What Rouhani’s ‘Sudden Discovery’ Says About The State Of Iran’s Regime – OpEd

Hassan Rouhani, the former president of Iran’s regime who was recently disqualified from running for the Assembly of Experts, recently expressed his complaint about his disqualification by publishing an open letter.

After 45 years, he has suddenly discovered that “Even the highest elected official does not enjoy the right to freedom of expression, not even at the level of an ordinary citizen.”

It is unclear what freedom of expression rights an ordinary citizen in Iran under the current regime enjoys that the regime’s president does not have.

In exploring the judgment, he wrote, “I know what the reason for sensitivity is for some influential elected officials in the Assembly of Experts, especially in this term… I know that the sixth term of the Assembly of Experts is an important and decisive period, and the presence of individuals like me in it is concerning to the jurists of the Guardian Council.”

The Guardian Council is a body of 12 officials who vet candidates for parliamentary elections. They are all either directly or indirectly appointed by the regime’s supreme leader.

In his remarks, Rouhani was careful not to go beyond the Guardian Council, as if he doesn’t know whose hand controls the reins of the Guardian Council and who dictates disqualifications. He doesn’t settle for this ignorance and, with flattery and subservience, writes about regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei: “What has the Guardian Council done in implementing the explicit demands of the Supreme Leader, which warned against instances of injustice in confirming qualifications in previous elections? What action has the Guardian Council taken to ensure maximum public participation in the elections, which the leadership considered the responsibility of all institutions?”

However, Rouhani’s flattery towards did not prevent Khamenei from showing his dominance and silencing him with his political maneuvers. The regime’s mouthpiece, Kayhan, wrote, “If we were to try him and force him to answer for his incompetence, he wouldn’t go so far as to make long-winded speeches in defense of his disqualification.”

Regardless of the propaganda of Kayhan and other regime mouthpieces, the reality is that Rouhani has not refrained from any wrongdoing or malice in the past 45 years to preserve this regime:

Rouhani was one of the first officials of the regime to actively enforce mandatory hijab on Iranian women since the early 1980s and issued a circular regarding compulsory hijab. Referring to women employees’ protests, he himself writes: “…but I stood firm and said: From tomorrow morning, the guard at the entrance gate is obligated to prevent unveiled women from entering the premises of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After the General Staff, it was the turn of the tripartite forces.”

Rouhani recommended the execution of opponents in a public speech.

On July 15, 1980, the state-run Etelaat newspaper quoted him as saying, “If possible, for the sake of setting an example for others, let the conspirators be executed in a place where Friday prayers are held.”

Rouhani was the main instigator of the suppression of the 1998 uprising. As the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, he issued a decisive order to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to ruthlessly crush and eliminate the student movement. In a public speech on July 14, 1998, he said, “A decisive order has been issued to confront and suppress these opportunistic elements wherever they may be and with utmost intensity and determination. Our people will witness that from today, the law enforcement forces, the heroic Basij forces present on the scene, will act against these opportunistic and riotous elements if they dare to continue their savage movements.”

Apart from these criminal acts, many individuals within the regime, even his own allies, now question how it is that Rohani, throughout all these years when he disqualified members and factions within the regime through the Guardian Council, firmly embraced the supervisory role, but now he complains and expresses dissatisfaction.

The regime’s futile attempt to delay its inevitable downfall with these maneuvers will only further sink it into more crises. All signs indicate that the people of Iran, along with their Resistance movement and Resistance Units, are surely moving toward another revolution to wipe out the regime in its entirety.