'Harbinger of death, merchant of religion,' Iran's regime remains unchanged - opinion

Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian has unveiled his cabinet, featuring corrupt and brutal figures from intelligence and military sectors committed to maintaining the status quo. Reformists gambled and lost, inadvertently helping to establish Iran’s increasingly military regime. Pezeshkian’s administration merely continues former president Ebrahim Raisi’s policies.

Iran is fundamentally ruled by a corrupt military and intelligence mafia. The current cabinet, already deemed a failure, is unlikely to change. Resembling military barracks, it includes Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) stakeholders and Iranian Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) thugs, creating an ineffective coalition. 

In Iran, elections are a farce. Vice President Javad Zarif resigned after 11 days in office, cunningly using tactics reminiscent of Goebbels during the Hitler era. He maintained his facade until the end, hiding the behind-the-scenes truth and finally resigning on August 8. This has confirmed to Iranian society that all the promises made by him and Pezeshkian were lies.

Following one from Khomeini, Khamenei has been a detrimental presence in Iran. His regime, characterized by terror, warmongering, and aggression, is a significant barrier to democracy. The people of Iran are held captive by an irrational Shi’ite mullah. 

The mullahs' regime

THE RELIGIOUS fanatics, pretentious in faith and culturally backward, have created their own intelligence and espionage apparatus. MOIS is a key ministry in the Islamic Republic’s cabinet, playing a crucial role in fostering terrorism – and is subject to sanctions from Europe and America. 

The mullahs’ regime, a harbinger of death and a merchant of religion, filled with self-righteous zealots armed with fanaticism and superstition, has become a nightmare for the helpless and hopeless people of Iran and a source of fear for its neighbors. 

To date, seven mullahs have sat on the intelligence throne of MOIS, committing numerous crimes, barbarities, and atrocities. Esmaeil Khatib, the eighth mullah minister of intelligence, rose to power under Raisi, traditionally appointed to issue death fatwas under the Islamic Republic’s distorted religious laws. 

Pezeshkian’s reappointment of Khatib signified a loss of hope, confirming his cabinet as the executor of Iran’s ruin. Khatib’s inclusion dismissed Pezeshkian’s empty promises, signaling to Iranians and the world that Tehran’s oppressive intelligence policies persist, fueling domestic and international terror. With Khatib at MOIS, Iran remains mired in a security crisis.

Khatib, lacking educational and security expertise, was embroiled from 1989-1997 with internal regime terrorism networks during Ali Fallahian’s terrifying tenure at MOIS. He directed intelligence in Qom, clashing with a reformist terrorist faction. 

Later, as head of the judiciary’s intelligence center (2012-2019), Khatib’s tenure, marked by torture and repression, ended when Raisi dismissed him; only for Khamenei to later reinstate him as MOIS minister. Khatib’s radical approach aligned the security apparatuses of the judiciary, the IRGC, and MOIS closely with Khamenei. If Raisi were alive today, he might dismiss Khatib for incompetence and repeated intelligence failures. But Khatib remains in a cabinet claiming to champion change and protect the people’s rights. 

His intellectual and rational capabilities fall far from meeting ministerial standards. Sickly, weak, delusional, and arrogant, Khatib pursues delusions of “exporting the revolt of Khomeini,” viewing the entire Middle East as under the clerics’ command – and considers the Islamic Republic a global superpower, officially recognized by the world. He views the United States as the dominant enemy of Iran.

Influenced by Khamenei’s rhetoric and intellectually submissive, Khatib shares similar catastrophic views, consistently demonizing opponents and glorifying the 1979 clerics’ uprising as “the miracle of the Imam’s sunlight” – mere hogwash!

The sacred caliphate system

WHEN HAMAS attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Khatib compared it to the barbaric Arab invasion of the Achaemenid Empire in Iran during its conquest of Persia (632-654). In Khatib’s delusions, Khamenei is the leader of Muslims worldwide, and the entire world should be held hostage by him. He does not shy away from committing any atrocity to please Khamenei.

In his meaningless speeches, often devoid of logical structure, Khatib always describes himself as a “soldier constantly on the path of velayat (Islamic Jurist or Shiite mullah’s rule) and martyrdom,” always ready to sacrifice his life for victory. He believes in Islamic terrorism, defining it, in accordance with mainstream Islamic Republic literature, as “the path of ideals and jihad and martyrdom.” 

Khatib holds Khomeini and the religiously extremist structure in Iran in high regard, viewing the 1979 Islamic caliphate system as sacred. From his biased perspective, the world deviates, engaging in psychological warfare and media campaigns against Khamenei’s dictatorship. This deceitful and unethical mullah, Khatib, has been a nightmare for Iran’s political and cultural figures. A proponent of terrorism, repression, and censorship, he was active in introducing Internet filtering and tightly controls the production of books, films, and music in Raisi’s cabinet. 

Indifferent to Iran’s national interests, Khatib and Khamenei focus on eliminating perceived threats and fostering regional chaos. Intelligence agencies worldwide anticipate a resurgence of terrorism under his watch. Deluded, Khatib sees himself as an intellectual – oblivious to Iran’s borders and real threats – and advocates for cultural aggression, showing a profound lack of awareness.

From his perspective, terrorist organizations such as Quds Force and the IRGC are “sacred” and “the honor of the religion of Islam and the ornament” of the regime. 

He knows no path other than terrorism and, in his misbeliefs, seeks to ensure that the face of the clerical regime and the system’s authority is not tarnished. 

A deeply staunch opponent of the United States and Israel, Khatib has orchestrated several cyber operations in the US. Of major concern for the US intelligence community are the MOIS-linked terrorist sleeper cells on American soil, with Khatib implicated in assassination plots against Trump and his close associates. 

This week, he announced, “The MOIS’s top priority is to fight against Israel.” He harbors illusions of completely dismantling the CIA and Mossad networks. CIA and Mossad officials assert that his claims are entirely fabricated. 

Khatib perceives that global intelligence agencies do nothing but plot against the mullahs’ outlaw regime, accusing them of sedition. He frequently invokes the CIA and the Mossad in his ignorant sermons.

During the anti-regime nationwide protests in 2021, Khatib deceptively reported that these were foreign-instigated. He did not shy away from committing atrocities against unarmed protesters. He imprisoned female journalists reporting the incident as spies, falsely suggesting that Mahsa Amini’s death was a foreign-orchestrated plot. 

Khatib shares Khamenei’s fear of popular uprisings, attributing all public dissent to the CIA and the Mossad and threatening Europe with terrorist acts. Neither the CIA nor the Mossad engaged in the killings, torture, blinding, or sexual assaults reported in Iran – these are the actions of a regime led by individuals such as Khatib and Khamenei, who exhibit psychopathic and extremist tendencies.  

Khatib staunchly supports brutal oppression, mercilessly crushing movements involving laborers, teachers, students, women, and intellectuals. From his viewpoint, any dissent against Khomeini’s and Khamenei’s regime justifies violent suppression. 

Marked by a history of vindictive and accusatory behavior, he appears to be a harsh ahe true needs and voices of the Iranians, he remains pivotal to the regime’s harsh crackdowns.

However, in the real world, the face of the religious octopus in Iran has cracked and could collapse at any moment. 

The intelligence community of the Islamic Republic is bankrupt, corrupt, inefficient, and penetrable.

The writer is a counterterrorism analyst and Middle East studies researcher based in Washington. He focuses particularly on Iran and ethnic conflicts in the region. His latest book, The Black Shabbat, was published in the US. You can follow him at erfanfard.com and on X @EQFARD.