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“Iran’s provocative
actions threaten the United States, the region and the world,” Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson warned in a major speech last month. The mere possibility
of Washington pushing back on Tehran’s transgressions and focusing not only on
the mullahs’ nuclear
program but also on “alarming and ongoing provocations that
export terror and violence” has already sent shockwaves through the clerical
establishment.
Tillerson said the Trump
administration is reviewing America’s overall Iran policy, a welcome
opportunity to end nearly 40 years of botched rapprochement. A good place to
start is by recognizing two basic realities: The regime is vulnerable to a
hostile population eager to overthrow it, and the notion that the mullocracy
can “reform” itself is a dangerous illusion that prolongs past mistakes.
A new approach, which
enhances Washington’s policy options, would be political backing of the Iranian
people’s decades-long desire to achieve democratic change.
The previous administration ignored the people, instead, setting
its sights on reforms within the regime. But hopes for reform fell flat during
the tenure of Hassan Rouhani, who enriched Tehran’s terrorists and executed opponents at an alarming rate.
Last month, Ebrahim Raisi, a
prominent ally of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,
announced he would challenge Rouhani in the upcoming presidential elections.
The spectacle is prompting some in the West to once again trot out the
“reformers vs. hardliners” horse race. But both men are veterans of suppression
at home and export of terrorism abroad, and both have proven their loyalty to
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Are there no differences
between them? Of course there are, but they are limited to style rather than
substance. Not only are the regime’s officials unwilling to reform major
policies, but Khamenei has also effectively guaranteed that they will remain
unable to do so for the foreseeable future.
In 2005, Khamenei ordered the
government to transfer 80 percent of its holdings to "non-governmental
public, private and cooperative sectors" — i.e., Khamenei and his
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — by 2009.
A month later, the obscure
Ahmadinejad beat the famous former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to
become president. Ahmadinejad’s election was no fluke. He quickly stacked ministries with veterans of the paramilitary
IRGC. Half of his
cabinet members were IRGC. A year earlier, IRGC veterans had won a majority of
seats in parliament.
The newly released "The
Rise of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Financial Empire"
describes the transformation as a power grab of overwhelming proportions. By
some estimates, $12 billion worth of assets were transferred to Khamenei and
the IRGC from 2005 to 2008. Today, one of the financial empires run by
Khamenei, called the Setad, has assets worth well over $90 billion.
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