In an interview with his own website Bahar News, the former Iranian regime’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made startling remarks that revealed a great deal about the state of the country rather than about the change of his own mind.
“Yes, there is a lot of dissatisfaction now, and there may be some outbursts, but it is not necessarily in the interest of the country,” Ahmadinejad said. “Change is beneficial when the public is fully aware of the system that will replace the old one so that they can follow up and observe to avoid what happened in the past does not happen again. There is no need for conflict at all. When everyone understands exactly where we wanted to go, then rapid change will occur and becomes solid, which ensures that there is no reactionism again.”
Questioning the concentration of wealth and power and the multiplication of the size of the government compared to before the 1979 revolution, he said: “It is not clear what role the 85 million people of Iran are having here. A few people who got several thousand votes each are calling the shots. This goes also for foreign policy. The people have no say at all.”
According to Bahar News, “Ahmadinejad described helping the Taliban in Afghanistan as a historic mistake by the Iranian government, adding: ‘the Taliban are the bedrock of the growth of ISIS and al-Qaeda, and they are rapidly organizing themselves.”
Ahmadinejad made the comments in a meeting with some of his cronies
The former President concluded: “As a person who had taken part in the 1979 revolution, I emphasize that we thought that if there is a revolution, (in the future) every single person is going the country, that they will have a vote, that they can decide about things, that people can rise, everyone can live in prosperity, everyone gets dignity… but later we realized that the entire display of Islam and the revolution belongs to a certain group. I testify before God that these things were not in our minds at that time. God forgive us if we have failed!”
His remarks, of course, are not a by-product of a newly found concern for the welfare of the Iranian people. On the contrary, his shedding of crocodile tears is a reflection of his realization that a tsunami is on the way, which will sweep aside the regime in its entirety, including his own faction.
As a reminder, in 2009, when Iranian streets were flooded with millions of protestors to denounce the regime’s sham elections, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was then the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s favorite candidate, chose a very jubilant tone and said during his winning celebration ceremony: “In Iran, 40 million people were the main decision-makers and the main determinants in the elections. Now, some ‘dirt and dust’ are doing a few things on some corners of this country…”
