Iran 'On The Verge Of An Explosion,' Says Lawmaker

Headlined "Let's Not Deceive Ourselves, Kayhan's Stance Is Leader's Stance," the missive on Tuesday responded to criticism from reformist journalist Ahmad Zeydabadi, who in a Telegram post Thursday wrote that Shariatmadari was behaving as if he is “top authority in the country” by lambasting reformist clerics who had issued a statement finding an “unmistakable crisis” in Iran.

The Kayhan editorial charged that if Zeydabadi were right, then “someone else should be appointed to take the helm of Kayhan… [as] stances put forth by the chief editor of Kayhan have nothing to do with the wish, will, and policies of the system.”

While veteran editor Shariatmadari is Khamenei’s representative at the newspaper, Khamenei has many times declined to follow Shariatmadari’s advice, including over backing talks with Europe two decades ago, with the Americans over Afghanistan and Iraq, and in Iran’s agreeing to limit the nuclear program in signing the 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

But Kayhan’s latest editorial asserted that as a "radical revolutionary," the paper’s chief editor was the first to announce stances the “regime” would subsequently adopt.

Kayhan argued that supporters of a nuclear deal claimed that Supreme Leader's support for the negotiation team led by former Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif during the talks was proof of irrelevance of Shariatmadari's criticism, but Zarif's ill fate clearly showed that Shariatmadari's critical stance was the same as the Supreme Leader's stance.

"The one who fell to the ground in the confrontation between Kayhan and Zarif was Zarif, and the one who was honored was Hossein Shariatmadari," the editorial continued. It also reminded readers that Khamenei had last year described as a “big error” Zarif’s criticism of the role in foreign policy of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general and Quds Force commander killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.

The newspaper was referring to Khamenei's harsh words against Zarif in May 2021 after a leaked audio recording of an interview with him made headlines. In the interview Zarif had strongly criticized the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the former commander of its Qods force, Ghasem Soleimani for hijacking Iran's foreign policy. Without mentioning Zarif's name, Khamenei called the remarks "a big error," that was "regrettable and surprising."

"This was a big mistake that should not have been committed by an Islamic Republic official. The enemies are annoyed by the Qods Force's influence in the region," and one part of the political system should not undermine the other part, Khamenei said.

The editorial went on to suggest it had been Shariatmadari's criticism that had led recently to Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, retracting a suggestion of the possibility of direct bilateral talks with Washington over the nuclear issue.

During a meeting with air force commanders on Tuesday, Khamenei said that he believes in and acts upon the recommendations of doctors and received his third dose of the vaccine a few months ago.

According to Alireza Marandi, Khamenei's personal physician, the supreme leader received the Iranian-manufactured Covid-19 vaccine called Cov-Iran Barakat, but some say political leaders have been inoculated by the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Khamenei had banned the purchase of US and British-made vaccines in January 2021, saying that "Importing vaccines made in the US or the UK is prohibited. They are completely untrustworthy. It is not unlikely that they would want to contaminate other nations… French vaccines are not trustworthy either”.

The number of daily Covid deaths is now over a hundred while daily cases are reported to be about 40,000.

Health authorities, who have said the country is in its sixth wave of the pandemic, warn the figures are expected to increase exponentially during the next two months, stressing that the new variant is also very difficult to detect.

Despite the highly contagious Covid-19 Omicron variant spreading fast across Iran, President Ebrahim Raisi has rejected proposals for a nationwide shutdown.

Last week, former deputy Majles Speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar suggested to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to put an end to the embarrassing political impasse in Iran and allow strong political parties to compete for parliamentary seats.

Conservative politician and former lawmaker Hossein Kanani Moghaddam said in an interview with Nameh News website that the June 2021 election was probably Iran's last Presidential election and the current political system headed by a president is likely to be replaced by a parliamentary system that elects a prime minister from among the members of parliament.

Moghaddam agreed with Bahonar that Iran's current political system needs a revision. Earlier, Bahonar had suggested that Khamenei should allow forming an assembly to revise the constitution or order a referendum on constitutional changes. The idea, however, was first put forward by Khamenei himself in 2011 when serious differences emerged between him and -then- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Moghaddam said that more than three decades after the last revision, it is now time to reconsider it and give more opportunities to political parties.

The first revision of the assembly in 1988 was done shortly before Khomeini's death to prevent discord among the politicians after his death. It appears that the call for changes and the debates about how to make them follows the same rationale today.

Reformist politician Mahmoud Mirlohi agreed in an interview with ILNA, that the revision called for by Bahonar means a shift from the presidential system to a parliamentary one. Reminding that the first revision of the Constitutional Law was done under the first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, Mirlohi said that the Constitution needs a revision at least once every 10 years. However, he noted that reformists and various conservative groups might have different ideas about such a revision.

The idea could also be a solution to prevent a post-Khamenei crisis of leadership when the new leader would be possibly not as powerful as Khamenei and might face a challenge by a popularly elected president. In a parliamentary system the head of the government would have a weaker position than a president and can be voted out by parliament.

Iran International TV analyst Morad Veisi wrote in a February 6 tweet that while a majority of Iranians favor a secular government, calling for constitutional changes will lend further legitimacy to the dictatorship of Iranian Shiite clerics.

Meanwhile, in an article in Khabar Online on Monday, Columnist Mohsen Mandegari characterized the call for constitutional change as "a dangerous plot" and wrote that what has so far prevented such a revision is the divide between the ruling hardliners and reformists who have been largely pushed out of the core. The ruling conservatives are going to have the upper hand in a constitutional assembly.

Former lawmaker Mehrdad Lahouti also said that the situation is not ripe for attempting a revision of the constitution because a parliamentary system depends on strong and organized political parties, which Iran lacks.

On the other hand, lawyer Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai, a member of the Executives of Construction Party agreed with Bahonar that Iran needs a parliamentary system with two chambers., and Abolghasem Raoufian, the leader of the Islamic Iranzamin Party opined that the constitution is not the word of God, so it can certainly be changed.

Based on the current constitution, the members of a constitutional assembly should be determined by the Supreme Leader. After the assembly ratifies the changes, the Leader will call for a referendum to ratify the changes.

In a letter to speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf (Qalibaf), the 61 complained that their motion had been “withheld” too long. They insisted any vote should be “transparent” and announced their own votes would be.

Mohammad-Hossein Asafari, a signatory, argued in Khabar Online that the parliament's presidium was obliged to call a vote on any motion backed by at least 50 lawmakers.

None of the 66 signatories was from the small reformist minority. Asafari said that opponents of the motion feared being taken to task by constituents or by rival candidates in future elections. He suggested many parliamentarians were particularly concerned they might be seen as voting against pay increases demanded by employees that the financially hard-pressed government cannot afford.

Many lawmakers might also be concerned that constituents can find out that they vote against their own campaign promises.

But Asafari said “transparency” was nonetheless just as important in parliament as in ministries, the judiciary, and the over-150 state councils that regulate in various areas. "Some of the regulations ratified by them can potentially be a source of economic rente (privilege resulting from undue influence) for certain groups," he alleged.

The term "Vote Transparency Motion" was used in 2017 when the reformist Mohammad-Javad Fathi proposed to amend parliament's procedural regulations but was unable to persuade the conservative-dominated presidium to allow a parliamentary vote despite supporters arguing that Article 69 of the Constitution ruled out secret ballots other than in emergencies, and required parliamentary sessions to be “open, and full minutes of them made available to the public.”

They also said transparency in voting would allow people to evaluate the performance of their representatives and hold them accountable and would also reduce corruption.

"The parliament is the wrong place for the lawmaker who is not brave enough to take responsibility for his vote," Fathi told Tabnak news website back then. The presidium registered a diluted version of the motion, raised by Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani, in 2018.

But this motion took over two years to reach the parliamentary floor, where it was defeated in February 2021 as the 153 of 234 members present voting in favor was just short of the required two-thirds majority of those present.

That motion called for voting records to be announced unless, in extraordinary circumstances, a motion to the contrary was brought by 15 lawmakers and passed by a simple majority of those members present.

Iranian authorities shut down a news agency on Sunday after it published a video of the husband parading in the street with his wife’s severed head.

Rokna agency had reported that the man with the help of his brother had killed the woman in what it termed an ‘honor killing.’

Abbas Hosseini-Pouya, prosecutor general of Ahvaz, provincial capital of Khuzestan, told the press that two alleged killers had been arrested. Rokna had reported that Mona Heydari had been killed in Ahvaz by her brother-in-law and husband, allegedly after her father helped the husband bring her back from Turkey where she had fled, purportedly from her husband's violence.

Honor-killings are rampant in some regions of the country, such as Khuzestan and Kermanshah where tribal structures are still very strong.

Heydari had been married to a paternal cousin at the age of 12 and had a child at 14. Hosseini-Pouya said that she had sent photos of herself to her husband from Turkey that had fueled the husband's “negative emotions."

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The prosecutor general said the legal authorities would act both over the killing and the display of the severed head, and that action would also be taken against anyone who had filmed the incident, possibly to post on social media.

Hashtags such as the victim's name, child marriage, ‘honor-killing,’ Ahvaz, and woman were among the top ten Persian-language Twitter hashtags Monday. Telegram and Instagram were dominated by discussions of the incident.

"He has ruled, before a trial, that the victim whose head was paraded in the street was to blame for her own killing because she hurt her husband's emotions," one tweet read, finding fault with the prosecutor and linking the killing to the constitutional watchdog Guardian Council refusing to endorse legislation banning child marriage.

Hardline media, except the IRGC-linked Javan newspaper, ignored the incident. in an article entitled "Psychological Damage [to Society] With Violent Images Not Media's Job", Javan defended the shutting down of Rokna.

"This is not the first time that to attract more readers privately-owned media publish news, photos and videos considered as immoral by the society and directly threaten the emotional health of the society," Javan wrote, without mentioning honor killing or laws that critics say encourage such crimes.

The reformist journalist Abbas Abdi preferred to take issue with conservative papers that didn’t report the killing. "Hardliners who must condemn the killing of the Ahvazi girl are silent about it because they traditionally believe such behavior can prevent sexually related transgressions, so their silence means relative condonement of this horrible incident," Abdi wrote in Etemad newspaper, which ran several articles on the issue.

Etemad did condemn Rokna for publishing the images. Like many media, it used the term “honor killing” in a headline, while attacking he conservative-dominated parliament for introducing laws encouraging women to have more children rather than, the paper said, introducing more laws to protect them from violence.