Hassan Abbasi is Not a Joke!

Many have taken Hassan Abbasi's recent speech on social media as a joke and laughed at it. However, fewer have asked what relationships he is involved in that allow him to speak with such outlandish theories in the circles of the Revolutionary Guards and Basij. In the latest video released of him, he has set four preconditions for negotiations with the United States and, in the end, called for the United States to convert to Islam. The conditions that the U.S. must accept before negotiating with Iran are as follows: the U.S. must shut down all its 'pornographic film' websites, recognize and enforce hijab, close Wall Street as the center of global usury, stop supporting Israel, and finally, accept to become Muslim. From one perspective, anyone with the slightest knowledge of today's world would likely think that Abbasi's theories are the product of a severely ideological, disorganized, and delusional mind that energizes the gatherings of the Basij and Revolutionary Guards. However, the problem begins when his statements are also echoed by commanders of the Revolutionary Guards and the highest-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic. What Hassan Abbasi says is so bizarre that one must consider that perhaps this way of thinking is being coordinated from somewhere to ensnare the most naive officials of the country who have the least understanding of the workings of the global system. Many conservative officials of the Islamic Republic have become accustomed to the theories of people like Hassan Abbasi and act accordingly. The idea that Israel will not see the next 25 years, or the threat to destroy Israeli cities from the face of the earth (meaning we will bomb them), and that the Islamic Republic has heavenly popularity and is the best model for governing the world, is very close to what Hassan Abbasi usually repeats. It has been widely reported that the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence protection have prisoners accused of spying for Mossad or other countries. All these prisoners have held sensitive security positions protected in very sensitive military or security centers of the Islamic Republic. It is likely that many of them have a stamp on their foreheads to gain access to even more sensitive centers. No institution in Iran has provided a clear explanation of how Mossad calmly transported several classified documents of Iran's nuclear activities from the Shahrabad area of Tehran to Netanyahu's office in Israel. If such an event had occurred in the U.S., several investigative committees would have been formed to trace its roots, and several security officials would have been disgracefully dismissed and reprimanded. However, in a country where Hassan Abbasi is the theorist for its most sensitive military and security centers, such embarrassments are soon forgotten, as they are not pursued or reported by any institution. It is worth recalling that Jonathan Pollard, a former employee of the U.S. Navy Intelligence, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1985 for spying for Israel and spent 30 years in prison, and while no U.S. president was willing to reduce his sentence, Israeli efforts led to Obama agreeing to his release after 30 years in a deal with Israel in 2015. Now, we must ask people like Hassan Abbasi, who prescribe for the whole world in a half-hour speech, whether they know how Mossad was informed that classified nuclear documents were kept in Shahrabad. Regardless, telling big lies and boasting lays the groundwork for such unforgettable historical embarrassments and secures the safety of those who have infiltrated sensitive institutions of the Islamic Republic for such actions. Is Hassan Abbasi really the 'Kissinger of the Islamic Republic'? A simple internet search can provide a general picture of part of public opinion regarding Hassan Abbasi. For example, he is often not taken seriously, and Hassan Abbasi is just his own trumpet. But this is not the whole story, and some call him the 'Kissinger of the Islamic World' for the theories he weaves. When a wealthy country full of resources with millions of educated and energetic young workers suffers two international sanctions disasters in 10 years, logically, the Kissinger of that country should be someone like Hassan Abbasi. Meanwhile, it seems unlikely that any of these Kissinger-like figures in the Republic have the ability to read an English article and summarize it in a paragraph. Nevertheless, what has happened in Iran over the past two decades has unfortunately either originated from the mind of someone like Hassan Abbasi, or the person at the helm of the Islamic Republic must be at his level of knowledge. 1) The Iranian leader's catchphrase of repeating the word 'enemy' and that everything and all problems of the past 40 years have been orchestrated by the enemy, and that all the corrupt West will soon be overthrown and the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic will eventually be proven to all, is a precise repetition of Hassan Abbasi's thoughts. 2) The priority of the hijab issue and the importance of the type of relations between men and women as the most important topic in governing the country is the basis of the thinking of a wide range of Iranian extremists like Hassan Abbasi. To the extent that insisting on hijab has created significant social tensions and driven millions of Iranians out of the country. 3) In a situation where the economic system of the Islamic Republic has the highest instances of embezzlement, bribery, and money laundering compared to other countries, mentioning the Wall Street Journal as evidence of the inefficiency of the U.S. economy can only stem from the thinking of people like Hassan Abbasi. 4) The fact that all of Iran's foreign policy over the past four decades has been focused on efforts to destroy Israel is also part of the simplistic thinking of people like Hassan Abbasi. Meanwhile, all wealthy Arab Muslim countries, including the Saudis, have economic and security relations with Israel, and instead of sending missiles to Hamas and the Palestinians in Gaza, their leaders invite and host them. So far, most Arabs have come to terms with the solution of 'two states and two governments' and consider it a viable solution. In contrast, apart from Israel, the only country that vehemently opposes the 'two states and two governments' solution is the Islamic Republic, whose foreign policy is directed by several Hassan Abassis. Now, if the most important issues in the tumultuous relations between Iran and the U.S. are the hijab, pornographic films, Wall Street, the existence of Israel, and ultimately the conversion of the U.S. to Islam, one can conclude how and through what process Iran's most significant yet disastrous strategic decision to establish nuclear facilities out of the sight of the U.S. and Israel and spy satellites was formed. Especially with the hope that at the end of this process, one or several nuclear bombs could also be built to destroy Israel and, if necessary, threaten the U.S. itself, which is the main supporter of Israel. This is also essentially the complementary plan of the project to turn the White House into a Hosseiniyeh, which supporters of people like Hassan Abbasi usually march for after Friday prayers. The share of the Iranian people from the theorizing of people like Hassan Abbasi and their impact on the intellectual organization of the leadership of the Islamic Republic has been nothing but two rounds of international sanctions. The severity of these sanctions has neither been seen in the history of international relations nor is it unlikely to be repeated against another country. In this arrangement, neither Hassan Abbasi's precondition for negotiations with the U.S. is a joke, nor are the sanctions that return the country's economy to three or four decades ago unrelated to the theories that Hassan Abbasi announces from the podiums of the Revolutionary Guards and Basij. In fact, people like Hassan Abbasi have not understood an important point about the global system: in today's world, being a big loser is as significant as being a big winner.