As the Israeli war on Gaza rages, the country’s air force struck the embassy of the “Islamic Republic” of Iran in Damascus, killing 16 including Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Quds Force (a unit of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Lebanon and Syria). After losing key IRGC figures like Qassem Soleimani in 2020 by the United States, and Razi Mousavi last year and Sadegh Omidzadeh last January both in Syria by Israel, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed retaliation against Israel, and so the regime launched a volley of rockets and drones towards the Israel-Palestine region, crossing Iraqi, Syrian and Jordanian airspaces.

Many critics of Israel are quick to commend the resolve of the Velayat-e Faqih regime, but what only mattered to them is the defeat of what they call the “Zionist Entity”, regardless of who attacks.

In the case of the clerical regime, whose defence of Palestine has been a policy since the system’s establishment, the authorities’ popularity has badly dwindled since 2017 (read more). Petroleum prices brutally increased in 2019, a Ukrainian civilian jet filled with Iranian and Canadian passengers among others was shot down in retaliation to Soleimani’s death, and repressive laws from anti-animal to anti-woman decrees that resulted to deaths like those of Mahsa Amini and Armita Geravand led to renewed demonstrations in 2022 (read more). The results were less-than-the-majority turnouts during “elections” in 2021 and last March 2024.

The protesters’ chants include two that relate to the foreign interference of the mullahs’ regime through the IRGC: “cannon, tank or firecracker, mullahs must get lost” and “neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran“, as well as “leave Syria, think about us” and “our enemy is here; they lie when they say it’s America“. These mean the Iranian masses are fed up with the regime’s regional interference that tries to assert its influence and own imperialism in the Middle East as well as outside. The “Islamic Republic”‘s response is to treat them like they “wage war against God” and “spread corruption on Earth”, two offences which penalty is capital punishment. As Israel is relentless in the Gaza offensive and leaves Israeli settlers harass Palestinians, the Iranian regime is doing the same kind of oppression against the populace.

Do the missile and drone strikes against Israel bring justice for the Palestinians? Even the authorities in the West Bank reject the mullahs’ “help”: Fatah accused the Iranian regime of sowing discord in the region and having its “sacred cause” desecrated; a member of its Revolutionary Council, Mohammed al-Hourani, further echoed this sentiment in an interview by al-Arabiya last week.

Iran is facing multiple crises inside, including unemployment, inflation, droughts, scarcity of goods, and rampant corruption. Striking workers are given blows by security forces and are led to prisons. The Velayat-e Faqih regime should have not joined but have bowed down to popular will and just cease from existing. Maybe a new system in Iran would be more convincing in mobilising Arab neighbours for Palestine, although I will condemn a renewed Israeli-Arab war just as I condemn the killings of Palestinians.

Article posted on 14 April 2024, 15:49 (UTC +08:00).