00:03:43.420He was the secretary for the Supreme National Security Council.
00:03:47.420And, of course, he was also, he is actually the head of the headquarters that is negotiating the 25-year strategic pact with China.
00:03:59.420So, clearly, I think the elimination of Larijani points, if anything, to the kind of, if you will, paranoia and anxiety
00:04:09.420that Khamenei feels about the prospects of another uprising like the ones we saw in November 2000, in December 2017, January 2018 and November 2019,
00:04:23.420which basically shook the regime to its core.
00:04:26.420And so he has felt that this time around he cannot allow any divergence whatsoever from the policies that he has laid down and his red lines.
00:04:38.420When we look at these seven candidates, you would know the players of Iranian politics better than I do,
00:04:44.420but I have read from various sources that of the seven, most are hardliners.
00:04:48.420But there are two candidates that are classified a bit more as reformers and a bit more moderate.
00:04:54.420One of the names that was put forward in a piece I read by one outlet had said that it was a lesser known candidate,
00:05:01.420but Abdul Nasser Hamati is one that is a bit more of a moderate.
00:05:05.420So they haven't just kept entirely pro-regime candidates, correct?
00:05:10.420Well, I think calling Hamati a moderate, I think, is too far-fetched.
00:05:18.420We call that Hamati was the governor of the central bank.
00:05:22.420And obviously he, like other cronies of Rouhani, have been in all of the looting and plundered.
00:05:30.420That said, he was declared as qualified to run because he has a snowball's chance in hell to come out of the ballot box.
00:05:40.420So is that, sorry to interrupt there, but is this basically just so that the Guardian Council can say they didn't rig the entire thing,
00:05:49.420just to put, you know, one or two people that don't have a chance that are not regime loyalists?
00:05:54.420Well, he is a regime loyalist because remember that everyone within this regime over the past 40 years,
00:06:02.420whether some people want to call them moderates or want to call them hardliners,
00:06:08.420when it comes to strategic policies of this regime, namely domestic suppression, exports of terrorism,
00:06:17.420the ballistic missile program, the nuclear weapons program, meddling in the internal affairs of regional countries.
00:06:26.420They are all on board. If there is any difference is in terms of some of the tactics.
00:06:32.420When it comes to people like Hemmati, remember the elections in Iran, if you want to call them elections,
00:06:40.420are determined not by what comes out of the ballot box, but it is the result of the internal balance of power.
00:06:49.420And so as such, when you have somebody like Ibrahim Raisi, who is currently the judiciary chief.
00:06:56.420And he's the favorite, the correct, the most likely winner?
00:07:00.420He's the preferred candidate. And Larijani was eliminated to ensure that Raisi will come out of the ballot box.
00:07:09.420And remember that this man is a mass murderer par excellence.
00:07:15.420Since he was 19, he became the prosecutor in the province of Hamadan, western Iran.
00:07:22.420He has no formal academic education. He has no formal even religious education.
00:07:29.420And for 41 years, all that he has done has been issue death sentences.
00:07:36.420I spoke to a former political prisoner, a woman who spent six years in Hamadan prison.
00:07:44.420And she told me that Raisi was her torturer, and she was nine months pregnant.
00:07:50.420And she ran by me like dozens of names of her cellmates that Raisi sent to the gallows.
00:07:57.420And also, worse than that, when Khomeini issued a fatwa to liquidate all political dissidents,
00:08:06.420particularly the members of the Mujahideen al-Khargi MEK in 1988, Raisi was the key member of a death commission
00:08:15.420that sent 30,000 political prisoners who were already serving time.
00:08:20.420None had been sentenced to death. They pulled them before kangaroo courts.
00:08:25.420And they asked him a question, what is your affiliation?
00:08:28.420And if they said MEK, they would be sent to hang.
00:08:32.420And Raisi oversaw that quite diligently, 24 hours a day, such that in a matter of two, three months,
00:08:40.420they wiped out all dissidents within the prisons of Iran.
00:08:44.420So he is known in Iran, by the way, as the henchman of 1988.
00:08:51.420And there's a hashtag that has gone viral by Iranians, both inside Iran and outside of Iran.
00:08:59.420So clearly, I want to say that this is not really an election.
00:09:04.420And by bringing Raisi out of the ballot box, in some respects,
00:09:11.420Khamenei has shown the way he wants to move forward when it comes to domestic issues.
00:09:17.420And of course, with regards to regional issues and international issues.
00:09:21.420Well, let's talk about those because I know internally, domestically,
00:09:25.420the Ayatollah needs to consolidate and maintain power.
00:09:28.420I know you and I have spoken in the past about how some of that power may be weakening.
00:09:33.420But globally, Iran cannot put forward the Ayatollah as its face.
00:09:39.420And you know, the Iranian regime right now wants the Iran deal with the United States restored.
00:09:44.420They want more credibility on the foreign stage.
00:09:56.420How do they brand the next president to the world to start looking like they are a bit more reform-minded, even if they aren't?
00:10:04.420Well, for the regime, I must say, in the past 42 years, the number one priority, the number one concern has been the domestic scene.
00:10:17.420And they have said this many, many times that the existential threat to the survival of this decadent and medieval regime comes not from the United States nor from any other country abroad, but it's domestic.
00:10:37.420Because the Mullahs, first of all, they usurped the leadership of a popular revolution.
00:10:41.420Second, all that they have done in the past 42 years is to murder, to imprison, to torture, to loot, to plunder, to incite violence across Iran's borders, and to blackmail and bully the international community.
00:11:00.420So, as such, the Iranian population is very much enraged, and at no time in the history of the regime has the establishment, Khamenei, been so weak and vulnerable.
00:11:16.420Recall that I mentioned the major nationwide protests in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
00:11:25.420And this is where you had the largely unarmed civilians braving killings in the streets and arrests and torture, and coming in droves into the streets.
00:11:38.420In November, they basically were active in 200 cities across Iran, and the Mullahs felt that they might be overthrown.
00:11:47.420That is why Khamenei ordered his henchmen to open fire, and they proceeded to kill 1,500 protesters, mostly young people.
00:11:55.420So, for Khamenei, holding onto his hegemony takes precedence over everything else.
00:12:02.420Naturally, he milked the Western countries by this so-called moderate hardliner narrative.
00:12:09.420And the Westerners, some bothered wholesale, some deliberately looking for some petty economic interest, promoted that.
00:12:19.420But now Khamenei has realized that this game will no longer work.
00:12:25.420He cannot tolerate any schism, any fissures at the top.
00:12:32.420And that is why he has decided to do this, basically in the futile hope and expectation that he can stem the coming tsunami,
00:12:44.420which is basically simmering beneath the ashes in Iran.
00:12:48.420And it will come, and when it comes, it is going to be far more ferocious, far more widespread than anything that we've seen before.
00:12:56.420And you can see that in lots of videos, video clips that are coming out of Iran now.
00:13:03.420You talked about the MEK and what it does.
00:13:05.420Well, inside Iran, the resistance units that are affiliated with the MEK have been active in virtually every Iranian city calling for the boycott of the elections.
00:13:16.420And there are lots of videos that have come out that people say on camera that my vote is overthrow.
00:13:25.420There was a hashtag this weekend that went viral, became a trend.
00:13:31.420200,000 or more tweets saying boycott the Iran-Sham election.
00:13:37.420And so in this context is a long answer to your question.
00:13:41.420For Khamenei, the number one priority is the domestic scene, is the Iranian street and what he needs to do to prevent another outbreak of an uprising,
00:13:53.420especially since even people within his own ranks, within his repressive forces have defected.
00:14:00.420They are demoralized and you are very fearful of their future.
00:14:04.420And they're thinking that the day of reckoning is coming fast.
00:14:07.420And that is why for him now, his international standing is not at all a priority.
00:14:15.420That boycott movement you speak to, though, I think is significant to observers like myself.
00:14:21.420But in a practical, tangible sense, it reaffirms the status quo because the Ayatollah's preferred candidate is reelected if voter turnout is low.
00:14:31.420Does it make a statement that is significant if voter turnout is low, if the outcome is the Ayatollah's chosen president?
00:14:40.420I think that the boycott will serve several, if you will, send several signals.
00:14:49.420One, and this is I think the most important one, is to the international community that this regime is illegitimate.
00:14:58.420Look, when Bashar al-Assad, they had so-called elections in Syria and Assad won with 95% of the vote,
00:15:09.420American Secretary of State and I think the French and the Germans, they issued a joint statement rejecting that election as illegitimate.
00:15:20.420I think that the boycott of the elections obviously will send a signal that they should do the same vis-a-vis Iran.
00:15:29.420Secondly, it basically removes any justification whatsoever to engage this regime, to interact with this regime,
00:15:41.420and to offer concessions, whether political or economic concessions.
00:15:45.420How can you deal with a regime whose president has had a hand in the killing of tens of thousands of political prisoners?
00:15:56.420How can you justify that? Are you going to shake his bloody hands?
00:16:01.420And so in that sense, I think that the international community has to look at itself in the mirror and see what they want to do and how they want to proceed.
00:16:10.420Because this regime, well, it has never had any legitimacy, but it tried to pose itself as a legitimate one by playing this moderate versus hardliner game.
00:16:21.420But now, that game is over. Remember, in 2017, Iranians in the millions were chanting, hardliner, reformer, the game is not over.
00:16:32.420Obviously, the West chose to ignore that rallying cry. But now, with Raisi becoming president, it's evident to everybody.
00:16:41.420The boycott of the election will send a definitive message to all bodies concerned, all parties concerned,
00:16:48.420that it is time to shift the policy. It is time to stop ignoring and closing eyes to the treacherous conduct of this regime,
00:16:59.420both within Iran and, of course, beyond its borders.
00:17:03.420Thanks very much. And before I let you go, Ali, I should ask you about the big event that the NCRI has coming up in just a few weeks' time.
00:17:11.420From July 10 to 12, there will be a major international gathering. It is called Free Iran World Summit 2021,
00:17:22.420with the theme being the Democratic Alternative on the March to Victory, which will bring together tens of thousands of Iranians and others
00:17:31.420from all over the world with some of the most distinguished dignitaries, lawmakers, dignitaries from Canada, from the U.S., from Europe.
00:17:41.420Basically, for them to echo the call on the international community, that one, they stand with Iranian people in the struggle of freedom,
00:17:49.420and two, that the international community must change its approach to Iran and stop appeasing the murderous regime that rules Iran today.
00:17:58.420Well, I covered that conference last year and look forward to doing it again this year. Ali, thank you very much for your time.
00:18:05.420Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Andrew.
00:18:07.420Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.