Iran’s Revolution turned global this week, with shocking scenes of violence hitting the streets of Paris and London. While acts of aggression against police officers as they performed their duty remains inexcusable, Iranians’ rage against the regime’s diplomatic outposts, is real and tangible.
Since its inception in 1979 the Islamic Republic, under first Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and then Ali Khamenei, has systematically worked to expand its reach outwards, rallying to its views not only minds but capitals. From such a tentacular network – its Axis of Resistance, Tehran went on to create a series of echo chambers and foreign outposts so that its agents would wield influence within even our capital cities. Therefore, these centres at the heart of our democracies have become symbols of the oppressive Iranian regime.
And while protesters’ choice to resort to violence is uncalled for, the rationale behind their outburst is indicative of the hatred Iranians harbour against the Islamic Republic and its proxies.
If so far, we have, as a collective, largely ignored Tehran’s ideological games of indoctrination, the regime’s latest decision to call on well-known terror outfits to help crackdown on dissent, may force us to reconsider our positions – insofar as our governments may revoke certain privileges and force, through sanctions, the closure of those outposts, as we did in relation to Russia following the Kremlin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
Iran as it were is calling on its Axis of Resistance, and the many terror outfits populating it, to lend their arms and their weapons so that all calls for regime change could be crushed and protesters forever silences – by whatever mean necessary. Indeed from his pulpit, Raisi called onto mercenaries from Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan as well as Hezbollah fighters. Karmel Melamed, a commentator on Iran for the Times of Israel took to Twitter to raise the alarm, confirming recent reports that the regime had swollen the ranks of its security apparatus over fears protesters might overrun IRGC positions, and force the regime to retreat.
Eyewitnesses on the ground confirmed that in the cities of Tehran, Mashhad and Rasht (Caspian sea coast) Arab speaking mercenaries had been spotted by protesters. If indeed, and it certainly looks as though, the regime decided to enrol terror outfits and mercenaries to whip revolutionaries into submission, Tehran would be openly sponsoring terrorism at home, opening Iran to new dangers.
Beyond that for the regime to be subcontracted the protection of its institutions to outsiders – whether or not they are part of the Axis of Resistance, reinforces the notion that Tehran is cracking under pressure. And with no visuals as yet on Ali Khamenei amid reports of ill health, and some have even ventured of his alleged death, the Islamic Republic could be on its last leg.