Tehran threatens the region after failing to quell its protests, and Washington responds

Eslam Mohamed

After Tehran’s failure to export its revolution to neighboring countries and the repercussions of these conspiracies inside Iran, it has resorted to the policy of exporting problems by throwing accusations haphazardly abroad after failing to suppress the protests.

The Iranian authorities have threatened the countries of the region with responsibility for organizing the popular protests demanding the departure of regime leaders and accusing them of corruption. Tehran vowed a firm response to the countries proven to be behind the recent demonstrations in the country.

First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri blamed what he called “external forces” for the demonstrations, saying that Washington, after failing to subdue his country through the “economic war,” began to pressure Iran with “interventions accompanied by some countries in the region” aimed at “igniting the riots and harming the Iranian people.”

“Some countries in the region should know that if clues are found to prove that there are riot interventions inside the country, they will not be congratulated in the region. Iran is not a country that can behave with such behavior,” he added on Saturday, November 23.

The Iranian Assembly of Experts on Saturday, November 23 released a statement signed by the president of the assembly, Ahmad Jannati, describing the demonstrators as “saboteurs, disturbers of security, and opportunists” and accusing “America and Israel” of igniting the protests. He called for “decisiveness with the protesters and trying them.”

Ahmad Khatami, a Friday preacher in the Iranian capital, accused Washington and Riyadh of inciting what he called “riots,” claiming that Saudi Arabia provided “financial support and put their media at the disposal of the rioters, and they said that we have dragged the mess into the Iranian interior,” IRNA reported.

According to IRNA, Iran’s judiciary spokesman, Gholam Hossein Ismaili, announced that the Revolutionary Guards had arrested 100 “major rioters” during recent events in the country. He added that through the efforts of the security forces, calm has returned to the country and the recent protests ended.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards spokesman Gen. Ramazan Sharif said in a statement to Iranian news agency Tasnim Iranian that the United States, Israel and some regional countries planned and caused the recent wave of unrest in the country.

In a related context, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the main reason for the protests in Iran is the regime’s mismanagement, not the imposed sanctions, pointing out that sanctions were imposed on Iranian Communications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi “for his role in cutting the internet and depriving the Iranian people of the free circulation of information,” which he called “a fundamental right of every Iranian,” adding that the government sought to deprive the public of its voice.

For his part, Mohammad Ebadi, a scholar specializing in Iranian affairs, pointed out that the mullah regime is accustomed to throwing accusations against its opponents and claiming that the world is conspiring against it, while the Iranian people accuse the regime of stealing the country’s wealth and conspiring against its people for the corrupt elite.

The Iranian regime is in great trouble after its legitimacy has collapsed and it failed in all its projects at home and abroad, Ebadi said in remarks to the Reference, adding that it is going through a phase of imbalance and therefore makes irresponsible statements.