Pezeshkian blames Iran’s woes on mismanagement, not US pressure
Iran’s economic and social difficulties stem from mismanagement by its own officials rather than from US pressure, President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday.
Iran’s economic and social difficulties stem from mismanagement by its own officials rather than from US pressure, President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday.
“We are lying on wealth yet remain poor because of ourselves — the managers, officials, politicians and lawmakers — not America,” Pezeshkian said at a meeting of education managers in the central city of Isfahan. He urged local authorities to depend on people’s capacities instead of waiting for the state to act. “If you rely on the government, nothing will change in fifty years. But if you trust the people, you can achieve anything,” he said.
Pezeshkian said the growing desire among young Iranians to emigrate was troubling and reflected a loss of faith in the country’s future. “Why should our children think about leaving?” he asked. “Going abroad to study and learn is not bad, but believing that they must go and never return is a disaster,” he said. The president urged young people to gain knowledge overseas and bring it back to serve their homeland.
Warning over internal conflict
Iran’s main threat comes from domestic divisions rather than from the United States or Israel, Pezeshkian said. “I am not afraid of America or Israel. I fear our own disputes,” he said. “If we fight each other, we do not need enemies. We destroy ourselves.”
Pezeshkian voiced similar concerns on Wednesday, saying at a cabinet meeting that political infighting was a greater danger than foreign hostility, the state news agency IRNA reported. “I have no serious concern about plots by the United States or others, because their hostility is obvious,” he said. “But I am deeply worried about false divisions and efforts to blacken everything inside the country.”
Hardline lawmakers have opened impeachment moves against four of his cabinet ministers this month in what critics say is an attempt to paralyze his government. Pezeshkian, a relative moderate, has urged cooperation to restore public trust and ease growing hardship under renewed sanctions.
The book, titled “Israel Annihilation Plan: The Islamic Republic's Strategy for the Destruction of the Zionist Regime,” was presented at an event in Iran's holy city of Qom.
The presentation suggested that despite a Gaza ceasefire which could tamp down region-wide conflicts over the past two years, Tehran was far from retiring its hostility and harsh rhetoric toward its regional arch-enemy.
Alireza Panahian, a cleric close to supreme leader Ali Khamenei, praised the authors during the unveiling ceremony, calling the book a valuable step in elaborating on the views of Khamenei and his predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini.
'Khamenei a hero'
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Khomeini, Iran has made opposition to Israel a core feature of its state ideology.
Under its founding leader, Israel was denounced as a “Zionist regime” lacking legitimacy, and it was cast as a symbol of Western imperialism in the Muslim world that must be annihilated.
Over time, this rhetoric has been echoed and expanded by his successor Khamenei, who has repeatedly called Israel a “cancerous tumor” and forecast its eventual demise.
In the ceremony held at Qom's Shrine of Hazrat Fatima Masoumeh, Panahian said “in the aftermath of the 12-day war (with Israel in June), the Supreme Leader’s name is recognized worldwide as that of a hero who stood up against the global order of domination."
Israel launched a surprise military offensive in June, striking Iran’s military and nuclear facilities as well as targeting top officials. Iran retaliated with salvos of drones and ballistic missiles.
'Israel's Irreparable defeat'
Author Ali-Asghar Mohammadi-Rad told attendees the book delved into "the theoretical and strategic foundations of Iran's plan to end the life of this regime, as well as an analysis of Israel's irreparable defeats in the recent battle."
"In the final chapter of the book, the connection between the recent 12-day war and the Islamic Republic of Iran's grand strategy of collapsing the Zionist regime is explained, and it is shown that this battle is part of the process of realizing that same strategic plan," he added, according to Tasnim news agency.
The book's back-cover blurb praises the October 7, 2023, attack by Tehran-backed Hamas militants as "a wake-up call for Iran and the entire world."
"The global public—poisoned by the stench of lies and worldliness spread by their rulers—needed to hear the cry of Palestine’s oppression, and the fabricated oppression of (Jewish people in) the Holocaust should sound for them as a bell of disgrace and a cry for freedom," it said.
