From king of kings to Khomeinis … same virus

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DID the Iranian political and economic elite make a historic mistake in 1979 by rebelling and bringing down the Shah, and destabilizing the state, which was stable at the time, leading to the people reaping the fruits of those actions today?

This question comes to the mind of anyone who has been following the events in Iran during the last 40 years, in light of the sequence of crises into which the Mullahs regime continues to drag its people. This is in addition to the crisis of their failure to counter and contain the spread of coronavirus, especially since many of the officials have the audacity to claim it is a conspiracy against the regime.

What is happening in Iran is a tragic and realistic image that was expected by all observers of the local and foreign policies of the Iranian regime, which have nothing but slogans and implementation of a police state that curtails the air that people breathe.

There is no doubt that the political movements or the so-called revolutionaries know how to toy with popular emotions and drive the masses to where they want.

The same happened in Egypt when the Free Officers Movement led by the late Gamal Abdul-Nasser was able to portray King Farouk as corrupt. Similar cases happened with the last monarchy in Iraq when the military turned against King Faisal, as well as during Gaddafi’s coup against King Idris al-Senussi in Libya.

However, all these countries fell into the grip of a police state that committed atrocities and scandals. This led their rulers to the gallows, not just the prisons. This is being repeated in Iran, which undoubtedly is experiencing a popular uproar that can only be extinguished by the departure of the regime, especially since its major failure in terms of preventive health has been exposed.

In the 1970s, the interests of some major countries became aligned to the interests of the political opposition led by clergymen. This prompted Paris and Washington to take a sharp stance against the Shah because he demanded the oil producing countries to increase their prices from $34 to $80 per barrel, and render foreign companies to be mere buyers and not partners in production and sale.

The Western world considered this move by the Shah as a challenge against them, and harmful to their strategic interests in the Middle East. The clergymen, or rather the Mullahs, were suffering from the drought of their financial resources that the Iranians were providing them because of the new economic and social trends of the Shah.

This convergence of interests led the Americans and the French to offer financial and political support to the Khomeini movement in a bid to secure the platforms for inciting against the Shah.

Furthermore, some political mistakes were committed by successive governments, all of which led to the creation of a market for the incitement merchandise, and ended with the fall of the Shah regime and ascension of the Mullahs to power.

They did not act according to the American-French plans. Rather, they imagined their ability to control and rule with religious slogans on the Muslim world, so they established subordinate and mercenary groups in the surrounding countries under the theme “revolution export” through which they taunted the world with terrorism.

Undoubtedly, the mistakes committed by the elite are usually corrected through the awakening of the people to live with a series of bitter experiences. On this basis, the bet is on the Iranian people who, since two years, have been rising up against the Mullahs regime.

How come a regime raises the glove of challenge in the face of the international community, and boast about inflicting defeats against the major powers whenever they take any measures against it, while in reality, the same regime has no preventive plan to contain the spread of a virus?

Isn’t this ridiculous? For how long will a great nation like Iran remain captive to a few dozen elements living in the caves of darkness?

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

This news has been read 18448 times!