February 13, 2025

Six reasons why Iran won't change

Nothing can change. It is in the nature of the mullahs' regime, if it stays untouched, to wreak havoc in the region.

By Ali Sarraf
The Arab Weekly 
June 2, 2019

https://thearabweekly.com/six-reasons-why-iran-wont-change


The United States’ strutting and cowboy diplomacy has been toned down to, not just a notch less than war, but even to less than regime change in Iran. So, it is right to ask, considering such a new “equation,” about what can change in Iran when the regime does not change.

Nothing can change. It is in the nature of the mullahs’ regime, if it stays untouched, to wreak havoc in the region.

Iran is a state of militias and gangs. It expands its foreign influence and interests by establishing and sponsoring militias and gangs in neighbouring and far-away countries. This is more than clear anywhere Tehran has influence and a role.

Second, Iran is a sectarian state. Its dogma is the spearhead of sectarian strife and conflict in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. It is a dogma that relies on accusing other sects of heresy and criminalising them.

The details of this dogma reveal a brutal nature that is no different from the Islamic State’s brutality and savagery. The Islamic State was the result of a long series of atrocities committed against millions of people in Iraq and Syria for purely sectarian reasons. This is why it duplicated those atrocities.

Third, Iran is a corrupt state. Corruption is the nature of the system in Tehran. Militias acting as a state above the state think that they have the right not to be accountable to the law. Billions of dollars are moving outside the official and formal channels. They are part of a system that knows no regulations, a system that depends on connections and relations of a secret nature and on people acting as a mafia.

Just as no one knows the budgets allocated to the militias, no one knows what they are doing with the funds because they are above accountability. When one organ of the regime commits a crime, it is impossible to know who did what or who gave the order. That’s how the mafia functions.

Fourth, Iran is terrorising the region by appearing to be the one that controls terrorism in the region. When the rumble between Washington and Tehran rose, terrorist fingers moved to fire a missile into Baghdad’s Green Zone, sabotage four ships off the Port of Fujairah and burn oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia. These were messages that terrorism is part of the “jobs” that Tehran does.

Fifth, Iran does not practice terrorism against governments or individuals but against entire social entities, threatening them with destruction. Based on a doctrine that destruction of the society is part of the prospect for the emergence of the “Awaited Mahdi” and that spreading grievances and crimes will hasten this emergence, any place that Tehran’s hands touch will become another rotten Iraq.

Sixth, Iran is a state of hatred and grudges, nourished by the worst historical criminal legacy. In 1624, Shah Abbas massacred three-quarters of Baghdad’s population and made its people eat dog cadavers to force them to convert to Shiism. In 1743, Mosul experienced the atrocities of what became known as the “siege by Nader Shah.”  In 1775, Basra experienced Karim Khan’s siege, which lasted 13 months, wiping out most of the city’s population.

At the same time, Iran does not mind talking but only on the basis of accepting those doctrines, not just because they are part of its nature but because that’s how it sees itself: arrogant and intractable. The mullahs’ regime has proven that today’s Iran is the extension of a 500-year brutal legacy. It can’t do otherwise.

Washington negotiated with Tehran until they reached the fateful nuclear agreement and, now, US President Donald Trump has given the bottom line: He doesn’t want to change the regime in Iran. What a storm in a teacup!

October 10, 2024

Recent examples of Iran's use of criminals against opponents abroad

Iran ordered armed attacks on Israeli embassies in Sweden and Denmark
By Mehran Abbasian
Iran International
October 4, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202410041497

Director General Ken McCallum gives latest threat update
Security Service MI5
October 8, 2024
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/director-general-ken-mccallum-gives-latest-threat-update

Tehran's plot to murder a US protected witness
How Iran’s terror web and Canadian hitmen abandoned their plan after a communication disruption
By Shahed Alavi
Iran International
https://content.iranintl.com/tehrans-plot-to-murder-a-us-protected-witness/index.html?_gl=1*1lfvpsj*_ga*OTU1ODEwMDYuMTcxOTM5MTAyOQ..

Iran turns to criminal syndicates like Hells Angels to silence critics globally
Iran International
September 12, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202409124230

Iran turns to Hells Angels and other criminal gangs to target critics
Iran has cultivated ties with criminal networks in the West to carry out a recent wave of violent plots in the United States and Europe.
By Greg Miller, Souad Mekhennet and Cate Brown
The Washington Post
September 12, 2024
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/09/12/iran-criminal-gangs-target-dissidents/

Paris court charges couple in Iranian plot to kill jews and Israelis
Iran International
September 8, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202409081657

Iran-backed terror plots thwarted in Europe, Israeli firms targeted
Iran International
September 5, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202409056555

Iranian Dissident Escapes Assassination Attempt in Netherlands
Iran International
June 26, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202406261693

Iran 'Reshaping Murder-for-Hire Markets' in West
Iran International
May 16, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202405162520

Gangs of Tehran: how Iran takes out its enemies abroad
By Rohit Kachroo
The Spectator
May 18, 2024
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/gangs-of-tehran-how-iran-takes-out-its-enemies-abroad/

Stockholm says Iran using Swedish gangs to target Israel, others
Al Arabiya
AFP
May 30, 2024
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2024/05/30/stockholm-says-iran-using-swedish-gangs-to-target-israel-others

Iran Using Criminals in Sweden to Target Israeli, Jewish Interests
By Negar Mojtahedi
Iran International
May 31, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202405309211

Gangsters Beyond Borders Join Iran's Malign Network
By Shahram Kholdi
Iran International
June 2, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202406015756

Iran Uses 'Gangs' To Harm Journalists Abroad - Report
Iran International
April 8, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202404085005

Stabbings, kidnaps and terror campaigns: How Iran's mad mullahs are ordering gangland hits on the streets of Britain... and no one knows how to stop them
By Guy Adams
Daily Mail
April 5, 2024
https://archive.md/ZIShX#selection-1095.0-1095.153

Double-Agent Reveals IRGC Plot To Kill Iran International TV Anchors
Iran International
December 21, 2023
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202312219498

US, UK Sanction Iran Over Plot to Kill Iran International Journalists
Iran international
January 29, 2024
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202401293510

Plot Against Synagogue: German Court Ruling Implicates Tehran
Iran Wire
December 20, 2023
https://iranwire.com/en/news/123709-plot-against-synagogue-german-court-ruling-implicates-tehran/

Criminal Kingpin Leads Drugs Trade Thanks To IRGC
Iran International
May 17, 2023
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202305171838

Iran hiring crime gangs to assassinate dissidents in UK, West, officials say: Report
Officials believe that Iran is hiring criminal gangs to kill dissidents abroad.
By Tala Michel Issa
Al Arabiya
February 5, 2023
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/02/05/Iran-hiring-crime-gangs-to-assassinate-dissidents-in-UK-West-officials-say-Report

US Congress Reportedly Passes HUNT Act Against Islamic Republic
Iran International
December 25, 2022
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202212255819

White House Says Man With AK-47 Who Stalked Dissident Journalist in Brooklyn Was Agent for Iranian Government
By Josh Dickey
The Wrap
August 4, 2022
https://www.thewrap.com/iranian-journalist-masih-aliejad-ak-47-stalk-agent-iran/amp/

FBI arrests man with a military-style rifle near the home of a high-profile Iranian dissident journalist
By Jonathan Dienst, Myles Miller and Ken Dilanian
NBC News
August 1, 2022
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna40882

A man with a loaded AK-47 was arrested outside an Iranian journalist's Brooklyn home
By Josh Campbell
CNN 
July 31, 2022
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/07/31/us/iranian-journalist-masih-alinejad-man-arrested-ak-47/index.html

October 05, 2024

Iran ordered armed attacks on Israeli embassies in Sweden and Denmark

By Mehran Abbasian
Iran International
October 4, 2024

Director General Ken McCallum gives latest threat update

Extract

Since the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022 we’ve seen plot after plot here in the UK, at an unprecedented pace and scale.

Since January 2022, with police partners, we have responded to twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents.

As events unfold in the Middle East, we will give our fullest attention to the risk of an increase in – or a broadening of – Iranian state aggression in the UK.

Like the Russian services, Iranian state actors make extensive use of criminals as proxies – from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks. Last December a man was jailed for reconnaissance he had carried out against the then-headquarters of the Iran International media organisation.

Detecting criminals prepared to have their strings pulled by states has at least some similarities to spotting would-be terrorists dancing to the tune of online radicalisers. It is a familiar challenge. We’ll keep finding them.

So to those tempted to carry out such tasks, I say this: If you take money from Iran, Russia or any other state to carry out illegal acts in the UK, you will bring the full weight of the national security apparatus down on you. It’s a choice you’ll regret.

IRGC general charged in plot to kill exiled activist in US

Iran International
October 22, 2024