Last week a senior cleric was assassinated by a security guard in a bank lobby where he had a savings account totaling close to eight million dollars in Iranian money which earned him twenty percent interest, or $125,000 per month tax free income. Apparently, he had earned this horde through corrupt dealings – certainly not through his fourteen-year membership in the Experts Assembly, who are supposedly responsible for selecting the next Supreme Leader.
Then a few days later two clerics in Qom, the religious center of Shiite Islam, were knifed. A day later a video emerged on social media of a cleric being run over, where he clings onto the hood of the car as it carries him through Tehran traffic.
About a month ago a forty-four-page document was leaked which summarized a secret meeting of all of the top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard where each of them detailed events at the height of the recent unrest. One commander reported that some officers were on the verge of using artillery to target the Supreme Leaders residence!
Iranians overseas witnessed a hopeful gathering of celebrity opposition figures come together under the glare of flash photography only to see the solidarity fall apart when one of them visited Israel and seemingly begged Bibi to install him on his Daddy’s stained throne.
Meanwhile talking-influencers on BBC Persian, VOA Farsi, and Iran International got carried away talking about having a referendum, delusionally thinking that the traitorous regime in Iran would ever hold such a vote, and if they did, it would not be totally rigged. After the Supreme-O Leader gave the referendum his middle finger everybody stopped talking about it.
Today the head of the organization responsible for planning for the payment of pension to retired Iranians said something that my guess will result in his dismissal. He said Iran may be forced to sell Kish Island or Khuzestan province so as to meet its pension obligations!
Today a friend gave his assessment of the situation in Iran as being on the verge of our version of the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution. And he is not alone, almost everybody you talk to foresees disaster ahead, be they a taxi driver, a lawyer, a doctor, or a shop owner. Today in Iran it’s day to day existence, with zero plans beyond a week – and you would never know there is a tsunami approaching as on the surface everything seems so very normal.
A few days ago, my channel surfing landed on a very serous debate in progress about the possible candidates for the next Supreme Leader. One astute commentator made the extraordinary case that the next Supreme Leader had one overriding task if he was to survive (and succeed!) and that was to be able to manage the multiple centers of power who are essentially gangsters stealing the country’s wealth!
At first, I thought what a cynical thing to say and assumed the next Supreme Leader would surely fix things but then it sunk in; he was being totally realistic and was seeing the future very clearly.
So, there you have it, the Iranian nation with thousands of years of governance to learn from is at a crossroad where it is on the brink of dismantling itself due to greed, hate, and delusion.
Source » counterpunch