The protests of Iran’s people in the southwestern Khuzestan province, which have continued for 10 consecutive nights, have scared the regime’s officials. Many of them are trying to connect the problems of the people in this province too, “the inefficiency of some policies and politicians in Khuzestan.”
But the reality is that the entire rule is responsible for the injustice on the people of this province and the entire country. The problem of Khuzestan this the same problem in all other provinces because of 40 years of rule of looting and corruption.
Ali Rabii, the head of the regime’s Center for Strategic Studies, counted five subjects as the big issues which could become crises for the regime and declared one of them which he called “trust crisis” and said:
“Social trust is damaged and social capital is declining from individual, group, and institutional levels to the macro level. According to the report of the Center for Presidential Studies and a documentary review of national survey data conducted in 2015 and 2016, the situation of social capital indicators at the macro, medium, and micro levels in Khuzestan province, ranked 18th, which is not appropriate,” wrote state-run daily Iran on July 24, 2021.
The state-run daily Setareh-e-Sobh in a different way shows the people’s hate of the government and turning away from it and about Khuzestan people wrote:
“People remember the slogans and teachings of the revolution and ask themselves why their lives have not improved. People were supposed to achieve “prosperity” and “justice,” not to witness “corruption,” “discrimination,” and “injustice” in society, and that some abuse the power,” wrote Setareh-e-Sobh daily on July 24, 2021.
The state-run daily Etemad pointed to the reason for this situation which is the “idiotism” of the officials and wrote: “They are sitting in a chair of responsibility, they do not know much about the pain of the people, the intensity of the pain that is inflicted on the body of the people, and they are more worried about losing management positions than worrying about their responsibilities,” wrote Etemad daily on July 24, 2021.
It becomes clear from such expressions that the problems of the people with this regime are not just subjects like water and they are deeper rooted and widespread. And these crises are not only related to Khuzestan province.
This was visible with the beginning of the protests in the cities of Khuzestan, the people of other places such as Yazdanshahr and Shahinshahr in Isfahan, Karaj, Robat Karim, Saveh, Khorramabad, Aligudarz, and Tabriz also came to the streets to support the people of Khuzestan.
While the Iranian people are suffering from economic and livelihood problems, many countries of the world have just annual inflation of 5% and even lower, but “according to the Statistics Center of Iran, at the end of June the annual inflation rate reached 43 percent and food items 51.6 percent,” wrote Kayhan daily affiliated with Khamenei on July 25, 2021.
Therefore, the reaction of the people of Khuzestan and other cities of Iran is due to common pain, and that is the ominous domination of the clerical rule over their destiny.
The situation has reached a stage that even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served as the sixth president of this regime warned and said: “Now most of the people are dissatisfied with the situation in the country, make reform and change, you may not have a chance for compensation tomorrow,” wrote Dolat-e-Bahar website on July 20, 2021.
The Khamenei-affiliated Resalat newspaper also acknowledged the high pressure on the people. “Livelihood and legal protests should not become security issues. We should not get used that the people reach the last straw and getting involved in security issues again,” wrote Resalat daily on July 20, 2021.
However, the people are thinking in other ways and seeing the regime itself as the main problem, therefore they turn any issue into a security challenge for the regime.
It is not unreasonable that the water crisis would convert into a security issue and overpass the borders of this province. People in other provinces showed and expressed their solidarity with slogans such as “Death to Khamenei” and “Death to the dictator.”
It was such reactions that caused the regime’s Friday prayers Imams to express concern over the people’s subversive slogans.
