Note: Ahmadinejad as an 'Opposition' to the Islamic Republic?!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, along with Rahim Mashaei, went to court on February 14, 2018, to attend the trial of Baqai, but they were not allowed into the session. Ahmadinejad expressed his protest outside the courthouse, stating that the revolution was meant to uphold the rights of the people, justice, and freedom, not for a few to gain absolute power and humiliate the people. Instead, the judiciary reacts severely to the slightest protest, arresting individuals and later returning their bodies to their families as suicides. There is no oversight on the judiciary, and people do not trust their claims due to a lack of accountability. One must complain about the judiciary itself, which is neither trustworthy nor effective. The leadership claims they are not responsible for the judiciary's actions. He then prophetically promised that "this situation will soon change for the benefit of the nation... for now, [power] is in your hands. But by God's grace and the efforts of the people, the country's situation will fundamentally change for the benefit of the nation and the ideals of the revolution." Concurrently, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei wrote in a note, "The judiciary is now accused of murder unless proven otherwise. Even if the cause of death is assumed to be suicide, the judiciary is still responsible!... What have the agents under the judiciary's authority done to the detainees that they felt compelled to commit suicide to escape the pressures?!" He added that the judiciary is responsible for serial deaths, including Kavous Seyed-Emami and several young people, and the public absolutely does not accept that the accused committed suicide due to understanding their crimes. An independent non-governmental body must immediately investigate this issue and report to the people, and traitors must be tried. Until then, the judiciary and its agents, including the IRGC, have no right to arrest anyone. This is the overwhelming opinion of the Iranian people, and if the regime does not act accordingly, "it will incur heavy losses to itself, the country, and the people." Ahmadinejad and Mashaei's criticisms of the Islamic Republic are valid. However, several issues are worth considering in this regard: First - Ahmadinejad's Freedom: The Islamic Republic has imprisoned many individuals for the slightest criticism for years. Why does it not confront Ahmadinejad and Mashaei? Several possibilities can be imagined: a) The detained individuals were not the President and Vice President for eight years, meaning they did not hold responsibilities of their level in the system. This claim has many contradictions. Once, the pride of all regime leaders was that they were students of Ayatollah Montazeri. By Ayatollah Khamenei's order, he was imprisoned in his home for five years. Now, it has been seven years since the leaders of the Green Movement have been under house arrest. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi held significant responsibilities in the system, with Mousavi actually being Ayatollah Khomeini's Prime Minister, not Ayatollah Khamenei. b) Arresting Ahmadinejad, given his social base, would be costly for the regime. This claim is also false. Firstly, Ahmadinejad claimed in 2011 that the number of votes in the fraudulent June 2009 elections increased from 24 million to 35 million. For this reason, he went on a hunger strike for 11 days to bring his social base to the streets. However, nothing happened. His social base was among Ayatollah Khamenei's supporters, not reformists, moderates, or regime opponents. Not a single person came to the streets for him. Secondly, in the presidential election of May 19, 2017, he ran against Ayatollah Khamenei's orders. The Guardian Council disqualified him just as it had disqualified Hashemi Rafsanjani and Rahim Mashaei in the 2013 presidential election. Yet again, there was no sign of his social base. If it were up to Sadegh Larijani and other judiciary officials, they would have imprisoned him many times by now. If he has not been imprisoned, Ayatollah Khamenei is preventing it. The important question is: What is Ayatollah Khamenei's plan and strategy? Why has he allowed Ahmadinejad such freedom? Mohseni Ejei has stated that there is a benefit in this. What is that benefit? Second - Ahmadinejad's Performance: The total oil revenue during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's eight years in office was about $639 billion, and the total non-oil exports during the same period were $156 billion. The sum of these two is $795 billion. The average annual economic growth during his presidency was 3.2 percent. Corruption became rampant and institutionalized. Ahmadinejad openly rejected economic science. Ayatollah Khamenei considered Ahmadinejad's cultural, economic, social, domestic, and foreign policy views to be the closest to his own among all regime officials. He was pleased that with Ahmadinejad's arrival, the train of the revolution, which had gone off the rails, was back on track. The dual governance - appointed and elected - turned into a single governance. Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, the then-deputy of the IRGC, explicitly stated that they organized and planned multilayered strategies to elect their "valued and revolutionary brother Ahmadinejad" as president in 2005. The story of the influential fraud in the 2009 presidential election does not need repetition. The UN Security Council sanctions and unilateral sanctions from the US and Europe were part of the joint achievements of Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which led the country to a negative economic growth of 6.8 and inflation of 35 percent. Calling the Green Movement "debris" was one of his memorable statements. He referred to UN resolutions as "pieces of paper" and said to issue as many resolutions as you want until your resolution holder is filled. "Pour water where it burns" - this was just his foreign policy language. Third - Jinn and Imam Zaman: Although he and his associates previously considered themselves endorsed by "Imam Zaman" and claimed to be in contact with "jinn," it was after attending the UN General Assembly that he reported to Ayatollah Javadi Amoli about the "heavenly and Imam Zaman" atmosphere during his speech. After that, the clerics saw that he spoke of Imam Zaman far more than any of them. Standing against Ayatollah Khamenei since 2011 was based on this mysterious policy. That is, Mashaei, after his Imam Zaman trances - and friends related to jinn - had informed Ahmadinejad that Ayatollah Khamenei would not live more than a year longer, and they needed to clarify the direction of the future from now on. However, the clerics' connection with Imam Zaman and jinn dates back to the history of the clergy. Ayatollah Khamenei, who is not only the "deputy of Imam Zaman" but has also "met" Imam Zaman (refer to the report by Kazem Sediqi, the Friday prayer leader of Tehran. Interestingly, he made this claim in the presence of Ayatollah Khamenei and thousands of others, after which the crowd rushed toward Khamenei to be blessed, and the guards of the Islamic Republic leader saved and fled). The promises of jinn and Imam Zaman have not been criticized, and not only is Ayatollah Khamenei still alive, but Ahmadinejad has been forced to search for social support among critics and opponents of the Islamic Republic. Ahmadinejad's promises regarding fundamental political changes and the fall of the Islamic Republic are jinn-influenced and Imam Zaman's promises. Political analysis and explanation are entirely grounded and based on stating the causes and reasons for the claims. If someone claims that the Islamic Republic is on the verge of collapse or that fundamental political changes are occurring, they must explain this scientifically. It is entirely possible that the Islamic Republic may fall or that fundamental changes are ahead. However, these claims must be supported by concrete evidence, not promises stemming from connections with mysterious beings. We - in Max Weber's terms - live in a disenchanted world where empirical science has constructed for us. Scientific discourse has made the world somewhat measurable, with material variables and predictable outcomes. Weber states that anyone who does not like this world can return to the monasteries, where they will be welcomed. The world of politics is not a place for mysterious beings like jinn and fairies and Imam Zaman. Even if such beings exist, they cannot be caught in the net of science, and empirical science remains silent regarding their roles in the world. Fourth - Ahmadinejad's Opposition Transformation: The path to change is open to all humans. In fact, the massive global transformations have changed and will continue to change everyone. It was not in vain that Marx considered the characteristic of the modern era to be that "everything solid melts into air." Furthermore, being in power or lacking power is also an important variable that transforms an individual's perspective on the world and humanity. Ahmadinejad and his companions, if they wish to become opponents of the Islamic Republic and the rule of the jurist, have an open path. No one can close the path of transformation to them. However, the whole issue is what kind of "opponents" Ahmadinejad's followers are? Any form of opposition to the Islamic Republic is not necessarily justified. The discourse of the 40s and 50s of Iran's religious and non-religious forces was undemocratic. The religious forces had also followed the dominance of the third-world Bolshevik ideology. They considered democracy, freedom, and human rights as bourgeois commodities. Although they opposed the Shah's dictatorship and fought against it, their ideal was not a democratic system. From Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Enver Hoxha, Castro, etc., a democratic system committed to freedom and human rights did not emerge. The so-called "progressive" religious forces also followed this same discourse. Traditional religious figures also followed Ayatollah Khomeini's rule of the jurist. Although Khomeini spoke of democracy, absolute freedom, women's freedom, Western human rights, and a "republic like the French Republic" in "the midst of the Paris veil" and promised them. Ahmadinejad's Imam Zaman and jinn-influenced discourse lacks democracy, human rights, freedom, equality, discrimination removal, pluralism, etc. If an Imam Zaman exists, it is in conflict with democracy. Because democracy is not only about the election of political leaders by the people but also about their removal by the people. However, the infallible Imam is neither elected by the people nor can the people dismiss the infallible Imam. Thus, even if Ahmadinejad's followers have become serious opponents of Ayatollah Khamenei and the Islamic Republic, they do so from a non-democratic and human rights perspective - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - not from a freedom-seeking and pluralistic standpoint. In his letter on November 13, 2017, to Ayatollah Khamenei, he reminded his belief and practical commitment to the Islamic Republic and warned of the dangers of conspiracies designed by enemies to destroy the Islamic Republic, concluding with: "I pray to the Almighty for the dignity and pride of the great Iranian nation and your Excellency and for a dignified passage through the obstacles ahead under the special care of the Master of the Age (may God hasten his reappearance)." In court, he began his speech with a prayer that does not exist in Shia texts: "O God, hasten the reappearance of your guardian and grant him victory and make us among his best supporters and helpers and those who are martyred before him." Even if the prayers for the reappearance and understanding of Imam Zaman are valid, these two prayers are not the one he recited: "And hasten the reappearance of your guardian and grant him victory and make me among his supporters and helpers and those who defend him and hasten to fulfill his needs and those who are martyred before him." Can a picture of Imam Zaman be drawn in the minds of Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei, and other clerics?