Iran's Supreme Leader has linked the life of his regime to the atomic bomb

The official statistics reflected by the regime's media in recent days and weeks have been accompanied by alarming reports of workers committing suicide or self-immolation.

From 1 June to 20 August, 10 workers committed suicide, i.e. almost every 10 days a worker committed suicide and died, which is an increase compared to the same period last year. Of course, these statistics do not reflect all the facts. Poverty in Iran. 80% of Iranians are below the poverty line. It is no longer called the poverty line but the disaster line. This means a desperate attempt to survive.

Not a day goes by without the Iranian population being confronted with a sudden increase in the price of basic goods. According to the announcement made by the Iranian statistics centre last October, "over the past year, 40 basic commodities needed by the population have increased by 100%. Among household tableware, vegetable oil holds a record with 141%. The price of pasteurised butter has increased by 121%, cream by 120%, chicken by 119% and chickpeas by 112%" (Stareh-Sobh, 10 October 2021).

This trend continued after October and the situation will not improve next year. Similarly, "rice increased by 90% between March last year and March this year" (Stareh Sobh, 21 March 1400). 5 months later, the regime's media writes: "According to the recent report of the Iranian Center for Statistics, the point rate of inflation of the major group of 'food, beverages and tobacco' has reached 86%."

Meanwhile, in a 300-page report, the Iranian parliament reports 3,123,938,879 embezzlements in the Mubarakeh company under the control of Khamenei and his affiliated institutions. Everyone knows that all this money can only be obtained through looting and brutal exploitation, and the self-immolations mentioned above are the result of this exploitation.

The newspaper Etemad wrote on 4 December 1400: "In our country, if the embezzlement of funds was only yesterday 4,176,570,458 dollars, it is now in the thousands of billions".

The story of Foulad Mubarakeh is like an iceberg, where corruptions and violations are certainly not limited to this company.

Setareh Sobh on September 4, 1400 also wrote "the net profit of 20 large rentier companies in 2019 amounted to $8,488,964,346, which is equivalent to the budget deficit."

"During the entire 30-year period of post-war privatisation, $12,677,966,102 of the people's assets (at today's value) went into the pockets of the rentiers" (Sharq, 10 Feb 2022)."

According to the parliamentary investigation report of Mobarakeh steel in Isfahan, the income from the sale of products in 2021-2022 is equal to 4,906,937,394 dollars, which has increased by 88% compared to the same period of the previous year. What is interesting is that the amount of sales relative to tonnage in 2021-2022 has also decreased by 4% in 2019-2020.

One of the most important areas that played an important role in the serious disruption of the system of ownership and management of the country's economic enterprises, including this huge steel unit, and provided the opportunity for these terrible abuses, the so-called 'legal actions'. It was supposed to transfer to the people the shares of this and other enterprises included in this plan.

"Justice action" in all the big companies that was supposed to be in the hands of the people was nothing more than a deception and in fact today it is in the hands of Khamenei. The huge "justice action" project that started in 2007, changed the ownership and management structure of the country's largest industrial and economic enterprises (49 huge state-owned enterprises, 36 listed companies and 13 unlisted companies in the fields of steel, copper, cement, petrochemicals and refining, banking and telecommunications, etc.) and caused serious damage to the survival of these companies, the result is that Khamenei has gained total control of Iran's economy with the help of the IRGC and affiliated institutions.

The funding of the militias, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the police force, all the repressive institutions and foreign terrorism that maintain Khamenei's dictatorship is provided through this channel.

In such a context of institutionalised corruption and unparalleled poverty of the people, to expect to sign a nuclear deal is very naive. Because a dictator whose only red line is to maintain his government and who has tied the creation of the atomic bomb to the life of his regime, how can you expect him to give it up and in return for which the economy has collapsed, and the environment has been massacred. He has returned an old civilisation to the civilised world and to the former state.

Unless, as he said, Brigadier General Saadullah Zarei, one of the experts of the Quds Force, wrote in his note in the Keyhan newspaper close to Khamenei on August 24, 2022, that "in the Iranian nuclear issue, a mysterious current that has entered some of the country's specialised institutions is manipulating Iran's urgency and in this situation, it is trying to force the country to accept something that is not compatible with its national interests and even its security".

The meaning of this expert from the Quds Force think tank is that there is a strong current at the top of the regime that the explosive situation in society can explode at any time like a barrel of gunpowder and several thousand resistance units under the command of the MeK, the sworn enemies against the mullahs' regime, can direct the explosion of this barrel towards democratic change.

Therefore, only when Khamenei sees this emergency all at once will he be ready to give up the atomic bomb.

The regime may even sign a temporary deal to lift some sanctions and get money, to provide a safety valve for the explosive situation in society, and perhaps spend money to build missiles and complete the construction of nuclear bombs, and even reduce international pressure. While 80% of the population of the rich country of Iran is poor, Khamenei continues to enrich himself and buy time to reach the tipping point. It is very naive to believe that the religious dictator will give up the nuclear bomb. So far, a newspaper close to the regime has stated that the atomic bomb has damaged the Iranian economy by $32 trillion. As long as the Iranian regime's national interests are not the main ones, the hope of abandoning the atomic bomb is an illusion.