המסר שלי לאיראן

CNN and Narges Mohammadi look, at first glance, like a respectable pairing: a famous network, a Nobel laureate, a grim prison story. Convenient. Almost hygienic. In practice they are doing the Islamic Republic a favor it could not buy. They are helping whitewash the murder of tens of thousands of Iranians last January. Talk long enough about the mistreatment of a handful of political prisoners, Miss Mohammadi included, and the world is invited to a smaller crime. A nasty regime, yes. A few sadistic wardens. Maybe a dozen intelligence officers who overdid it. Change the staff, issue a statement, and the file can be closed. That is the point of the exercise. A couple of mistreated prisoners can be “fixed.” A massacre cannot. What actually happened is not a staffing problem. Facing tens of millions of citizens who came out peacefully in more than a hundred cities and asked for the regime’s removal, the Islamic Republic chose to kill tens of thousands, jail thousands more, and start hanging people by the hundreds. A system that answers a nationwide demand for its own end with industrial slaughter is not waiting for a better prison warden. It is not reformable. The trick is old and effective. Let a few “safe” opposition figures speak, preferably about what was done to them. The camera stays in the cell. The mass graves stay off-screen. The global public is fed a usable story: cruelty, but containable cruelty. Meanwhile the useless narrative flourishes: if only the right officials were moved, if only the right prisoners were released, the Islamic Republic might still be a partner. The same method is not reserved for foreign audiences, and it is not limited to human rights. As an Iranian economist, I have watched, for decades, other Iranian economists fight ferocious battles over exchange rates, subsidies, and five-year plans while tiptoeing around the only fact that matters. The Islamic Republic is not a badly managed developing state. It is uninterested in a prosperous country. Outstanding human talent and natural resources have been sitting in front of it for nearly half a century. The debates produced confusion, not growth, and they wrecked the public’s trust in economists. When you argue about the plumbing while refusing to name the arsonist, you eventually look like part of the fire. Do not play along. Name the January massacre first, every time: the cities, the scale, the executions that followed. Refuse the swap that turns a national massacre into a prisoner-welfare story. Treat “reform” talk as the regime’s preferred anesthetic, not a policy option. Economists should put the political constraint in the first sentence, not the footnote: this system does not maximize Iranian welfare; it maximizes its own survival and uses up Iran’s resources for its ideological goals. Keep the demand where the streets put it: removal, not a kinder cell block. The distraction works only if we keep starring in it.

An honour for Deputy Leader @MelissaLantsman and I to welcome Crown Prince @PahlaviReza to Canada to rally for freedom and against terrorism. We discussed the need to kick IRGC terror agents out of Canada and sanction the illegitimate terror regime in Tehran, which has murdered dozens of Canadian citizens and thousands of its own people. Thank you, Crown Prince, for fighting for the freedom of your people.

به نظرم به مصاحبه نرگس محمدی کم پرداخته شده، این فراتر از یک مصاحبه و بخشی از یک جریان سیاسی و تبلیغاتی پیچیده بوده. - CNN رسما گفته موافقت کردن درباره حوادث اخیر حرف نزنن. یعنی سانسور بزرگترین قتل عام تاریخ معاصر ایران برای حرف زدن فقط درباره یک نفر. - قتل عام هزاران ایرانی سانسور بشه که خانم محمدی به جهان بگه خودش شکنجه شده. یعنی خانم محمدی آزادی داره درباره خودش و جریان سیاسی نوظهورش که سوار بر شعار ززآ شدن حرف بزنه ولی درباره قتل عام مردم با شعار «پهلوی برمی‌گرده» نه! - هرچند تقریبا ۸۰ درصد مصاحبه درباره خودش هست اما دکور برنامه متمرکز بر شعار ززآ. پیام CNN روشن می‌کنه محمدی مطلع هست که صحبت درباره دی‌ماه با شعار پهلوی براش پیامد داره ولی صحبت درباره ززآ نه. - نکته دیگه شاید هر دو شعار براش پیامد داشته باشه منتها انتخاب خودش بوده که یکی رو سانسور کنه و بگه برام پیامد داره و فقط درباره ززآ حرف بزنه. - این یعنی خانم برنده نوبل تا آنجا از مردم حرف می‌زنه که با جایگاه سیاسی خودش هماهنگ باشه وگرنه حاضر میشه به قیمت سانسور قتل عام مردم فقط درباره خودش حرف بزنه. - بهرحال این یک اقدام خطرناک سیاسی بود که نشان داد جریانی فعالانه زیر چتر حمایتی رژیم اسلامی به میدان آمدن برای سرکوب رسانه‌ای مردم و پرموت کردن جریانی جعلی.