Johan Westerholm: Irans fokus flyttas från utlandet till inrikes förtryck

Johan Westrom security policy expert and editor-in-chief of the opinion pages Welcome Thank you Protests in Iran have been ongoing for some time now CBS is reporting up to 20 000 dead The Sunday Times reports on 330 000 injured What distinguishes these demonstrations from previous uprisings in Iran You have multiple parameters From the demonstrators' perspective you have them So this is the first time that traders and merchants have successfully been mobilized This has become in part a receipt of dissatisfaction with the regime across Iran Initially introduced as Shah Meinei chairman of the Watch Council He had suspected there were economic problems and tried to calm things down during the first 24 to 48 hours But the merchants and traders were not satisfied with merely combing through the offerings and that we're printing more money but it's actually a much broader dissatisfaction Oh the disappointment takes me an hour to unravel what it's really about But the infrastructure has been inadequate for at least 40 years But this is the first time people have actually reached the merchants Looking back historically at 1979 when the Shah was overthrown that is Reza Pahlavi was deposed It became possible precisely because Ayatollah Khomeini was able to mobilize the merchants at that moment This is therefore a crucial group—merchants market traders and all those people And that was what made the Islamic Revolution possible Thus it affects far broader segments of the population as evidenced by the number of fatalities You claim that CBS reports 20 000 dead and 330 000 injured My sources in Iran— I have my own sources in Iran— estimate the death toll to be somewhere between 50 000 and 60 000 You're saying three times as many so we might be talking about a million injured Indeed this also indicates that the uprising is far more extensive and profound than previous ones From the rebels' perspective then the regime is shaken but has not budged So she hasn't moved an inch Yes this is evident in other places too—particularly this strict internet shutdown Previously Starlink and other satellite networks have been used for reporting primarily through Twitter Sharing videos and such has been impossible this time around Information has been released in a very sporadic manner and when it has it came from satellite receivers located near the border that is the border with Iran or the border with Syria or Turkey Oh this is exactly it—this is precisely because as we've seen during this period and especially following the recent uprisings in 2022 Thus from the Iranian state authorities' side the network has been rebuilt or extensive infrastructure has been restructured Since the man owns the entire network he can simply flip the switch Honestly they've invested an extraordinary amount of technology into disrupting Starlink terminals There are currently around 10 000 Starlink terminals in Iran but they can actually be disrupted But it requires quite substantial equipment—Russian-Chinese jamming technology is used to disrupt these signals Oh that requires enormous resources Here it can be said that since 2022 the state and the revolutionary garden have invested a great deal of resources I must suppress this kind of uprising and control the flow of information According to my sources I was speaking and I had a column in Epoch Times when I spoke with my old interpreter Ali He came from Iran He's a guy who's anything but afraid of himself It was him and me who went and met Hisbollas leadership here in 2016 I think that was it It's not a fait accompli but he says that Johan has given up hope of ever being able to return to Iran He states that Iran has still not released all the violent capital it wielded against its own population Thus the full force contained within the revolutionary garden has still not been fully unleashed against the population So what I’d say given the information I have the details leaking through other channels and what I’ve gathered through my own sources Once again the uprising will be crushed but the time for patience is running out Every time we've seen an uprising like this—2019 2022 2025 2026—the regime and its foundations are shaken more deeply Otherwise we are forced to resort to even stronger countermeasures or retaliatory actions Men as Ali said this regime will demand blood before the people's blood will begin to move They haven’t even received enough blood to be injured yet Unfortunately Mullorna's power is weakened as is the power of the Revolutionary Guard following the war with Israel and also after the U S operation against the nuclear program We've witnessed major American troop movements in the Middle East It appears the U S and Trump have also managed to halt the executions of protesters in Iran What can be said about U S behavior and how likely is an American intervention in Iran It depends on what you mean by intervention Like most countries the United States has drawn numerous lessons from its intervention in Iraq It was an intervention that the entire world paid a very high price for Once Saddam Hussein had been toppled the message to the entire justice system police judiciary and military was to go home These services are no longer in demand now we must replace this administration with something new It has only led to clan rule chaos and a stew of terror That's the same rationale being used right now in Venezuela—you backed Maduro but kept the rest of the administration intact Now you have something to negotiate with especially in a country like Venezuela where the judiciary police and military have become the sole instruments of oppression against the population You can't just dissolve it or you'll end up with uncontrolled militias So then one has the Trump administration which I believe is entirely correct one preserves that administration intact and attempts to restore democracy through other means Venezuela's collapse has been discussed for decades as a result of communist dictatorship This Venezuelan people must learn what democracy truly means The same applies to Iran For the past 45 years the Iranian people have experienced nothing but a de facto theocratic dictatorship Before that Shah was not unknown for his democratic disposition no one can claim otherwise even though the country looked different Here the goal is to find a model that causes the entire state apparatus to collapse completely into total anarchy Let's take a closer look at what other parallel timelines were like in this very region—how was the ice sheet's growth Yes the Islamic State's major territorial gains were not achieved through conventional battles except for the battle of Idlib and a few others But this actually happened through negotiations In other words IS rolled in and declared that from now on we're in charge but we won't change the structure of society Instead the administration reports to us That's how IS took over entire villages and cities without firing a single shot It was the same thing we saw in Syria when Assad fell—everything collapsed with astonishing ease That's the issue—right now the way the U S or the Western coalition as a whole is handling this situation we're not nearly as united as we should be given what's unfolding in the current escalation of the trade conflict We need to find a mechanism where the old parts of the old administration preferably all of it can remain intact while we simply remove the leadership layer Yet it still functions as administration—tax collection healthcare schools social care all the essentials that hold a civic society together That way we could achieve a power transition a shift of leadership to a new generation The problem we face is that there's no established opposition ready to hand over power For this the Revolutionary Guard has been exceptionally adept at eliminating dissidents in the West and opposition figures in Iran Crown Prince Pahlavi though he claims authority is widely recognized across such broad segments of society that he could serve as the unifying force we need The Marxist Kurds in western Iran are just as much opponents of the Shah now as they were in 1979 It's essentially a Marxist armed militia and with perhaps 40 different special interests you'd need to find a mechanism to manage them What happens now You need to find a mechanism that allows you to retain control while also identifying a way to replace the management layer with something else The United States has been highly reluctant to deploy ground troops in the Middle East since the Iraq War yet Iran remains one of the world's largest financiers and coordinators of terrorism The LVU campaign against Sweden originates from there Much of the radicalization leading to the terrorist attack in Brussels came from there Surveillance of the diaspora was conducted for example through the Imam Ali Islamic Center How would this even look and how could the US possibly pull something like this off in Iran You must precisely eliminate key incumbents but above all you must identify and bring forward new leadership with realistic potential to unite local and regional authorities as certain agencies are already on board to help resolve the issue Just this as I've described—society must keep functioning A key factor is ensuring the authorities responsible for water supply maintain its continuity because as long as that works food supply will continue to function to a reasonable extent So people's ability to cook food grow crops and things like that Therefore this is an incredibly difficult undertaking if it's to succeed given the planning constraints It's hard to assess for everyone and every situation but here some kind of Marshall Plan is needed for Iran—just to break the stagnation There's a significant difference here because we're dealing with those levels and that's precisely what's driving much of this revolt—the basic societal services aren't working I'd say those with a good memory will note that the situation in Iran in 2026 bears a striking resemblance to that in Pakistan in 2007—exactly 19 years ago when water supplies just collapsed The situation had deteriorated into such chaos that Pakistan was on the brink of becoming a failed state—just one city's collapse away I know the U S stepped in to prevent total breakdown restoring water supply and reviving healthcare services Otherwise we would have had a failed state in the form of Pakistan which possessed nuclear weapons and nobody wanted that The average person may not remember this but were in a similar situation in 2006–2007 The same resources previously directed at Sweden in the form of wage-hike patrols and hybrid warfare—disinformation and the like—are now needed domestically namely for internal repression It will identify relatives which relatives remain in Iran and where those individuals stand The Iranian regime these Imam Ali mosques and the Shia communities associated with them Swedish Shia communities have now lost their government funding They have nine mosques and several full-time imams which continue to constitute in my view and assessment a significant problem You'll find Turkey and religious leaders there and likewise Iran and vice versa Well then we're basically talking From Erdogan's side I'm bold enough to say he essentially planned a genocide The issue we need to address in my view Of the ministers mentioned I believe Paul Jonsson is the one most likely to have a flaw Karl-Oskar Bolin is exactly who he is based on the best understanding he has Our mental preparedness is strong at the political level Beyond that I'm not sure how it stands in terms of resources—I'd certainly like to see more Heavy criticism has been directed at Sweden and Swedish actors for doing so little to support Iran When compared to the demonstrations surrounding this issue they are also significantly smaller than those seen during the Israel-Palestine conflict CBS reports 20 000 dead you're talking about 60 Why is there such a huge discrepancy and why don't we see the same level of engagement here in Sweden I don't know which alliance I should support but when we look at the demonstrations at Odenplan in Stockholm—pro-Hamas anti-Western values and especially targeting Elon Musk and Twitter—things become clear The organizers behind this network can essentially be described as pro-Shea and pro-Tehran AR has roots in Iran they have a list of names that still suggest some opposition to the mullahs but they are even more opposed to Israel For obvious reasons since this network behind these very demonstrations against Hamas is an Iranian one and they hate Jews more than they love their own children I don’t believe there’s truly genuine support for the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom not in the way we’ve demonstrated commitment to other freedom movements Those demonstrations you're talking about at Odenplan are clearly pro-Palestine rallies You claim many from these organizations come to support Hamas and also back Iran How much funding and support do these demonstrations in Sweden receive from Iran and could that change now Sweden Germany the Netherlands Belgium Norway Finland and Denmark have different oversight on this matter and even France will be returning Drive opinion and invest in destabilizing forces