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Key point:Pahlavis vision is one of nonviolent resistance to Irans clerical regime.

Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has turned up the heat on Tehran. Way up. As part of a maximum pressure campaign aimed at curbing the malign international activities of Irans ruling regime, the White House has dramatically intensified sanctions, blacklisted the countrys clerical army, and put foreign buyers of Iranian crude on notice that they need to pull out of the Iranian market or face potentially catastrophic consequences.

But to what end? President Donald Trump has said repeatedly that he would be willing to negotiate a new framework agreement with Irans ayatollahs to replace the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and do so without preconditions. That may indeed happen, if Irans ayatollahs agree to come back to the diplomatic table. But the massive economic and political pressure now being placed on Iran by the United States could lead to another outcome as well: a collapse of the current Iranian regime. That raises a key question for policymakers: if the United States does indeed succeed in causing a fundamental transformation in Iran, then what should come next?

In this conversation, one personality looms exceedingly large. That individual is Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince of Iran, who is now the most prominent leader of the secular democratic opposition to the Islamic Republic. Pahlavi was just a couple of years away from inheriting the throne in Tehran when his family was ousted from power by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinis Islamic Revolution in 1979. In the half-century since, the crown prince has used his perch in exile (first in Morocco and more recently in the Washington, DC suburbs) to publicly oppose Irans clerical elite and articulate a different path forward for his homeland.

Today, Pahlavi remains relevant and highly influential in many Iranian expatriate circles, as well as on the Iranian street, which is where pro-Pahlavi slogans have figured prominently in the protests that have taken place throughout the country since late 2017. But he is less relevant among U.S. policymakers and experts, whothough they undoubtedly know his namegenerally have little familiarity with his vision.

Pahlavi and his supporters are seeking to change that. Of late, as Americas contentious relationship with Iran has once again begun to make headlines, they have redoubled their efforts to engage in earnest with the Washington Beltway. In meetings with various think tanks and assorted policy groups, the crown prince has laid out in detail his ideas about the future of Iran and its place in the world.

Pahlavi believes that the United States faces a binary choice in its Iran policy. The United States can either pursue the status quothe best variant of which envisions achieving some measure of behavioral change from Irans current leadershipor it can throw its weight unequivocally behind the need for a new regime in Tehran. The path that Washington chooses will have a profound impact on a range of issues, from the nuclear file to bilateral relations to Irans position in (and disposition toward) the Middle East, Pahlavi argues.

Here, the desires and aspirations of Irans population matter a great deal. According to Pahlavi, those have changed significantly in the decade since the Green Revolution of 2009. Back then, there remained some semblance of loyal opposition which sought reform of the Islamic Republic rather than its total dismantlement. (Both of the titular leaders of the Green protests, Mehdi Kharroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, belonged to this camp, despite their revolutionary credentials.) Today, by contrast, Iranians are overwhelmingly united in their desire for a fundamental change in government, as ongoing protests against the Iranian regime make abundantly clear.

But, Pahlavi laments, America is basically alone in its fight against the Iranian regime. Europe is both too craven and too mercantile to take a principled stand against the ayatollahs. Russia, meanwhile, serves as the biggest nemesis of real meaningful change in Iran, with the Kremlin maintaining a deep and abiding stake in the perpetuation of the Islamic Republic, which has become a key strategic partner. However, he maintains, the United States does have an ally in the Iranian people, who are willing to withstand sanctions and economic hardship as long as they perceive that the United States has a long-term strategy to bring fundamental change to the country.

The biggest challenge facing the Iranian opposition, Pahlavi believes, is the fear of the unknown generated by discussions of regime alternatives. To ameliorate this, the Iranian opposition needs to create a roadmap for political transition, as well as some sort of apolitical organization to anticipate future problems and offer up solutions. There appears to be preliminary movement in this direction on the part of Pahlavi and his supporters in the form of a new, apolitical initiative known as the Phoenix Project, which is designed to bring the various strains of the opposition closer to a common vision for a postclerical Iran.

Pahlavi likewise believes that core elements of the regimeincluding elements of the standing army and the religious military, known as the IRGCare not consolidated around the status quo, and can be nudged in the direction of regime change provided that 1) a clear exit strategy is articulated, so they know what theyre getting into, and 2) that at least some of their equities (economic and political) are protected under the new order. To do so, Pahlavi argues, the United States should focus on targeted measures such as asset freezes and travel bans as a way of targeting regime leadership and elites. This would, in his estimation, send a strong signal to the Iranian people that the United States is paying attention and knows who the bad guys are, and also help to generate cleavages within key regime institutions (such as the IRGC).

Then there is the nuclear file. Although he doesnt rule out that a future Iranian government might want to be a nuclear power, Pahlavi argues that such investments for a successor governmentat least in the near termwould be foolish and wasteful, detracting from the necessary institution building and economic stabilization that the country desperately needs. And over the longer term, he maintains, the question of regime character should be the governing factor in how the international community deals with the issue of Irans nuclear ambitions. After all, as Pahlavi puts it, Its not the gun. Its the finger on the trigger.

Fundamentally, Pahlavis vision is one of nonviolent resistance to Irans clerical regime. He forcefully rejects the idea that ordinary Iranians should take up arms against the ayatollahs, and instead believes that it is possible to create a controlled implosion through nonviolent means which would bring new leadership to power. In this process, the crown prince sees himself as something resembling an honest lawyera gray eminence that could throw his substantial gravitas behind the nascent institutions of a posttheocratic Iran. However, one gets the sense that, if asked to rule, Pahlavi would probably not be averse to the idea.

All of that, however, remains purely conceptual. For the moment, Pahlavis message is that the United States needs to fundamentally change how it thinks about Iran. As he sees it, there is no substitute for seriousness on the part of Americas leaders. And if such seriousness does in fact manifest itself, then the crown prince is confident that the United States will find no shortage of allies on the Iranian street.

Ilan Berman is senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. This is the first installment in a series of feature articles exploring the beliefs, ideas and values of different factions within the Iranian opposition. This first appeared last year.

Image: Reuters.

See the article here:
This Could Be Iran's Next Ruler (Or King?) - The National Interest Online

Many see Iran's conservatives winning Friday's election, but that's more to do with reformists losing favor than hard-liners gaining popularity, a research associate said this week.

"The reformists aren't particularly popular right now, but the conservatives definitely aren't very popular," said Tan Feng Qin of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Voter turnout is expected to be low as young people say they're refusing to go to the polls.Iran's 2016 parliamentary election saw a coalition of reformists and moderate conservatives taking control, but current lawmakers have disappointed the Iranian populace.

"Their performance has been lackluster, the economy hasn't improved and Iranians are a bit frustrated about the lack of progress on economic and political issues," he told CNBC's "Capital Connection" on Friday.

It's not that the tide has turned toward the conservatives, however, said Tan, adding that they tend to be suspicious about reaching a negotiated nuclear agreement with the U.S., which is "one of the main issues that's stopping the Iranian economy from recovering."

The international community, led by the U.S., has sanctioned Iran for years in a bid to limit its nuclear power program.

"If (the conservatives) do well this time in this election, it's not so much that they've suddenly gained popularity but the reformists and the pragmatists have lost clout because of their performance," he said.

While Tan stopped short of predicting a win for the hard-liners, Emily Hawthorne, Stratfor's Middle East and North Africa analyst, said there are a few factors why a "more conservative parliament" can be expected not least of which is the disqualification of reformist candidates.

An unelected religious and legal group the Guardian Council vetted 15,000 candidates and barred more than 7,000 from running for office.

"There were a high number of disqualifications of reformist candidates ... for the election, but that's just one factor among many as to why we should expect a more conservative parliament," she said.

"The recent assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the perceived failure of the more moderate approach of current President Hassan Rouhani and his reformist backers all of this is factoring into an opening for more conservative policy, more hard-line policy."

Regardless of the outcome of the election, however, Hawthorne said Iran's leaders have a tough road ahead.

"No matter who, politically, is at the helm of the government or is crafting economic policy, there are real limits to the solutions they can come up with in the face of unprecedented U.S. sanctions."

CNBC's Natasha Turak contributed to this report.

The rest is here:
Conservatives stand to win Iran's election as reformists fall out of favor, analysts say - CNBC

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday said the United States will sink like the Titanic, blaming it on wealthy Zionist individuals and corporate owners who he said controlled the US economy.

In a long series of tweets, Khameneisaid the strength of the US economy was a facade and appeared to quote progressive Democrats saying that US President Donald Trump was overseeing the transfer of US wealth to a few billionaires.

Today, the epitome of rebellion, arrogance and tyranny is the US government, which is controlled by the wealthy Zionist individuals and corporate owners, Khamenei tweeted.

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In the same way that the glory and splendor of the famous #Titanic ship did not prevent her from sinking, the apparent glory & splendor of the US wont prevent it from sinking. And, the US will sink, he said.

Khamenei took aim at Trumps economic policies, which the president often touts as one of his greatest accomplishments, noting that markets are at record highs and and the unemployment rate is at its lowest in decades.

The current US President claims he has improved the economic situation there. Others say yes, its become better, but only for the billionaires, not for the people of the US, Khamenei said.

Without mentioning names, Khamenei appeared to cite Democratic candidates like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

These arent my words, but the words of a member of the U.S. ruling body. He says over $100B has been added to the wealth of the 5 richest people in the US in the 3 years of Trumps presidency. 3 of them own wealth equal to half the US population. Look at this social gap!

The US has created the faade of being on its feet, he wrote. The US has one of the largest debts in the world today, & the gap between social classes is wider than ever, Khamenei wrote.

Khameneis comments come as Iran gears up for a crucial parliamentary election in two days, with many people in the country feeling that their lives have been crippled by an economic slump exacerbated by harsh US sanctions since Trump pulled the United States out of a landmark nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic in 2018.

Conservatives are expected to make an overwhelming resurgence in Fridays vote, which comes after months of steeply escalating tensions between Iran and its decades-old arch foe the United States.

Their gains would be made at the expense of those who back President Hassan Rouhani, a relatively moderate conservative who was re-elected in 2017 promising people more freedoms and the benefits of engagement with the West.

Rouhani urged people to go and vote, saying that taking part would give Iran the strength and unity needed in its stand against the United States.

We are going to the polls to choose the best people for parliament, which is a very important institution, he said in televised remarks after a meeting of his cabinet.

We are under severe sanctions and pressure by the global arrogance, and we have to break these sanctions and improve peoples lives, he added, referring to the United States.

People withraw money from an automated teller machine in the Iranian capital Tehrans grand bazaar on November 3, 2018. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Sanctions are a terrorist and tyrannical act against Iran.

One cannot say sanctions have no effect and the government should be doing more Its lies, its supporting America.

Irans electoral watchdog on Wednesday defended its decision to disqualify thousands of candidates from the vote.

The Interior Ministry said around half of the 16,033 hopefuls would contest the election after the Guardian Council barred thousands, most of them relative moderates and reformists.

But the Council said it was neutral in its dealings with all political camps and acted in accordance with the law when it blocked their candidacy.

The Guardian Council follows the laws and regulations parliament has passed at different times, said its spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaee.

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Iran's Khamenei says 'Zionist-controlled' US government will sink like Titanic - The Times of Israel

Key point: It was spotted only once after its initial debut in November 2013 being prepped for taxi testsbut it has never been seen again.

Several years back, Iran rolled out its Qaher F-313 stealth fighter in front of then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Within hours it was met with near universal derision from defense and aerospace experts around the world.

While almost everyone outside Iran saw the project for the farce that it was, Tehran insisted that the project was real and that it was already flying. Further, the Iranian government insisted that the bizarre-looking aircraftwhich was allegedly superior to the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighterwould become operational in the very near future. But since then the project has disappeared. So, whatever happened to Irans impressive plans for the Qaher F-313 stealth fighter?

The answer is nothingas with much of Irans blusterthe Qaher F-313 was a ham-handed hoax. Even at the time when Iran first showed off the Qaher, it was clear that the mockup was little more than a poorly executed propaganda stunt engineered for domestic consumption.

From even a cursory examination of the many photos and video imagery of the aircraft with a purportedly very small radar cross section, it was immediately apparent that this was not a serious development. At the very best, it is a subscale test-bed.

Perhaps the most immediate give away was the miniscule size of the craft. There didnt appear to be room for avionics and fuellet alone weapons. Moreover, its doubtful that there was an engine installed given the lack of a nozzle and the two tiny air inlets.

The other problem for Iran would have been to find an engine small enough to fit into such a miniscule airframe. Tehrans options seem limited to something like the General Electric J85which Iran has previously reverse engineeredbut without a nozzle the heat would have likely set this mock-up ablaze.

Additionally, the cockpit appeared to be too small in relation to the pilot. And the visibility through the material could only be described as horrendous.

The cockpit instruments were amongst the only items in the Qaher F-313 that could be described as real. The Iranians were using instrumentation developed for the home-build aircraft market with hardware sourced from Dynon and Garmin.

Furthermore, there were no access panels or weapons bays that were visible. Features such as access panels are found on every aircraft for routine maintenance. In the case of a stealth aircraft, internal weapons bays are necessary in order maintain the jets low observable signature while carrying armaments. But as one engineer familiar with low observables design astutely pointed out at the time, while superficially resembling what one might imagine a stealth aircraft to look like, the Iranian machine had serious radar cross section (RCS) problems.

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Stealth aircraft design is much more involved than simply mastering the low observable shapes. There are advanced materials sciences that need to be developed for the aircrafts skin and coatings. Advanced analytical tools are needed to shape the internal bulkheads and other structures. Moreover, one has to master the man-machine interfaces so that a pilot can manage the aircrafts RCS spikes in flight. There is no evidencenow or back in 2013that suggests that Iran has mastered those technologies.

So where is the Qaher F-313? It was spotted only once after its initial debut in November 2013 being prepped for taxi testsbut it has never been seen again. Its likely the unimpressive mockup is sitting in the warehouse somewhere in Iran, or has been recycled for some other theatrical production.

The real mystery isas it was thenhow Irans leaders might assume that they could present such a farce before the eyes of the world and not invite anything other than mockery.

(This first appeared in 2016.)

Image: Wikipedia.

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Iran Said It Built An Impressive Stealth Fighter, But Then We Never Saw It Again - The National Interest Online

The race for the Islamic Republics 11th parliament is likely to turn into one of the most peculiar competitions ever, as most of the hopefuls fall under one political umbrella, with the rival side effectively pushed aside from the game.

After being swept away due to a widespread purge by the vetting body known as the Guardian Council,Irans Reformist camp initially announced reluctance to issue a list of candidates for such key constituencies as the capital, Tehran, and the central city of Isfahan.

The decision was made following a Feb. 4 meeting of the Reformist Camps Policymaking Supreme Council chaired by Mohammad Reza Aref, a senior Reformist politician who won the first seat in Tehran in the previous polls and earned the title of the parliament majority leader. Under past tradition, a selected group of prominent Reformist candidates would have been proposed to voters by MohammadKhatami the camps leader and former president (1997-2005) whose message of approval has often sparked a nationwide wave of support behind the endorsed hopefuls.

Despite the initial unwillingness and after days of deliberations, the top Reformist council released Feb. 15 a finalized list of 30 for the Tehran constituency from among the limited options it was left with. The alliance is led by Majid Ansari, a former deputy to Khatami and a current member of the Expediency Council. The Executives of Construction Party another key pro-Reform group affiliated with the late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani issued a different grouping, but one that still has Ansari on the top.

Signs of deeper division were more obvious in the other front, where unlike Reformists, the conservatives are dealing with a crisis of overpopulation. The long list of candidates has, indeed, stirred up tough rivalries among different sectors of the camp. SHANA, a Persian acronym standing for the Council for the Coalition of Revolutionary Forces, as the core decision-making committee of the conservative campissued the names of the selected candidates Feb. 10. Topping the list was Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a powerful politician, who after three failed attemptsin previous presidential elections, appears to be aspiring to become Irans next parliament speaker. Unexpectedly, the SHANA alliance offered no room to hard-line candidates affiliated with ultraconservative cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi.

The SHANA list categorized the candidates into veterans, women, clerics and young people. Still, the absence of such young candidates as Vahid Yaminpour sparked criticism. Yaminpour is affiliated with the Front of the Islamic Revolution Stability (known by its Persian name Paydari). The group is seen as the conservative camps most fundamentalist faction, whose rift with SHANA had already been laid bare in the preliminary debate on the endorsements.

SHANAs most influential figures such as former parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel and former Tehran city council chief Mehdi Chamran appeared to have openly disregarded the candidates linked with Paydari.

However, even Ghalibaf announced in a tweet his disapprovalof the SHANA list. His close aide Mohammad Saleh Meftah also dismissed the selection, which, in his view, failed to include not only young revolutionaries but also economic concerns. The names do not address the expectations, and lets not forget that Ghalibaf is the only one who can be the axis for a fresh list with revolutionary ideals. Meftah, who is the editor of the pro-Ghalibaf digital news outlet Farda News, said he believes that SHANA has named few candidates with an economic specialization.

And Ghalibafs tweet may have eventually worked, as SHANA revisedthe names. Yet the change was too little to persuade the Paydari hard-liners, who dug intheir heels and came out with their own list that excluded Ghalibaf.Shana now seems to have begun to understand that it is no longer widely recognized as the leading actor because it failed to rally camp members behind the flag, includingin recentpresidential, parliamentary and city council elections. This disappointing performance could now even sideline the traditional layers of the camp, opening up the path to a generation of younger faces with a more uncompromising approach compared withtheir forerunners.

But thats not where the pre-election strife among the conservatives comes to an end. A group of candidates affiliated with former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hasentered the battle as the Peoples Coalition. The factions Feb. 10 statement lent generous praise to the performance of the two Ahmadinejad Cabinets (2005-2013). Nevertheless, only three days later an Ahmadinejad adviser put closure to speculation bydeclaring that the ex-president has no intention of endorsing any individual candidate or alliance.

Ghalibaf surveying all these parameters at play as well as the absence of influential rivals such as sitting parliament Speaker Ali Larijani seems to be placing all his concentration on a selection of the most hard-line members of the camp, seeing this as the only way for him to take the helm of parliament.

All in all, given the hard-hitting removal of their rival Reformists, the conservatives seem to feel that there is no threat necessitating the formation of powerful hard-line coalitions or even to make sacrifices toone another. The race is, therefore, expected to be reduced to an internal tug of war merely involving the multiple hard-line factionsjostling for a greater share of seats and influence in the legislative body.

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Iran With election rivals barred, Iran's hard-liners resort to infighting - Al-Monitor