Samira Mohyeddin on Iran

This interview took place on Jan 12, 2025, and responds to the evolving situation in Iran at that moment.

CÉLINE: Thank you so much, Samira, for taking the time to speak to us about what’s going on in Iran right now. Not that it just started yesterday, but it has escalated to a place where international communities can no longer ignore what’s going on in Iran. Can you tell me what has changed in the past couple of weeks? What has accelerated? How it accelerated so quickly, and the dangers that the protesters are facing?

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: First of all you hit the nail on the head when you said this didn’t start yesterday, and it’s not new. Iranians have been protesting for decades. But what happened was that on December 28 in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar dozens of merchants came out to protest because Iran’s currency had fallen to like 147,000 to one US dollar, which is wild, right? And from there, it just escalated to other towns, people came out into the streets. And it went from calling for some sort of economic reprieve, anti corruption, and these types of things became calls for the entire regime to come down. And again, that’s not new either.

What is new, though, is the level of violence that is being used by not only the protesters, but also the government. They clamped down hard. The internet has been shut off for 96 hours now. It’s very hard to verify the numbers, but we do know there have been hundreds of protesters killed, and at the same time, you have people like Mike Pompeo on New Year’s day coming out on X.com and writing “Happy New Year to the Iranian in the streets and the Mossad agents walking beside them.”

CÉLINE: That’s great that you mentioned that. What’s happening right now with the coverage on on Iran, it’s being hijacked, and it’s being also manipulated in international media, which is fueling the left or progressives against one another. I don’t know what to use which word, but it’s fueling a sort of a schism in what we call the progressives or the Left, because ultimately, the way we are covering what’s going on in Iran is being hijacked by the right and also fueled by the left that is sort of attacking one another. Can you tell me what is actually happening — are the Mossad on the street? Is this fake?

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: I don’t think it’s fake news that Israel has a hand in what is happening in Iran. You have the heritage minister of Israel coming out in one of the most read newspapers in Israel. This is Israel Hayom, saying our agents are on the ground. He actually says we have a hand in this. Okay, so it’s not that we’re making this up. It’s that officials, Israeli officials, are attesting to this. And so how does that impact people in Iran? Well, it impacts people in Iran, because then you have the Chief Justice of Iran, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i saying, “We know Israel has a hand in this. And unlike last time,” this is a direct quote from him, “unlike last time, we will not show any clemency, we will strike hard.”

And so when you have these bellicose statements being made by American and Israeli officials that directly impacts people on the streets of Iran who are risking their lives to come out now, in terms of this schism that you’re seeing, well, it’s a very difficult time to be a progressive Iranian. It’s a very difficult time. Now to be someone who cares about what is happening in Gaza and cares about what is happening in Iran, they want to split us apart. That’s the plan. If you go and watch right now, like I do, if you go and look at Israeli influencers, they will say things like, “where are all the encampments for the Iranians? The left doesn’t care about Iranians being killed.” These are very deliberate talking points. Don’t forget that Israel is conducting a genocide. There is nothing that Israel wants more than to avert attention away from Gaza and onto Iran, and Israeli influencers are doing that work for Israel now. You’ll also see Iranians. I’m not going to let Iranians off the hook here. You’ll also see Iranians saying, “Why don’t the Palestinians care about us? They never say anything about us.” And this churlish comparison between people who are going through a genocide and people who are rising up against their government, there is no comparison here. This is not the oppression Olympics. Let’s not do this. It’s so dangerous. We can hold two thoughts at once. And guess what?

I have enough hate in my heart for Israel and the Islamic Republic. I can do both.

CÉLINE: When groups like Slow Factory, for example, or other progressives are supporting the Iranian protesters, they are faced with accusations of being Zionist. They’re faced with accusations of not being pro-Palestinian anymore. And what’s happening right now is the agenda to separate the movement has already happened and is in process. There is a position of the western “Left” that is denying the protesters in Iran legitimacy and agency to demand their rights. Because if you listen to Iranians that are living in Iran they have been enduring 45 years of oppression under a government that not only is pressuring them financially, but also from a religious point of view, from an ideological point of view.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Living under a totalitarian theocracy, which is exactly what Iran is, is a very different than looking at Iran as just an anti-Imperial entity, which is what a lot of people on the Left want to do. You see, Iran acts as a bulwark against American hegemony in the region, and it positions itself this way, very decidedly, and has done so from inception — the call Death to America was happening from the inception of the Islamic Republic. It didn’t just, you know, evolve. It’s become the hallmark of this government. The Islamic Republic uses the Palestinian cause to promulgate itself as some sort of anti-Imperial, altruistic state.

And you know, one of the things I always say to people who tout this line of, why don’t the Palestinians care? Or some people say, if we get rid of the Iranian government, there will be no resistance to the occupation of Palestine. But why don’t you ever say, hey, if we got rid of the occupation, the Iranian government wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Why isn’t it ever the inverse? Get rid of the occupation and get rid of the Islamic Republic’s excuse. That’s the route we should take.

CÉLINE: Some may look at the end of the occupation as something that is a long term project, and that perhaps the Islamic Republic may fall before the end of the occupation of Palestine. Right? Because the American right is pushing for it, and mainstream media is also supporting it. At the same time, because the population in Iran is rising up, the masses that are on the streets that are relentless to topple their government, there is a fear that a power vacuum may occur, because this may happen before the end of the occupation. Therefore, there is fear that the occupation expands to Iran, or at least the United States takes over Iran, or some kind of other occupier that will be entering into Iran, occupying Iran. How do you see this?

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: That’s exactly the fear. I mean, I asked people on Instagram to tell me what their biggest fear is. And three things came up. I had over 400 responses, but the three responses that came up the most were:

They don’t want Iran to become an Iraq or Syria or Libya. They’re worried about separatist movements, and they don’t want a civil war. As much as we see people on the streets of Iran protesting against their government, there’s 90 million people in Iran. Iran is a massive country. It’s the size of Western Europe, you can’t just come and take over Iran. Okay, it’s not Venezuela. That’s not going to happen. So they have about 20% of the population support right now. 20% of 90 million is a lot of people, and they also have all of the arms, and they have everything. So if people think that this government’s going to fall overnight, that’s not going to happen. Governments don’t go away because Elon Musk changes the emoji of the flag, okay, it doesn’t work this way. You have to see people inside the government break away from the government. You have to see that happening. You have to see a lot more numbers of people on the streets, it’s just not happening right now. And there is a vacuum inside the country, in civil society, there are no people who have built any sort of structures or groups like unions, that doesn’t exist. It’s not happening. The Islamic Republic has been very effective at doing away with these structures.

The Iranian people have tried many different ways to change the government. They’ve gone to the ballot box in 2009, when they thought voting them out would work. It didn’t. They went on the streets. In 1999 the students went on the streets. Again in 2009 during the Green Movement, 2017, 2018, 2019, every year, successively, there have been protests in Iran. The difference is that you now have a situation where Israel and America have come out and said, we have a hand in this. And the world is watching America behave in a way that shows their attitude is “We can bomb anywhere. We can steal any leader. We can do anything.”

So there is a real fear among Iranians that they could become another Syria. One of the things I really want to point out here is that when Syria fell, finally, after 14 years and Assad went off to Moscow, what happened? Israel bombed Syria for two days straight, making sure that it effectively has no military. It has no weapons. It has no way of guarding itself, and now Israel has come in. It has stolen Syria’s water. It has completely taken over the Golan Heights and other parts of Syria. So yeah, Iranians have very good reason to be afraid.

CÉLINE: And the United States have put in charge someone who was in the ISIS as a ISIS commander that was on the most wanted list of the FBI as the leader of Syria, which is the irony,

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: and who was Iran fighting Iran was on the front lines with fighting Daesh, of course. And there is a real fear. I just brought up the separatist movements, those areas along like Baluchestan, East Azerbaijan, all of those areas there have separatist movements. They want to separate from Iran. They’ve said this numerous times. They want to make an East Kurdistan, you know. So there is also this fear of splitting Iran up. And you had Israeli officials. Don’t forget, in June, when Israel conducted its 12 day war and killed over 1000 Iranians, they said Iran is too big to control, so they will separate it.

CÉLINE: Absolutely. And again, this is good that you bring up the Kurds in Iran, who are a massive movement in this uprising, right? And also the Women Life Freedom movement there was also led by the Kurds.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: No, what is happening in Iran right now has nothing to do with that movement, unfortunately. What is happening is that we are seeing very fascistic right wing elements trying to take control of this movement, particularly in the diaspora, and people who yell out Woman Life Freedom are being drowned out. I’m very worried about what is to come if this government goes because we do not have the right systems in place. And as you said, there will be a vacuum. What I fear is Iran becoming a secular but very authoritarian, nationalistic, fascistic place. That is my fear. Like Assad on crack, is what I fear.

CÉLINE: And my last question would be, Iran and Lebanon are deeply connected. What happens in Iran is going to impact what’s going to happen in Lebanon, and as Lebanese people, we are watching what’s going on very, very closely, and we are very worried as well. Because, you know, Iran funds a lot of militia, mainly Hezbollah for now. But what do you see as this relationship between Iran and Lebanon, is it going to turn into this big war with all of you know, Israel invading Lebanon. Israel invading Iran taking over?

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Israel has been bombing southern Lebanon, non stop. It has not stopped bombing and you can see right now they’ve started to build a wall for themselves, the Israelis. It’s massive, and they’ve encroached on Lebanese land. I don’t know what will happen to Hezbollah, though. I mean, Iran funds Hezbollah directly. Many people see Hezbollah as the resistance, the only resistance that really remains and that is the other thing is that people, anti-imperialists, see Iran as the only resistance that remains in the region. Don’t forget, the only country that bombed Israel is Iran. They’re the only ones that have bombed Israel. They bombed Tel Aviv. I mean, we never thought that we would see such a thing. And Iran really takes pride in that. The Iranian government takes pride in that. They take pride in the fact that, when it comes to the Palestinian cause, they are the only ones that have really pushed back on Israel, whereas other Arab neighbors, you know, Morocco, Dubai, I mean, they’ve just been laughing it up, right? Wanting to do deals with Israel. So there’s a lot going on. It’s very difficult to say what’s going to happen, or that’s going to happen.

CÉLINE: Anything else you want to say regarding the international community’s reaction to Iran. What would you advise?

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN: Really, I want to tell people who give a shit about liberation to care about what is happening in Iran. I know that it’s difficult when you see the most right wing, disgusting extreme people like Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo being all of a sudden your bedfellow. But don’t negate the people of Iran. Just because these people are trying to hijack their voices, we can’t allow this to happen. And it shouldn’t mean that we uplift the Iranian government.