Iran Hardliners Attack Ex-President's Call For Serious Reforms

A prominent Iranian reformist figure says the Iranian regime should be worried as even ex-President Mohammad Khatami says that reformism in Iran has reached a deadlock.

The comment by Mohammad Javad Haqshenas comes as several conservative media outlets have attacked Khatami for his statement about the end of hope in reformismand his warning that disillusionment about reforms and the advocacy of regime change might lead to chaos, civil war and bloodshed.

In his statement on Sunday, Khatami had called on the government to meet the people's demands and prevent a revolutionary change.

Haqshenas said in an interview with Rouydad24 that Khatami's statement, which was issued on the 44thanniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution sends a message that the Islamic Republic cannot be reformed. He added that the regime should take Khatami's statement as a warning and begin to reform itself from within.

On social media many argued that the fact that Khatami, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and former deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh have issued more or less similar statements warning that not reforming the system could lead to havoc was not a sheer coincidence. They suggested that the move was coordinated from within the system to scare the people of the consequences of the Islamic Republic's collapse.

Haqshenas on the other hand argued that reformists were expelled from the system as conservatives took over the executive, judiciary and legislative bodies. By doing so, the hard core of the regime made sure that it got rid of the challenges posed by reformists for good.

Meanwhile, Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of hardline daily Kayhan said in an interview with the IRGC-linked Fars News Agency that "khatami's statement was no different from the US, UK and Israeli positions in support of recent protests in Iran. "Apart from cutting the throat of the police and attacks on the people in the streets, what have the rioters done that was different from what Khatami is suggesting?" Shariatmadari asked, questioning Khatami's support for protesters. 

Resorting to his usual way of distorting the truth and putting words in others' mouth, Shariatmadari also asked: "Isn't it strange that Khatami as a cleric advocates the culture of nudity and supports the protesters' attack on veiled women as a beautiful act and a move toward a better future?" He added that "Khatami has suggested to the officials to be grateful for the rioters' presence in society."

Meanwhile, he once again accused Khatami of being linked to Israel and US entrepreneur George Soros without presenting any evidence.

In another development, conservative daily Resalat charged that Khatami's statement was "the starting point of a new phase in sedition." Sedition is the word Iranian hardliners use for the 2009 post-election unrest that nearly overthrew the Islamic government by rallying over three million people in Tehran against the ultraconservative establishment.

Another hardliner daily that attacked Khatami was IRGC's mouthpiece Javan newspaper that charged,"Regime change is the essence of the statements by Khatami and Mousavi." This comes while Khatami in a very elaborate way expressed his opposition to a regime change in Iran although Mousavi's call for a new Constitution could be easily interpreted as a call for regime change.

Javan wrote that both Khatami and Mousavi demanded regime change, undermining legal institutions in their statements. However, one of them [presumably Mousavi] demanded a hard regime change while the other called for a soft change of the regime. They are the two sides of the same coin."