspired several countries, including Egypt, to struggle for independence. In comparison, Khamenei’s ‘Look at the East’ theory diminished Iran’s resources and contributed the lion’s share of the Caspian Sea to Russians, the Chabahar Port to Indians, and significant parts of Iran’s fishing right in the Persian Gulf to the Chinese.
His theory severely destroyed the country’s industry and agro-industrial fields, leaving thousands of farmers, fishermen, and employees unemployed. It also resulted in unaffordable damages to the country’s nature.
In November 2019, Khamenei ordered the Revolutionary Guards and State Security Forces to quell gas protests at all costs. The regime’s atrocities led to more than 1,500 victims, with many more citizens being disappeared or jailed. A few months later, his regime sent several flotillas of oil cargo to Venezuela and Syria for free.
During the recent street protests, demonstrators posted footage of security forces’ bullets that the regime had acquired from the U.S. and UK in 2020, around the same time that Khamenei banned imported Covid-19 vaccines from those same countries, driving thousands of citizens to their deaths.
Khamenei deliberately ignores the role of mullah Abulqassem Kashani, the political-ideological mentor of the regime’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini. There is footage showing Kashani hosting Khomeini at a lunch party. Another video shows the toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi kissing Kashani’s cheek after the coup.
Remarkably, the regime avoided naming a street ‘Mosaddeq’ for decades while the mullahs named highways “Kashani,” “Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri,” etc., people who resisted the people’s will for freedom and independence in favor of foreign powers.
On March 13, 2018, Mojtaba Shakeri, the Tehran City Council’s Naming Committee chair, said, “The Islamic Republic founder’s remarks were the main reason for not naming a street ‘Mosaddeq’.”
In his well-known sermon, Khomeini thanked God for “slapping Mosaddeq” during the 1953 coup. He also described the massive commemorating rally for Mosaddeq on March 5, 1979, as a “holding meeting for a bunch of bones.”
Meanwhile, Khomeini’s hostage-taking of U.S. personnel aimed to purge the theocracy’s dissidents, paving the path for mullahs’ monopolizing all means of power. As he immediately released all American hostages following then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s sensible warnings, showing his “enemy is not in the U.S.,” Jerusalem, or Iraq, but “the enemy is in Tehran.”
Khamenei’s Comparison Fails, Revolution Continues
Despite Khamenei’s rhetoric and devious comparison, large crowds of citizens took to the streets on November 4, paying homage to the revolution’s slain protesters. The late Hadis Najafi’s commemoration ceremony became a significant revolutionary momentum in Karaj, Alborz province.
Footage from Karaj shows defiant citizens confronting the security forces’ attacks and shootings. Responding to the regime’s atrocities, outraged protesters severely beat members of the IRGC forces and pro-regime mullahs, overthrew and torched security forces’ vehicles, and destroyed and set an oppressive forces’ kiosk ablaze.
In Bandar Anzali, Gilan province; Amol, Mazandaran province; Qasr-e Shirin, Kermanshah province; Isfahan and Qazvin provinces, citizens bade farewell to their loved ones with chants of “Death to Khamenei,” “This is the year [Khamenei] is to overthrow,” and “Death to [Khamenei] for all these years of crime.”
The regime’s supreme leader has tried his chance to mob his disparate forces, intimidate protesters, and saber-rattle against the international community. In response, defiant protesters purely stated that the “Mullahs must get lost!” and “We will not go back home until the revolution concludes!”
Today, Khamenei is reaping what he, his predecessor, and their entire rule of crime and corruption have sewn in the past 43 years. As the citizens say, addressing the dictator, demonstrating their will to overthrow the entire regime, “You cannot whitewash crimes with color.”
