CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper, US envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, who are leading negotiations with Iran, boarded the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier on Feb. 7 in an apparent signal of military resolve to Iran.
A senior Iranian reformist has accused security bodies of deliberately escalating and even staging violence including alleged killings among their own ranks to legitimize a sweeping crackdown on protests, sharply disputing the official narrative blaming foreign actors.
Ali Shakouri-Rad said the protests on January 8 and 9 were a predictable outcome of years of accumulated social discontent, even if the scale of the response surprised political factions and security institutions alike.
Shakouri-Rad rejected remarks promoted by official media that foreign intelligence services or opposition networks orchestrated the violence.
“I do not believe this, and I think many people do not believe it either,” he said, referring to claims that Israel’s Mossad or networks associated with exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi were responsible for the violence.
Shakouri-Rad said the breadth of demonstrations across almost 400 cities exceeded expectations across Iran’s political spectrum. “Reformists, conservatives and the security institutions did not think this many people would respond to Reza Pahlavi’s call,” he said.
