Iran International
Iran's Reformists are calling on President Masoud Pezeshkian to take action against other power centers that prevented Mohammad Khatami, their de facto leader, from attending a public event on Thursday.
On the eighth anniversary of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's death, his family inaugurated a charity cancer center in Tehran. The facility, built in Hashemi Rafsanjani's memory, was launched during a high-profile ceremony attended by numerous political and public figures, including former President Hassan Rouhani. However, Mohammad Khatami's absence was conspicuous.
In her speech at the event, Hashemi-Rafsanjani's daughter, Fatemeh Hashemi, revealed that Khatami “was not given permission” to attend the ceremony. It remains unclear which security agency or authority made this decision. Reformists argue that while Pezeshkian may not bear direct responsibility, he should challenge the higher powers responsible for the ban.
Reformist politician Zahra Bahramnejad told the media that despite Pezeshkian’s efforts to involve a broader range of political forces loyal to the Islamic Republic in governance, certain power structures and influential elites continue to resist political unity.
In Iranian political discourse, terms like “highest officials of the system” often refer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who exerts significant influence over critical decisions in the country.
Many believe Khamenei approved Pezeshkian’s candidacy in the July elections to boost voter turnout amid expectations of low engagement. Pezeshkian has acknowledged that without Khamenei’s support, the Guardian Council would not have cleared him to run.
Reformists push for a greater role in governance
Reformists have called on Pezeshkian to address the obstruction of his efforts to foster national unity, a promise he has frequently emphasized as the only path to “saving Iran”.
Although Pezeshkian identifies himself as a Reformist, his so-called "Government of Unity" includes several figures from the rival hardline camp and only a handful of Reformists.
Banning Khatami from attending the ceremony coincided with a conference on “national unity” elsewhere in Tehran that Pezeshkian addressed on the same day.
This contradiction, Reformist politician Mohammad-Ali Abtahi argued in a social media post, highlights the challenges of achieving unity among the country’s top political factions.
Abtahi, who served as vice president under Khatami, emphasized the symbolic importance of Khatami’s continued exclusion from Iran's political sphere by hardliners.
“What can one say about unity when conditions are so restricted and doors so closed that the presence of the country’s most influential and popular political figure … at such a ceremony is not permitted?” Ebrahim Ansari-Lari, a former governor general during Khatami’s presidency asked in a note he sent to the media following the incident.
In his note, Ansari-Lari also criticized Pezeshkian for “saying the same things as usual” in his address to the conference and "leaving without ever mentioning the incident or showing a sign of discontent.”
Pezeshkian and Khatami’s relationship
Pezeshkian served as health minister during Khatami’s presidency (1997-2005) and has consistently expressed respect for the former president. Khatami played a significant role in supporting Pezeshkian during the election, with the Reformist Front rallying behind his candidacy.
After the elections, Khatami visited Pezeshkian at his home. In an extremely rare move, the state-run television which for nearly two decades had never shown Khatami’s image, unless in a negative light.
The state television’s brief report sparked hope among reformists that the severe restrictions imposed on Khatami might be removed, or at least somehow relaxed, under Pezeshkian's administration.
In a highly symbolic gesture, Pezeshkian reciprocated the visit, inviting Khatami to the presidential office for the first time in 19 years for a meeting. Iranian media reported that Pezeshkian and Khatami discussed the newly elected president’s cabinet makeup during the meeting that lasted over an hour and a half.
Restrictions on Khatami
Unlike presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, his wife Zahra Rahnavard, who were placed under house arrest following the disputed 2009 elections which reinstated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, Khatami faced severe restrictions without formal confinement, after the 2009 popular protests against the election results.
A vocal supporter of Mousavi’s candidacy, Khatami has been barred from attending public events and traveling since then, not only internationally, but also domestically.
In 2010, Iranian media reported that Khatami was prevented from leaving the country to attend a nuclear disarmament conference in Hiroshima, Japan. Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied involvement in the travel ban.
Domestic travel restrictions appeared to have been somehow relaxed in late October when after fifteen years, Khatami was allowed to travel to Yazd, the capital of his home province, and to speak to the members of the public in a few places he visited.
Hassan Hassanzadeh, the commander of Tehran’s Mohammad Rasoulollah IRGC base, told local media that the trend of declining participation has intensified since the fall of Iran’s ally, Bashar al-Assad, in Syria. In a rare admission, he acknowledged that many IRGC and Basij members did not respond to calls to join what was intended to be a 110,000-strong drill.
However, the actual participation figure remains uncertain, as Hassanzadeh also said that “According to preliminary figures I have received, at least 27,000 Afghan brothers and sisters residing in Iran have filled out the participation form for the drills.”
Hassanzadeh, referring to what he described as a trend of non-cooperation by IRGC and Basij members with IRGC programs, stated: "Unfortunately, many of our colleagues who have had the honor of serving in the Basij and the IRGC have either declined to participate for various reasons or have not yet given a definitive response. This is a trend that we have seen increase since the events in Syria."
The event appeared more like a parade through the streets of the capital than a military drill intended to prepare for the defense of Tehran. Many Iranians on social media suggested that the exercise was aimed more at intimidating residents and deterring anti-government protests than preparing for a potential foreign attack.
The participants included anti-riot forces riding in groups of motorcyclists, a formation commonly used during protests. Typically, two men share each motorbike, with the passenger armed with clubs or chains to strike protesters.
The event also featured men carrying cardboard cutouts of “martyrs,” such as former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel, and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, assassinated in Tehran last year. Heavily armed IRGC forces were present, carrying assault rifles and riding in pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns. Some participants, dressed as early Islamic warriors, brandished oversized swords—all these displays seemingly intended to intimidate the public.
An official IRGC announcement highlighted the distribution of free food to all participants, along with a few hundred “wedding gift packages” for supporters preparing to get married. In Iran, free food handed out at such events is commonly referred to as “sandis,” a term often used humorously. Those who attend government-organized gatherings solely for the freebies are mockingly called “Sandiskhor,” or freeloaders.
Iran International analyst, Morad Veisi pointed out before the event that “The timing of the drill coincides with political shifts in the US, including the return of Donald Trump to the White House, and a weakening of Tehran’s regional position, which have raised concerns within the Islamic Republic’s ruling circles.”
“He [Carter] did all he could to push the Shah out without thinking who would replace him,” General Brigadier Yitzhak Segev told Iran International. “Carter spoke against the Shah and criticized him.”
"I'm not saying the regime of the Shah was good or not corrupt. I am not saying Savak was good also, but every time you must think about how to continue or who will be the replacement," Segev added, referring to the late monarch Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's feared spy agency.
Segev served as military attaché in Iran from 1977 to 1979, escaping after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran in February 1979 in a triumphant defeat of the Shah, who had announced he was going on "vacation".
Segev provided his eye-witness accounts, conversations and observations from the years leading to the revolution and its aftermath.
As an elite officer in the Israeli military, Segev had direct conversations with Carter and American, Iranian and Israeli government and military officials in the run-up to the Islamic revolution that transformed the monarchy into an Islamic theocracy.
While Segev said he respects Carter, praising him as a human rights trailblazer and statesman for his role in the Camp David Accords that brought peace between Egypt and Israel, he said the Democratic president let Iran down.
“His treatment of Iran was catastrophic.”
Carter’s role in Iran is a lightning rod of controversy. Many in the Iranian diaspora flocked to social media when learning of Carter’s death on Dec. 29 to again blame him for the rise of Khomeini.
Segev, who continued to have friendly relations with Carter after the 1979 revolution, said the late president believed the end of the Shah’s 37-year reign and 2500 years of monarchy in Iran would lead to democracy.
Carter’s championing of democracy and human rights drove that belief, in Segev’s view. The Americans, he said, naively thought Khomeini, an anti-communist, would protect American interests and felt the Shah had already lost control of the country and was doomed.
General Robert Husyer was dispatched to Tehran as a US envoy in 1979 on a secret mission to meet with the Iranian army, according to Segev, in an account corroborated by declassified US documents and a Husyer's memoir.
“Instead of coming to the army and building confidence with the army or promoting a replacement from the army or civilian (leadership) that would keep relations with America and the West, he really pushed for democracy,” Segev told Eye for Iran.
It would later be revealed that many of these Iranian generals were planning their defection and some even joined the anti-Shah movement.
Husyer in his memoir said Carter’s administration had not ruled out US support for a coup. According to Husyer’s memoir and Segev’s recollections, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor, advocated for immediate action but Cyrus Vance, the secretary of state, opposed a coup.
“Brzezinski wanted [his order] to convey to the Iranian military a green light to stage a military coup. President Carter intended it to convey such a meaning only as a last resort,” Huyser wrote in this memoir.
Within the US government, officials were divided about what to do about its flailing Mideast ally amid backdrop of the Cold War.
Carter’s quest for democracy may have blinkered him on Khomeini’s true intentions, Segev said, and the prevailing threat to the Americans at the time was communism.
“The unusual story is that before Khomeini landed President Carter called the president of France and the president of Germany and told them: ‘don't worry, I checked about Khomeini and he is not communist’,” Segev said.
The BBC published a report in 2016 based on declassified US diplomatic cables saying Carter had contacts with Khomeini and his representatives in Tehran prior to his takeover.
Khomeini, who was in exile in Paris at the time, reportedly assured the Americans he would restore stability and that American interests would be protected in a series of letters he sent to Carter.
Islamic Republic officials have repeatedly denied any secret correspondence with a nation Khomeini referred to as the “great Satan.”
Officials who worked closely with Carter like Stuart Eizenstat, the president's chief domestic policy adviser, blame the Shah for the Islamic Republic's rise.
"Jimmy Carter did not lose Iran, the Shah did," Eizenstat said in a eulogy at the late president’s funeral on Thursday.
In attendance were President Joe Biden, President-elect Donald Trump and all other living former US presidents, making for a rare re-litigation of the hotly disputed events of 1979 before the country's most senior leaders.
Regrets?
A few years after the 1979 revolution, Segev met with President Carter and Cyrus Vance at a peace conference in Atlanta.
Curious about the Carter administration's conclusions after Khomeini had solidified power, he spoke to the former President and Vance, directly asking the latter if he had any regrets about US actions during the 1979 revolution.
“I told him: 'I must ask you. Now after the revolution, how do feel?' He told me that he felt big regret and it was a big mistake,” said Segev, who said he asked the same of Carter later that night.
“President Carter did not show any regret,” he said.
Israeli offer of help
In 1978, as anti-Shah sentiment was growing and spreading outside Iran's capital, the Israelis offered Tehran help.
Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan and Segev met with Nematollah Nassiri, the head of Iran’s former intelligence agency Savak.
The meeting did not go as the Israeli officials had anticipated, Segev said.
“I remember the meeting now after 45 years like it happened yesterday,” he said.
“Nassiri’s son was on his leg and Dayan told him ‘General Nasiri, Segev told me that there are big demonstrations. I came here to offer you any help from Israel.’"
"Nasiri told him, ‘don't worry, everything is under control. We control the situation. We don't need anything. We have everything. But if you are here, let's talk about the war between Ethiopia and Somalia’,” said Segev.
Segev recalls leaving the meeting disappointed and said Dayan told him, "‘I'm ashamed to tell you this. Nassiri is senile. Let's leave him.’"
To learn more about Segev’s escape from Iran and his meeting with Ayatollah Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, one of the leaders of the Islamic Revolution, watch or listen to Eye for Iran Episode 33. You can watch on YouTube or Listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Castbox or any major podcast platform.