Iran Expected Consequences For Sending Arms To Russia – Leaked Documents

Ahmad Alirezabeigi told Rouydad24 news website in Tehran that his access to his microphone at the parliament (Majles) was cut off even before the legislature’s supervisory board attended to his case. He added: "The Speaker of the parliament read out the verdict against me before it was issued by the board!"

On Sunday some unconfirmed reports emerged that the ban has been lifted, but he has still not been observed speaking in the parliament.

Iranian authorities have confirmed that some 300 SUVs were given to the Majles at a highly discounted price ahead of a proposed impeachment of the minister of industry in 2022, but Alirezabeigi says still 153 are unaccounted for and no one knows who took delivery of those vehicles. 

Alirezabeigi further added that barring lawmakers from addressing the parliament is not part of the Majles Supervisory Board's authority, and Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has imposed the ban arbitrarily. He said lawmakers are entitled to challenge any verdict by the board, but he cannot do anything at the time being as the verdict has not been officially announced. 

100%

The lawmaker says he was also called to a court of justice in May to respond to questions, but he was told that there are no charges against him as no one has filed a complaint about the matter. 

"I found out later that the minister in question has sent a letter about the issue to the Iranian judiciary, but he had not even named me in that letter," Alirezabeigi said, adding that "by barring me from speaking at the Majles, the authorities have deprived the people in my constituency of their voice being heard." 

Meanwhile, an outspoken former lawmaker, Gholamali Jafarzadeh Imanabadi has likened the lawmaker's punishment to the shelling of the parliament by anti-constitutionalists at the beginning of the 20th century. Imanabadi further charged: "The Majles is no longer the House of the People. It is a place where the presidium dictates whatever it deems right."

He explained that giving the SUVs to lawmakers at a discounted price is a concession they should have not accepted. He said although they have paid for the cars, but they ignore the fact that the vehicles are worth much more in the market and not everyone can get those cars at the price they think they have purchased it. "Would they sell the cars to you at such a discounted price if you were not members of parliament? Certainly no!"

100%

He emphasized that the parliament should have not been allowed to bar a representative of the people from speaking. The Majles has pretty much cut off the voice of all those who had voted for this representative. 

Imanabadi said the presidium of the Majles should have taken action about the bribery instead of barring the lawmaker from speaking about corruption. Citind parliament’s by-laws he said, “You cannot bar a lawmaker from speaking even if what he says is tantamount to libel.” Instead, anyone who believes has been offended will be given time to defend or explain. 

Imanabadi said: "It is surprising that the other lawmakers are silent about this matter. This could have happened to any one of them." He added that according to a former speaker of the Majles, Mehdi Karroubi, cutting off a lawmaker's microphone “is a sign of despotism." 

Imanabadi further suggested that Alirezabeigi should resign in protest. 

Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai spoke in his first sermon since the Iran-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah and its closest allies thwarted an attempt by factions including the main Christian parties to elect an IMF official as president.

Wednesday's events marked the 12th time parliament failed to elect someone to the post - reserved for a Maronite Christian in Lebanon's sectarian system and vacant since the term of the Hezbollah-allied Michel Aoun ended in October.

Rai, a critic of the heavily-armed Hezbollah, called Wednesday's session a "farce".

Rai has previously voiced criticism of Hezbollah, including in 2021 when it launched rockets at Israel.

The standoff has played out along sectarian lines with Christian parties supporting Jihad Azour, the IMF's Middle East director and an ex-finance minister, and Shi'ite factions Hezbollah and Amal against him.

Many Lebanese blame Iran for backing Hezbollah and interfering in the country's politics.

Azour won votes from 59 of 128 lawmakers, short of the 86 needed to win a first round vote. Suleiman Frangieh, a Hezbollah-backed Christian, got 51.

The Hezbollah-allied Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri ended the session when Hezbollah and its allies withdrew, denying a quorum for a second round when 65 votes are needed to win.

Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elias Audi, in his Sunday sermon, criticized Hezbollah and its allies without naming them, saying those who withdrew appeared "uninterested" in Lebanon.

Hezbollah and its allies attacked Azour, calling him a candidate of confrontation. Without naming him, Lebanon's Shi'ite mufti accused him of being backed by Israel.

Reporting by Reuters

Pascal Smet, the Secretary of State for European and International Relations for the city council of the Belgian capital Brussels, announced his resignation at a press conference earlier in the day, saying that one of his employees made the mistake of inviting the Iranian hardliner, Alireza Zakani, the mayor of Tehran.

Zakani was a hardline member of parliament before becoming a candidate in the 2021 presidential election and withdrawing in favor of Ebrahim Raisi. He also served as the head of IRGC’s Student Basij paramilitary forces and had a prominent role in cracking down on students during popular protests in July 1999. 

So deep was the controversy, Smet announced his regret in a statement: "I regret that I gave the impression that the Iranian regime is welcome. I assure you that it was not my intention to hurt anyone and that my moral compass is very high. For all these reasons, but mainly because of the accommodation costs, the mistake my employee made, I have decided to resign as Secretary of State." 

Darya Safai, a Belgian-Iranian member of the Belgian Parliament, had led the campaign for Smet's resignation. In a tweet on Sunday she said that his stepping down followed days of work by her party to condemn the invitation of an Iranian delegation to the Urban Summit in Brussels. 

Safai added that the responsibility lies with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib, who issued the visas after individual evaluation. She said her party is set to grill Lahbib this week for not only the invitation but her cooperation with Iranian officials and the prisoner swap deal with Iran that led to release of Iranian diplomat convicted of terrorism, Asadollah Assadi. 

Reformist daily Shargh Online wrote in a political analysis that conservative political figures such as, former parliamentary Speaker and traditional conservative Gholamreza Ali Haddad-Adel and his successor, neo-conservative Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf are not likely to be able to win the next parliamentary elections in March even if they form a coalition together. 

The report said that they might need the support of moderate conservative Ali Larijani, another former Speaker to make that form a successful alliance. Only then they might be able to defeat the powerful hardline conservative front led by former IRGC General Sadeq Mahsouli one of the leaders of Paydari Party, which other conservatives regard as a “radical” group.

The analysis loosely characterised Ali Larijani as “the new right,” Ghalibaf and Haddad Adel as “moderate right” and Paydari as “radical.” This characterisation is interesting and shows how the far right has radically distanced itself from the main body of the conservative camp, so that all others look relatively moderate when they are compared with Paydari.

Such a tripartite alliance, if ever formed, may be able to put an end to the country’s political impasse and save the Islamic Republic from an even bigger political crisis, the analysis concluded.

However, the report ignored the fact that without opening up some space for the regime’s ‘reformists’ the political impasse will not end. 

100%

The Coalition Council of the Revolutionary Forces (Persian acronym: SHANA) which represents traditional conservatives, held a meeting on Thursday but like many other such meetings by political groups and parties they did not publish any photos of the gathering for the likely reason of a low turnout.

The monopoly of power by hardliners in both the executive and the parliament has dissuaded more moderate conservatives from a serious political agenda as they know that forming coalitions and will not work unless they have the overt support of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his aides.

According to Shargh, politicians such as Ghalibaf and Haddad-Adel fear that without Larijani joining them, the radicals might kick them out of political competitions in the same way they got rid of Larijani in the 2021 presidential elections. However, the article did elaborate on why Larijani can help the other two politicians, who apart from everything else, happen to be Khamenei’s relatives. 

All other conservative alliances during previous elections either fell apart before the voting day or they were faced down by the ultra-conservative Paydari in the last minute. 

On the other hand, Ali Larijani is not known for having a sizeable following. Members of the Iranian Parliament who worked closely with him have not been observed to defend him after his disqualification by the Guardian Council in 2021. Since then, on the contrary, the Paydari has been gaining more political power in the parliament where it holds the majority, and in President Ebrahim Raisi’s cabinet.

The only factor that can help more moderate conservatives, including Larijani and Haddad-Adel, is the poor record of ultra conservatives both in the cabinet and in parliament, where Ghalibaf as speaker shares the blame. 

Both the current economic crisis and repression, with no end in sight, have badly discredited the hardliners, who for the past two years have enjoyed a total monopoly of power.

On the other hand, some political observers in Iran, including the author of Shargh’s analysis, Davoud Heshmati believe the “purification” process that kicked Larijani out of the power circle might also expel Ghalibaf in the next election. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the remarks on Sunday in reaction to reports citing a Western official that the objective of the impending nuclear deal between Washington and Tehran is to stop Israel from attacking Iran.

The statement goes against all other reports in recent days that quoted other Israeli politicians such as Yuli Edelstein, the head of the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who said Israel could accept such a deal if it includes rigorous supervision of Tehran's nuclear program. 

“Our first mission is to stop Iran from going nuclear,” Netanyahu said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting. “We made clear to our American friends time after time, and I am doing it again today, that we oppose agreements, first of all to the original agreement called the JCPOA, which will just pave Iran’s way to the bomb and will pad it with hundreds of millions of dollars.” 

“We also tell [the Americans] that more limited understandings, what’s called a ‘mini-deal,’ does not serve our purpose, in our opinion, and we oppose that, as well,” he said, claiming that his “principled opposition” to the JCPOA played a part in ensuring the US does not return to that deal. 

Bibi added that “Israel will do whatever it needs on its own to defend itself from Iranian aggression, whether on the nuclear file or its terrorist proxies.”