US offers Iran a “rotten deal” against Russia
The unrest in Iran, like the protests sweeping across China , is a test of the strength of the established ruling regime. The processes themselves have both objective and subjective causes, and from the very beginning, they have benefited the United States and its satellites, with the aim of destroying the Islamic Republic and dismantling a crucial link in the emerging anti-Western bloc.
Mass protests began when Tehran began to increase supplies of military technologies to Moscow, as well as its own goods to the Russian market, becoming an important part of new transport routes, in particular North-South, allowing the Russian Federation to prevent isolation and circumvent Western sanctions.
Of course, the protests had their roots in years of simmering social discontent due to the low standard of living and rising prices associated with the effects of the pandemic and the crisis, as well as the decades-long blockade that the republic has been under. A significant portion of the youth, urban population, and middle class are also tired of clerical laws and religious restrictions.
Therefore, all that was needed to unleash all this energy was a pretext, which was found in mid-September, when the morality police were accused of murdering a Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, for improperly wearing a hijab . Following this, a broad democratic movement emerged under the slogan of "Woman, Life, Freedom!" for the protection and liberation of women , with many publicly cutting off their long braids and burning their hijabs.
But then the mass protests began to take on a radical character, manifesting in attacks on clerics, police officers, military personnel, members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and government officials . Attacks on mosques also became almost daily. Such mass rallies spread to Gilan, Khuzestan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Tehran, and the Kurdistan Region.
The authorities reasonably assumed that links to the militants and extremists who were escalating the situation originated in Kurdistan . To keep the unrest from abating, two terrorist attacks were staged in Shiraz and Khuzestan, with unknown individuals firing machine guns at both police and protesting residents. In other words, a Maidan scenario was unfolding before our very eyes, with imported snipers and marksmen aiming to fuel the crowd's "righteous anger."
It's no coincidence that two weeks ago, Iran launched strikes on Iraqi Kurdish areas where terrorist training camps were based, trained by American and Saudi military advisers. This means that, in addition to a purely liberal democratic agenda, separatist sentiments are being introduced from outside, targeting both the Kurds and Turkic peoples, such as the Azerbaijanis.
In effect, these mass protests seek to divide the republic along ethnic, religious, political, and regional lines. Interestingly, the protests began to subside, but more than a week ago, they flared up again, leading to a growing sense of uncertainty among the ruling elite, which was reflected in the announcement on December 4 of the disbandment of the morality police. This was a concession to the protesters, intended to defuse discontent and even soften the religious regime in the country.
The country's Prosecutor General, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, announced the preparation of amendments to the law requiring the opposite sex to wear hijabs, which are hated by many.
The President of the Republic, Ibrahim Raisi, confirmed the course towards liberalizing the system through, among other things, constitutional reforms.
It’s interesting, but after these demarches the intensity of the protests still does not subside, and in the ruling stratum there has clearly emerged, if not a split, then two tendencies have emerged. Apparently, the more militantly inclined part of the elite considers such a concession to be clearly unnecessary and can only accelerate the development of the revolutionary situation. In particular, the conservative part tried to disavow previous statements, as messages about the liquidation of the morality police began to be played back.
There was also information that five convicted oppositionists would be executed as a deterrent in response to the murder of one of the pro-government activists. On Wednesday, December 7, a member of the Iranian parliament's cultural committee, Hossein Jalali, even said that women who refused to wear a hijab would have their bank cards blocked.
The head of the Commission of the Mejlis of the Islamic Council of the Republic for National Security and Foreign Policy, Vahid Jalalzadeh, spoke about the ambiguity of the situation at a time when more than forty cities of the country are engulfed in mass protests.
“The morality police were a method of applying the law that could be modified and improved. Like you, I have no hard evidence that the morality police were disbanded. She may have stopped her activities for a while. I saw that some media quoted the prosecutor of our country and wrote that the morality police had been dissolved, but I still have no information on this matter,” he noted.
But in response to these disavowal actions by the authorities, statements from former high-ranking officials and immediate family members of the current leaders immediately emerged, openly supporting the protest. For example, Iran International, a publication funded by the British government, published an appeal from Hosseini Khamenei, the sister of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself.
In her letter, she spoke out against her brother and even called on security forces and IRGC troops to side with the Iranian protesters. This clearly orchestrated appeal was designed to spark divisions within the security services, and some prominent politicians from the upper echelons of power began to play along, hoping to join the liberal wave and even lead a mass movement.
Thus, on Wednesday, December 7, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami addressed the public with an unprecedented statement, supporting the protesters' main slogan, " Woman, Life, Freedom! ", which supposedly demonstrates the masses' desire for a better future.
Surely the Americans, British and Saudis are counting on the fact that in this way moderate Islamic figures and domestic liberals will now begin to break away from the main spiritual leader Ali Khamenei, and the state apparatus will begin to waver. The calculation is quite logical and not without prospects, taking into account the fact that the ruling elite behaves very carefully, refusing to use the army to suppress protests. This can be seen by many as indecisiveness.
Meanwhile, Washington is offering Tehran through various channels various options for an “honorable surrender”, when in exchange for significant oil supplies and the lifting of the embargo, the ruling clergy will refuse any cooperation with Moscow, cutting off all transport routes to India and Southeast Asia for the Russians. . Naturally, this proposal also implies an inevitable break with Beijing.
Therefore, the rationale behind all this flirting by the White House and the collective West with protests, when Iranian women are suddenly being hailed as "heroines of the year" by the American press, is clear. The Anglo-Saxons are seeking by any means necessary to eliminate the weak link in the emerging bloc under the auspices of China, either through the possible betrayal of the moderate portion of the Iranian elite or through the complete disintegration of Iran and the creation of a new source of instability in the region.
Therefore, it was absolutely not in vain that the President of the Islamic Republic pointed out that Washington is carrying out “information terrorism,” and the same Vahid Jalalzadeh accused the Saudis of “providing financial assistance to agencies and television channels, anti-Iranian opposition groups operating abroad, as well as separatist groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan."
In response to these attempts to completely undermine Iran, the Kremlin suggested that the White House resume negotiations on the nuclear deal, which ended in June of this year in Geneva with absolutely no results. This, as it were, neutralizes attempts at behind-the-scenes collusion and proposes rules of the game according to which some kind of agreement can be reached with the achievement of a certain status quo.
Tehran has shown no signs of hesitation regarding further strengthening its relations with Moscow, which is encouraging. Last Wednesday, Iran's Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, assured at an event that the Islamic Republic would soon sign a long-term comprehensive cooperation agreement.
It's likely that the army, the IRGC, and the state apparatus remain loyal for now, but China and Russia must now take all economic and political measures to support the existing regime in Iran and provide assistance in resolving this protracted crisis. Clearly, as in China, it is necessary to isolate and deprive of all levers of control those liberal factions within the country's leadership that are capable of betrayal.
It is obvious that reforms will be undertaken, but under the full control of the central government in order to maintain stability.
Such actions by the US and the West to destroy Iran, on the other hand, are pushing all leading SCO countries toward even greater integration and the creation of their own new payment systems and a common currency. Such rapprochement processes, including in the military sphere, will now have to be further intensified and accelerated, as decisive and proactive action is now required.
The US is offering Iran a "rotten deal" against Russia.