The coronavirus could spell the end of Iran's regime, and that's not good

Nobody can predict what might be the consequences of this state of affairs – thousands, perhaps even millions, of Iranians may die.

By DANIEL DANA
A member of Iranian Border Guards wears a protective face mask, following an outbreak of the new coronavirus, inside the Shalamcha Border Crossing, after Iraq shut a border crossing to travellers between Iraq and Iran, Iraq March 8, 2020 (photo credit: REUTERS/ESSAM AL-SUDANI)
A member of Iranian Border Guards wears a protective face mask, following an outbreak of the new coronavirus, inside the Shalamcha Border Crossing, after Iraq shut a border crossing to travellers between Iraq and Iran, Iraq March 8, 2020
(photo credit: REUTERS/ESSAM AL-SUDANI)
It is not really an exaggeration to claim that more than 95% of the Iranian population are convinced today that the 1979 Shi’ite Islamic Revolution was an absolute mistake with horrible consequences for themselves as well as for people in the Middle East and the rest of the world.
In view of what is happening today in Iran as a result of the regime’s inaction and absence of preventive measures to combat the alarming spread of the coronavirus pandemic, nobody can predict what might be the consequences of this state of affairs – thousands, perhaps even millions, of Iranians may die.
A high percentage of the 90 million Iranians in Iran and throughout the world are increasingly convinced that the end of the pandemic will also signal the end of the current regime.
There are two reasons why a coup d’etat led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against the Islamic Republic of Iran Army is not possible to contemplate. The IRGC has controlled the national power and the economy and more ever since the beginning of the revolution, and secondly, because of its loss of national dignity and legitimacy as a result of which the great majority of Iranians do not trust it and now hate it.
For example, Qasem Soleimani, who was recently killed and who headed the IRGC’s Quds Force, was responsible for the deaths of millions of Syrian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi, Afghan and Iranian people, and was a symbol of terrorism in the eyes of the vast majority of the Iranian freedom-seekers.
Interestingly enough, the general population in Iran has come to the conclusion that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his current successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are basically identical with the 12 historical imams who preceded them in Shi’ite religious belief.
According to the history of Islam, the first imam, Ali, the cousin of Muhammad was reputed to have killed 700 Jews with his sword in one day because they refused to accept Muhammad’s message! This is why the great majority of the Iranian people will in the foreseeable future unanimously get rid of the Shi’ite version of Islam and become the first Islamic nation to reject Shi’ite Islam as being incompatible with the general culture of Iran.
From the very beginning, I, personally, while still a law student in Paris, following Khomeini’s arrival in the French capital, was the first to openly and officially express opposition and distress against his revolution and was one of the small minority at that time to oppose him and his revolutionary message.
Only later did the general population in Iran realize how right I had been from the very beginning and only gradually come to see how wrong they had been in their favorable assessment of Khomeini and his Shi’ite Islamic Revolution. Today they increasingly recognize that the regime practiced a system of total corruption and misuse of public funds to finance terrorism and dissent in the Middle East and other parts of the world.
Due to the loss of respect for Iran throughout the world, including the lack of respect for the Iranian passport, and the association of Iranians with terror, as well as the decline in the Iranian currency and the losses of the Iranian banks, no fewer than 10 million Iranians have over the years left Iran to settle elsewhere.
It is also clear that in Middle Eastern nations such as Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, there is increasing understanding that the impact of the Islamic Revolution on them has been a largely negative one.
It is safe to say that in recent times in Iran there has never been such an outpouring of love and respect and admiration for the State of Israel, as the only democracy in the region, and for the Western culture and mentality in general among the many underground anti-regime groups existing in Iran today.
The terrorist regime in Iran obviously wishes to remain in power and will do anything to keep the masses from demonstrating or openly expressing dissatisfaction. Therefore it regards the coronavirus pandemic simply as a convenient means to keep the population quiet and unable to openly express opposition, quietly causing death and fear, whereas only a few months ago some 1,500 Iranians were killed in the streets for openly demonstrating their dissatisfaction with the regime.
People shouted almost in verse in the streets “No Islam, no Koran, both atonement for Iran,” and also “Our enemy is here, not in Israel or the USA or elsewhere.” Many young Iranians believe the end of the pandemic will also inevitably mean the end of a regime that proved itself to be in effect anti-Iranian.  
Statistically, we understand that while the coronavirus has caused the deaths of fewer than 2% of those infected in China and elsewhere, in Iran this is likely to amount to as much as 30% of those infected because the regime is purposely not doing as other countries are doing to combat the disease.
Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, stated that Iran will “not accept any offer of help with the basic needs from the United States in fighting the coronavirus.” Officials claim that because of the US financial embargo on Iran they are unable to purchase basic materials to fight the virus, despite the fact that US officials have repeatedly stated that food and medicine are not included in the embargo.
The medical services of the regime have apparently falsely attributed the deaths of hundreds of citizens in different cities to other diseases and did not give the real reason of the death as being due to the coronavirus.
Many Iranian intellectuals regard the pandemic as a symbol of the shame of the regime, just as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau and Buchenwald eternally symbolize the Nazis’ shame. They have urgently requested the World Health Organization to intervene to stop a coronavirus catastrophe of Holocaust proportions in the near future with millions of dead bodies in Iranian streets.
 
The writer, who has lived in Israel for the past 25 years, was born in Tehran and is a world authority on Persian culture and is the founder of the Peace and Love Movement for Iranian expatriates in Israel and elsewhere in the world. He told his amazing life story in his autobiography Abayef: A Bridge Builder Between Faiths.