Last week, Ebrahim Raisi, a
potential successor to the Iranian regime's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,
announced his candidacy for the May presidential elections. At this stage,
therefore, the two main contenders for the post appear to be current president Hassan Rouhani and Raisi.
Though
former firebrand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadregistered as a candidate this week, he did so in defiance of the
Supreme Leader, and it is unclear whether he will remain a viable candidate or
survive the watchdog Guardian Council screening.
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Some analysts in
Washington and elsewhere tend to introduce Raisi as an ally of Supreme Leader
Khamenei. Rouhani, they argue, may be a less desirable choice for Khamenei,
which means he could act as a counterbalance and, therefore, be a better
candidate for the West.
This
notion is fundamentally wrong. In 2013, when Rouhani was first elected, he was
seen as heading down a path that could lead to internal reforms and change of
behavior by Tehran. Touted as a "moderate," he was someone with whom
the West could work. Those hopes were dashed.
Under
Rouhani, the situation of human rights has dramatically worsened. Last year, a
scathing U.N. report condemned the "alarmingly-high" rate of
executions, which had reached the highest levels of the last 25 years. At least
5,000 young people between the ages of 20 and 30 are on death row and Iran
continues to be one of the world's remaining executioners of children.
Rouhani
has also gloated about "deceiving" western governments during the
nuclear talks, according to his own biography.
The
bottom line: Rouhani is no moderate. For the past 35 years, he has been a
fixture of the regime's security and suppressive circles. That is why he
received, and continues to enjoy, Khamenei's backing as president. In fact,
Rouhani recently told his inner circle that, in a meeting with the Supreme
Leader, he received Khamenei’s blessing to run for a second term.
Meanwhile,
more than 50 members of the Assembly of Experts wrote a letter to Khamenei,
promoting Raisi as a candidate for president. For his part, Raisi, made his
candidacy contingent on Khamenei's approval. Now that he has it, he has
announced he will run.
Raisi,56, is the chairman of the Astan-e Quds Razavi, an economic giant with a
multi-billion-dollar turnover. The institution oversees revenues from the holy
Shiite shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad. Astan-e Quds is one of 14 top
economic powerhouses, which control the Iranian economy on behalf of
the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC).
Like
Rouhani, Raisi has been a permanent fixture of the regime's security apparatus
where, like Rouhani, he has proved his loyalty by engaging in suppression and
bloodshed, targeting opponents of the regime.
Raisi
is also a notorious member of the Death Commission, the group responsible for
the massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners in the span of a few months in
1988. Some of the victims included pregnant women and teenage girls.
According
to an audio
tape released last year, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri told
Raisi and other members of the Death Commission that "the greatest crime
committed during the Islamic Republic, for which history will condemn us, has
been committed by you."
Rouhani
picked another prominent member of the Death Commission, Mostafa Pourmohammadi,
as his justice minister. In other words, the most senior positions of the current
regime continue to be filled by the most ardent and criminal elements of the
theocracy.
It
would be a mistake to think that Raisi has been prodded into the elections as
Khamenei's pick against Rouhani. In truth, Khamenei supports both. The two are
equally dangerous to the safety and security of the Iranian people and other
nations. Both have track records of executions, killings, exportation of
terrorism and plundering of the Iranian people's wealth.
They
do not have the slightest disagreement when it comes to the broad outlines of
the regime's policies. Neither is the choice of the Iranian people. Nor should
they be acceptable to the international community.
What
the West should focus on is that Tehran, and particularly Khamenei, is weak.
Factional feuding has accelerated by recent domestic and foreign crises. The
regime has spent tens of billions of dollars in Syria to
prop up Bashar al-Assad,
with no real prospects of victory there or elsewhere in the region. At the same
time, the economic situation in Iran continues to worsen despite the lifting of
sanctions.
In
the run-up to the elections in May, the West should not fall into the Raisi vs.
Rouhani scenario. Instead, the ruling theocracy as a whole should be seen as a
vulnerable regime hard-pressed to suppress its own population.
Washington
should see the elections as a timely opening, not to the regime but to the
people of Iran. It is time for a firm policy that no longer tolerates Tehran’s
malign regional intransigence and its suppression of millions of Iranians
aspiring for change in Iran.
Soona Samsami is the representative in the United States for the National Council of Resistance of
Iran, which is dedicated to the
establishment of a democratic, secular and a non-nuclear republic in Iran.
Samsami has been interviewed by major media outlets, including The New
York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, C-Span, and CNN. She
has spoken at briefings in the U.S. Congress and the United Nations.
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