Karrubi's Letter to the Experts: With This Management Style, the Country Has Returned to the Qajar Era

Mehdi Karrubi, a leader of the Green Movement, in a letter addressed to the members of the Assembly of Experts, urged them to question the Supreme Leader about the policies of the past three decades that have led Iran to its current state, rather than praising him. This letter, published on Sunday morning (September 2) on the Saham News website, criticized the members of the Assembly for their 'praise and admiration' of Ali Khamenei. Karrubi wrote: 'The lack of effective oversight by the Experts over the leadership and the institutions under this authority, including the Guardian Council, the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij, the judiciary, the state media, and economic foundations over the past three decades has inflicted irreparable damage on the country and its people, which I do not aim to elaborate on in this letter. However, I explicitly state that with this management style, the country has returned to the pre-constitutional era, that is, to the Qajar period.' Karrubi called on the members of the Assembly of Experts to fulfill their 'legal and religious' duties by using the tools of 'questioning and oversight' over the leadership to address the 'dire current situation' of the country. He stated that the members should demand explanations from Ali Khamenei regarding the policies of the past three decades that have led the country to this point. This letter was released at a time when Iran's economy has been under severe pressure for months, with the value of the rial plummeting against foreign currencies, especially the dollar, and prices of goods and services sharply increasing. Following the announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and the return of the first round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, along with U.S. pressure to reduce Iran's oil sales to zero due to Tehran's regional policies in the Middle East, concerns about the country's economic situation in the coming months have increased. Karrubi wrote that 'if the Experts are truly Experts, they must question the results of the Supreme Leader's strategic policies over the past three decades that have brought the country to this point.' He added: 'If the Experts are truly Experts, they should provide a comprehensive report on their oversight of the leader and the institutions under his authority, which encompasses all aspects of the country.' In his letter, Karrubi asked the members why they do not question the leadership regarding the involvement of the Revolutionary Guards, Basij, and police in banking, oil sales, etc. He also called for the Assembly to address the 'situation of military and economic institutions under the leadership that play a crucial role in the dire state of the people and the country' and the interference of 'military personnel and Friday prayer leaders' in the country's current affairs. He wrote, 'Why do you not question the interference of the commanders of the Revolutionary Guards in political and economic matters of the country or the determination of diplomatic boundaries that contradict the constitution and the Imam's decree? Why do you not question the directive interventions of some Friday prayer leaders in the country's current affairs?' Karrubi also referred to the house arrest of Zahra Rahnavard, the conviction of Narges Mohammadi, Abdolfattah Soltani, Ghasem Shole Saadi, the protesters of December 2017, the dervishes, journalists, political activists, human rights and environmental activists, students, teachers, workers, and women, urging the members of the Assembly to address these cases and hold Ali Khamenei accountable in this regard. Karrubi wrote: 'If the Experts are truly Experts, they must question the dire state of the judiciary from the leadership, which has made the courts of the infamous Pahlavi regime look good with these political rulings.' He explicitly questioned many of the rulings issued by the judiciary during the presidency of Sadegh Larijani, stating that 'the justice system of the Islamic regime is in a dark day' and 'the people witness the slaughter of justice in the name of preserving power daily.' Karrubi emphasized that he only believes in 'reforms' that 'correct the structure of the system in favor of the people's right to self-determination without a paternalistic view of any individual or group.' He called for the 'updating' of the Islamic Republic's constitution, stating that 'ten years after the revolution, this law was amended and revised, and certainly after 29 years since its last revision, with our current empirical and practical experience, many of its principles must be reformed in favor of governance and oversight by the people so that the monopoly of power in the hands of one individual is permanently set aside in this land, and the people become the true rulers of their destiny, not just in words but in action.' Mehdi Karrubi, along with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard, has been under house arrest without trial since February 2011, and efforts to lift their house arrest have so far been unsuccessful despite promises from Hassan Rouhani's government. He had previously written in an open letter to Ali Khamenei: 'For three decades, you have been at the head of the system and still speak from the position of an opposition. In these three decades, you sidelined a significant part of the original forces of the revolution to implement your desired policies, and today you are facing the results of those same policies.' Following this, Behrouz Namati, a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, announced that this letter caused a 'pause' in the process of house arrest, and Mehdi Karrubi also wrote in another letter that only the death of one of the parties could end this detention.