The Dark and Light of Rouhani's Responses

The newspaper Shargh, in the headline of its Wednesday issue, discussed Hassan Rouhani's televised interview under the title "The Dark and Light of Rouhani's Responses" and "What He Did Not Say and Should Have Said." Quoting Abdullah Naseri, a reformist political activist, it stated: "The President could not address the serious concerns of the people in his live interview. This was his first appearance on television after the recent unrest; perhaps if I were in his place, I would have tried to analyze the roots of the recent protests, which were recognized by everyone to some extent, as the entry point of my discussion. Although this acceptance had its shortcomings, it was the best entry point for the discussion. Many of the issues that people were following could have been raised this way." Abdullah Naseri also mentioned that another topic that could have been addressed in Rouhani's televised interview was "the recent position of the Minister of Defense, who stated that the armed forces should withdraw from economic activities; this is very good news for society. Mr. Rouhani should have spoken about these matters. If this news is serious, discussing its dimensions by the President, whose cabinet minister announced it, would have been very impactful. On the other hand, the dimensions of the recent protests should have been mentioned. These protests were not only related to economic issues but also demanded political, social, and cultural changes; however, this was overlooked in the Monday night interview." The Shargh newspaper also quoted Gholamreza Zarifian as saying: "The exchange rate, the problems of earthquake-affected areas, and economic issues were among the people's problems that should have been addressed, but what is important here is that the President should speak more clearly and directly with the people," including stating that "an incident occurred in the country, and part of society had protests that, if we do not consider the radical and inappropriate part, responding to this is part of the community's needs and public opinion." Hossein Ansari Rad also told Shargh: "Mr. Rouhani could have used a group of social and economic scientists to explain the country's situation transparently to the people and leave no ambiguity. The country has deep-rooted problems; there are crippling discriminations, and the parliament and government are formed within these discriminations." According to Shargh, Mohsen Ghorviyan also stated: "It should have been clarified whether the recent unrest had internal or external origins and whether regional countries were involved. Who initiated these unrests, from which city did they start, and then fell into the hands of other currents? We and the people expect Mr. Rouhani to explain and elaborate on this." The newspaper Khorasan also noted that "the televised interview of the President on Monday night, hosted by Reza Rashidpour, faced different reactions from various political figures." Some of these figures found the interview acceptable, while others assessed it as a repetition of the President's past positions and unacceptable. This newspaper reported that Sadegh Zibakalam, a supporter of the government, considered Rouhani's remarks on Monday night to have a negative impact on his votes, stating: "I wish Mr. Rouhani would realize that every time he speaks to the people, he loses another part of his 24 million votes. I wish he could understand that when he avoids addressing serious and real issues of society and instead engages in artificial, hollow, and superficial questions and answers, he is, in fact, insulting the people's intelligence." According to Khorasan, Ezzatollah Zarghami, the former head of state television, also stated that "the repetitive, clichéd, and non-different statements of the President caused all judgments to shift towards the host, which is not good." This newspaper also mentioned that Rouhani used "an old and primitive anti-interview trick" in this televised interview, which "actually worked well, and that is the lengthy and detailed explanation of the question instead of answering it, resulting in a short and sometimes diplomatic response to the questions." Khorasan also noted that "this method is one of the techniques taught to some officials under the title 'anti-interview techniques' or learned experientially, helping the interviewee to waste time and face fewer questions while preventing the interviewer from creating challenges." Kayhan emphasized in its front page on "the absence of employment, recession, and inflation in Rouhani's televised interview," stating: "Understanding the priorities of today's society and its widespread concerns is not that difficult, as issues such as employment, recession, inflation, and housing can be identified as their main concerns in conversations with the people; however, these issues were either not raised in the President's interview or not addressed as they should have been." The newspaper Bahar dedicated its front page to Hassan Rouhani, emphasizing that his televised interview was described as a conversation that "satisfied 5 percent." This newspaper cited online polls to provide such a figure, stating: "Hossam al-Din Ashna, the President's advisor, conducted a poll during this conversation on Twitter asking people about their satisfaction with Rouhani's responses. The poll results were surprisingly shocking. Only 5 percent of the people were satisfied with these remarks. 19 percent rated it as average, and 76 percent of the participants assessed this interview as very weak." Bahar noted that "a similar poll was also conducted on the Twitter account of the reformist site Jamaran, which yielded almost identical results," stating that this incident "shows that people were dissatisfied with the lack of discussion on certain topics and also with the focus on some not-so-important issues, and the President's remarks did not have the necessary impact on various levels of society." The newspaper Iran, close to the government, in its front page stated "three roots of the unrest" according to Hossein Zolfaqari, "the Secretary of the National Security Council," including "the activities of foreign enemies, the decline of public trust, and the accumulation of unmet expectations of the people due to mismanagement of public opinion as the main factors of the unrest." The newspaper Etemad, in its front page titled "Rouhani's Alternative," wrote: "The smoke of the fire of 'passing Rouhani' is affecting everyone, regardless of reformist or principlist. Therefore, it is expected that political activists from both sides consider possible scenarios before fanning this fire, and more optimistic analysts believe that passing Rouhani will resemble the political atmosphere of 2005 and pave the way for the emergence of a populist president." This newspaper simultaneously wrote that "the return of populists and the steering of the country by hardliners who previously failed to attract public votes is the glass half full, and passing Rouhani" could also have another consequence because "the people's despair from Rouhani's moderate government and his reformist supporters does not necessarily lead to a boycott of the ballot box and a repeat of the experiences of the seventh, eighth, and ninth parliamentary elections, as some principlists wish. Some political analysts believe that passing Rouhani leads to a destination other than passing the Islamic Republic." Etemad emphasized that "the speed of change in the recent protests also proved this" and "the subversive slogans and some strange and regrettable actions serve as a warning bell that must be taken seriously. This bell has been heard by many rational principlists and reformists. All the emphasis on the necessity of national cohesion and prioritizing national interests over factional interests was due to hearing this warning bell." Saeed Hajarian, a figure close to the reformist faction, also wrote in a note titled "After Rouhani" in this newspaper: "In a brief overview and relying on existing data, the roots of the events of this December can be sought in two areas: 'politics' and 'livelihood.' In these protests, several slogans were heard; some raised their economic and livelihood concerns, some addressed the reformists, others called for Rouhani's dismissal, and some questioned the entire ruling system, and finally, some talked about the return of monarchy." The note pointed out that "the eleventh government inherited a burned land and a collection of accumulated debts from the previous government," and now, with "the country's water scarcity, air pollution, urban marginalization, pension funds, financial institutions that may spread their plague to banks, and unemployment," Hassan Rouhani, while "being targeted by rival attacks, must stay in the presidential office for another three years; three years that will be marked by continuous protests, protests that recede like ocean waves and return with greater intensity." In part of this note, it is mentioned that those who "from the beginning of Rouhani's government pumped despair and hopelessness from their pulpits and through state media and Friday prayers and wanted to show Rouhani as incompetent, issued the command 'no to Rouhani' and shouted 'death to Rouhani'" but did not say "after Rouhani, to what individual or entity do they reach? The answer is clear; passing Rouhani means passing the government and reaching the authority and the essence of the system, and ultimately passing the Islamic Republic." Saeed Hajarian pointed out that Lenin spoke about the fall of governments under conditions where "the lower classes do not want and the upper classes cannot," meaning when both legitimacy and hegemony crises arise simultaneously. He wrote that during the protests in cities in "2017, the lower classes (at least some of them) passed the government, but the upper classes, despite the extent of the work and the strength of military force in the counties, did not intervene with all their might; this time the upper classes (with hesitation) did not want, and there was no alternative available." The note writer of Etemad also wrote that "the outcome of the recent protests was the suspension of the slogan 'passing Rouhani' among the right-wing faction, as they instinctively concluded that there is no alternative to Rouhani and they must preserve him by any means because they realized they are facing a multi-variable equation. The right-wing faction witnessed that in dealing with these protests, four main operations were employed; some were gathered (arrested), some were hit (beaten), some were divided (causing division), and others were separated (distinguishing between legitimate economic protesters and illegitimate political ones), but the foundation of the protests remained intact." The newspaper Javan, close to the Revolutionary Guards, referred to dual-nationality managers in Iran as "traitors" and called for action against them. Abdullah Ganjii, in the editorial of this newspaper, wrote: "The names of 100 dual-nationality managers in the country were read in the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission meeting last Sunday. It was also mentioned that a person who recently fled abroad after embezzling 100 billion tomans from the Ministry of Oil is dual-national or has dual citizenship." This newspaper noted that "the reason Mahmoud Khavari escaped easily was that he had dual nationality" and wrote that "dual nationality today is the same as 'protection' during the Qajar era" and "back then, thieves politicized the issue after stealing and used dual nationality to stay safe, and now they do the same." The editorial writer of Javan newspaper wrote: "Aside from legal discussions, is it not a disgrace for the Islamic Republic system that its managers have their hearts set on the same place that has long deprived the system and the nation of their various rights in the worst way? What guarantee is there for the survival of a system that relies on managers whose saddled horses are potentially ready to leap towards the West? Dual-national thieves inflict the most damage on the reputation of the system; that is, both the manager is a thief, and he can escape prosecution, and he can laugh at the system and go to a place we call the enemy's land." The editorial writer reminded that "it is not only dual nationals who see the ground beneath the system shaking and secure their own footing, but there are also officials of the Islamic Republic whose children are sent to the West for education to experience the cultural image of the West from its original version and distance themselves from the culture for which their fathers are paid to promote." Therefore, "officials whose children have gone to the West and study in fields that exist in Iran are traitors, and their beliefs and perceptions of the Islamic Republic system should be sought among these views." This newspaper close to the Revolutionary Guards emphasized that "the parliament, the Supreme National Security Council, and the revolutionary forces should not easily let go of these two issues, dual-nationality managers and the education of managers' children in the West," promising that "as soon as information about dual-nationality managers in the country is received, their images will be published on our front page, and this disgrace will not be tolerated against dear Iran and the oppressed and independent nation of Iran."