Normalizing pain tolerance for people: The regime's new strategy

Despite the recent widespread protests and public slogans of structural deconstruction, the Islamic Republic appears to be indifferent. According to political analyst Ali Afshari, the regime's new strategy is to accustom people to suffering from debilitating livelihood problems.

Mr. Seyyed Ali Khamenei's remarks in a meeting with the participants of the "Nomadic Martyrs" Congress opened a window into the regime's strategy to maintain and stabilize the political status quo. The leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran warned the regime's officials and forces that "the enemy, by presenting a deadlock, seeks to weaken the people's hope and religious faith."

Continuing past efforts and ignoring the bitter realities, he is trying to maintain optimism about the future, at least within the social base of the regime. Of course, his work is not just “explanatory jihad,” but also uses warnings and threats. The public apology of the head of the IRIB is understandable in this context. Nouri Hamedani, who had recently criticized the disregard for the people’s livelihood problems, spoke after Khamenei’s speech about the need for optimism about the future, while emphasizing that “the regime must remain.”

The regime's officials and the political and social figures who support it have realized that the cost of the leader's discontent with their actions has become relatively greater than in the past. Everyone must go along with his delusional actions, which are completely disconnected from the world of reality and facts, and convince the people that the king is not naked!

Decoding Khamenei's recent remarks and paying attention to their possible connection to the arrest of a number of forces who were previously officers of the "soft war against the enemy" strengthens the hypothesis that the hard core of power, by insisting on a police atmosphere and keeping the political arena closed, is not even receptive to internal criticism from fundamentalists about the weak performance of the Raisi government and the 11th Parliament.

The regime's leadership believes that with political and propaganda support, it can manage the growing wave of disappointment with the performance of the 13th government and the practical nullification of its imaginary promises. Monitoring developments shows that the regime's tolerance threshold for protesting and criticizing senior officials supported by Khamenei has decreased, even for insiders.

The Velayat-e-Faqih institution continues to rely on the use of force and security clashes to advance the program of single-voice rule in the governing institutions and silence the dissidents. The success of this strategy is seriously questionable, given the growing dissatisfaction among the social base of the regime with those who claimed to be “revolutionary and jihadi management.” However, the main challenge for the regime is not its inability to contain the faults and divergences in the power bloc, but rather the growth of street protests and activism in different segments of society, who are fed up with the severity of various problems, most notably the country’s worsening economic misery.

What seems strange, amidst the palpable spread of anger, disgust, and desperation in Iranian society, is the confidence of the regime, and especially the intelligence and security agencies, that they are not concerned or concerned about the increase in street protests and the decline in people's resilience. This high self-confidence could be the result of a miscalculation, but at the same time it also indicates a belief in the ability to suppress and contain future protests.

Examining the Raisi administration’s program and pinning hope on the failed policy of shock therapy under the guise of “economic surgery” makes it clear that the ruling fundamentalists are happy to perpetuate suffering and normalize the people’s tolerance of pain. They, who blamed the previous administration for ignoring the people’s livelihood demands and made many red-hot promises, now think that after fully seizing power, they can postpone the solution of the problems to an unknown future by means of deception, talk therapy, and blaming the US government as the main source of the problems. The natural result of this approach is the normalization of the people’s tolerance of pain and suffering.

Mehdi Taeb, a member of the “Ammar Base”, stated not long ago that if people endure eight months of pain and suffering and do not seek short-term solutions such as drugs as a form of housing, since the preferred currency is 4,200 Tomans, their situation will improve! He does not explain how and under what circumstances the hardships will be resolved after eight months! The current outlook from the perspective of the realities governing the country’s economy not only does not indicate an improvement in the business environment and the containment of inflation, but also indicates an intensification of livelihood problems and the expansion of the population below the poverty line.

In fact, the practical translation of Taeb’s words, which reflects the main view of the government, is to accustom the people, especially the vulnerable groups, to a new wave of unbridled inflation. The Raisi government is seeking to impose practical and undeclared economic austerity by reducing public services, adjusting government support for the disadvantaged, and increasing taxes. Iranian society has not yet shown a widespread and serious reaction to the shock of the new price increases and despair about the future; which has led to a miscalculation of the power bloc.

The risk of the current economic and security policies of the regime, given the staggering and irreparable spread of systemic economic corruption, is so high that it could easily turn into major social and nationwide uprisings and uprisings. Although the use of the old tactic of repression and patronage in the shadow of the growth of the mafia gangs’ plundering can provide a temporary response, the regime’s increasing addiction to these tactics, given the intensification of multiple super-challenges and crises, and the people who are becoming more angry every day due to the indifference of the main administrators of the regime to their livelihood problems, will further deepen and expand the explosive situation in society. If such an event does not occur or is suppressed, the foreseeable future for Iran is to walk on the path of “Venezuelaization.”

Therefore, the regime, with a delusional idea of ​​normalizing pain tolerance by the majority of the people, has placed the future of the country in an unpredictable state. The main focus of this risky decision is the “leadership office,” which, proud of past successes in overcoming challenges for a while, overestimates its own strength in a world disconnected from reality and shows stubbornness against any change.

Source: DW