Ex-Iranian President Ahmadinejad's Guatemala Travel Plans Thwarted
Security authorities at Imam Khomeini Airport in Iran thwarted former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's trip to Guatemala, seizing his passport and giving him a travel ban.
Security authorities at Imam Khomeini Airport in Iran thwarted former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's trip to Guatemala, seizing his passport and giving him a travel ban.
The Iranian regime has displayed his banners, posters and dozens of statues and busts all around the country to honor its "hero", which brings home the sense of how far the regime is from understanding the prevailing mood in Iran and in the region.
The statues and busts made of him are far from descent and are often mocked by not only art critics, not only from art critics but also from the public. Notably, the controversial bust located at the Naghsh-e Jahan stadium in Esfahan garnered attention when it irked members of the Saudi al-Ittihad football team to the extent that they returned to Riyadh before their scheduled AFC championship match against Iran's Sepahan team.
This sculpture, like all others, failed to convey grandeur or military might and fell short of capturing the essence of an internationally recognized figure, even if that figure happened to be a notorious terrorist despised by many regional countries threatened by him before he was killed by a US drone strike in 2020. In short, it was far from being a piece of art.
The individuals who commissioned these sculptures are the same hardliners who orchestrated the torching of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad in January 2016. Whether placing Soleimani’s bust in a football stadium right before a match with a Saudi team was a mere coincidence or a deliberate attempt, the outcome is nothing short of a blatant sabotage effort aimed at undermining the newly restored Tehran-Riyadh relations.
The presence of the bust posed a security and public diplomacy challenge that may or may have not been meant to unfold before the eyes of millions of viewers waiting for the match on satellite televisions or online.
Even without the challenge, the slogans shouted by male spectators protesting the ban Iranian women from going to stadiums to watch football was embarrassing enough. Political commentator Abbas Abdi in Tehran likened the decision to prohibit women from entering stadiums to a Catch-22 situation, one that the Islamic Republic is unable to tolerate yet also cannot disregard under pressure from the international athletic community.
Social media users posted a video depicting a senior policeman telling women that only a limited handpicked group of female spectators would be allowed into the stadium.
As the Saudi team departed Iran without playing in Esfahan, Iran's hardliner media and politicians resorted to conspiracy theories to justify what had gone wrong. Some claimed that Ittihad did not want to face Sepahan, but this explanation failed to address why the bust was placed at the stadium, especially when the Saudis had previously protested the presence of Soleimani's photos at a news conference venue in the Iranian foreign ministry.
Was this another attempt by hardliners opposing the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia? While no one can say for certain, it is a plausible scenario, particularly given that some politicians have sought to undermine progress in Tehran-Riyadh relations, which some argue Iran only accepted under immense pressure from China and its regional interests.
Furthermore, Iran's hardliners are likely to attempt to sabotage the newly restored ties at every opportunity. Even Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, did not miss the chance during Unity Week, a period commemorating unity among various Muslim sects, to criticize Saudi Arabia for its efforts to improve relations with Israel.
Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, claimed to have spoken with his Saudi counterpart over the phone to address the issue, but he did not disclose the results of these discussions.
The chants of tens of thousands of spectators quickly shifted from demanding the removal of the bust to calls for regime change and ominous cries of 'Death to the dictator.'
In the words of an Iranian proverb, “Now bring your donkey and load the spilled beans,” or as another Persian saying goes: “An insane man throws a stone into a water well that a hundred wise men cannot retrieve."
The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily the views of Iran International
Stopped by IRGC intelligence officers, Ahmadinejad was traveling to a scientific and research symposium on water resource management, as a guest of the government and the University of Guatemala.
There has long been talk of a travel ban on Ahmadinejad, however, even before the latest designation. Back in 2021, rumors began of the ban being lifted when he took a trip to Dubai, visiting the Dubai Expo. The trip was cut short by Tehran after the former president began making statements claiming to be the voice of the Iranian people, a press conference in the UAE's party capital being canceled for fear of his gaining political capital and Ahmadinejad swiftly brought back to Iran.
However, the rumors may now be true, the former president designated by the US Department of the Treasury last month, facing allegations concerning the fate of Robert Levinson, a US national who vanished in 2006 after flying from Dubai to Iran's Kish Island. Despite no conclusive information regarding his whereabouts, the US government believes he may have died while in Iranian custody.
Ahmadinejad served as the President of Iran from 2005 to 2013. The DOT claims "During Ahmadinejad’s term in office, MOIS [Ministry of Intelligence and Security] was involved in the detention of several US nationals, including former Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) special agent Robert “Bob” Levinson, as well as three US hikers: Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal, and Sarah Shourd."
However, media outlets tied to the Islamic Republic have reported that it is "Guatemala's fragile political climate" and "security concerns" which led to the stoppage, Ahmadinejad a member of the Expediency Council and an official political figure. "He has been strongly advised against undertaking the journey, taking into account international sanctions and the risk of detention," claimed.
