Referencing U.S.-led attempts to demilitarize Iran’s regional terrorist proxies, the regime cleric claimed it was paving the way to colonization.

By JNS

A senior Iranian cleric on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to attack U.S. interests, saying that waging jihad against the “infidel enemy” was a religious obligation “for anyone capable of carrying it out.”

“It is incumbent upon the free people of the region not to remain silent in the face of the aggression of the Zionist-American enemy,” said Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, a top member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, in a statement carried by the semi-official Mehr News outlet.

“America is a hostile infidel enemy, and jihad against it with all one’s strength is obligatory for every free and faithful believer who adheres to the rulings of Islam,” said Araki, who was reportedly among the candidates to replace Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei following his Feb. 28 death in the opening strike of “Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion,” the joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against the Tehran regime.

Referencing U.S.-led attempts to demilitarize Iran’s regional terrorist proxies, the regime cleric claimed that “American arrogance has launched a conspiracy to disarm the courageous mujahideen [jihadists] in Iraq and Lebanon … to pave the way for the complete domination of colonialism over all these lands.”

“Disarming resistance forces is, without doubt, an act of weakening the resistance and assisting hostile unbelievers and arrogant powers, particularly the Zionist-American alliance,” he concluded.

The Iranian regime rejected a Qatari proposal to hold direct talks with the United States to bridge outstanding differences, Axios reported on Thursday, citing regional and U.S. sources.

Following renewed U.S. strikes against Iranian regime targets, Qatari mediators traveled to Tehran on Wednesday for meetings with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other senior officials to revive talks aimed at ending the war, according to the report.

Iranian and U.S. officials held separate talks with Qatari interlocutors in Doha over the past two days, the regional source said.

Two U.S. officials told Axios that Washington hoped its retaliatory airstrikes would persuade Tehran to respond to President Donald Trump’s proposals, adding that his threats were part of the same effort.

“The deal is still on the table, but the president is ready to make the Iranians pay a price if they continue to delay and drag their feet,” one official said.

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The Assembly provides the religious justification for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ actions and those leading the Corps adhere to the ruling clergy; they mutually reinforce one another.

By Elliot Nazar, Middle East Forum

As the United States deploys military assets for potential military action against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Washington faces a strategic choice.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may be the tip of the iceberg, but the Assembly of Experts—an eighty-eight-member hand-picked clerical body—remains “locked and loaded” to choose a successor to replace him and sustain the Islamic governing system.

The Islamic Republic’s constitution charges the Assembly of Experts to select and supervise the Islamic Republic’s supreme leadership.

The Shi’i jurists who constitute its chairman, leadership board, and internal committees ensure the continuation of clerical rule under the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist).

Candidates for this body must be senior Shi’i scholars who pass an examination and receive approval from the Guardian Council. This body is influenced and appointed by the Supreme Leader himself, with five members serving on the Assembly.

The Assembly’s proper role was exposed following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Assembly amended the Islamic constitution to allow Khomeini’s chosen successor, Khamenei, to qualify and become the next Supreme Leader, despite his lack of top religious credentials.

This action established the entity as less a deliberative body and more a rubber stamp to normalize backroom deals negotiated among the supreme leader and the heads of various political factions.

Even today, the Supreme Leader influences the Assembly, which expresses support for the regime’s repressive behavior at home and abroad and a hatred for both the West and Israel.

Many of its members frame state violence as a religious obligation, providing justifications for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ support for terror proxies in the region and internal security forces’ actions against peaceful protestors.

Take, for example, the Assembly’s current chairman, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani: He has decades-long ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and has declared messaging platforms like Telegram religiously forbidden.

Other prominent members include Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a Guardian Council member who often leads Friday prayer in Tehran and has called for the execution of protestors.

Ayatollah Seyyed Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, another member of the Assembly of Experts, vowed that uranium enrichment for the regime’s nuclear program would never halt despite U.S. demands.

Whether or not the Assembly of Experts is independent or a rubber stamp, it is still the body through which any successor claims legitimacy.

As Khamenei nears his eighty-seventh birthday, he has faced a number of health crises. Succession looms.

Ayatollahs such as Ahmed Hosseini Khorasani, who has praised the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the armed guardians of the Islamic Republic, and Abbas Ka’bi, who endorsed amputations of toes and fingers for protesters in the aftermath of the 2022 Iranian protests, seek to outdo their colleagues in terms of their conservative Islamic beliefs as they position themselves to replace Khamenei.

Those who claim that removing Khamenei in the event of a military action would trigger an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coup only address part of the machinations that will mark the Tehran power struggle.

The Assembly provides the religious justification for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ actions and those leading the Corps adhere to the ruling clergy; they mutually reinforce one another.

If the Trump administration is serious about bringing about a decisive end to the Islamic Republic, it should end the clerical conveyor belt economically and militarily.

Economically, the administration should enact and enforce harsh economic sanctions against members of the Assembly and their family members, friends, and overseas assets.

Militarily, Trump and the Pentagon should seek to disrupt the Assembly’s ability to meet and appoint any clerical successor.

The resulting vacuum could provide space and an opportunity for other Iranians unaffiliated with the regime to fill the vacuum.

Seeking to extract leading members of the Assembly of Experts to face trial in a future Iran would be a worthy investment and create a sharp dividing line between the Islamic Republic and any successor.

The Islamic Republic might be a dictatorship, but removing the dictator alone will not be enough. The real clerical establishment rests in Najaf, Iraq.

Those clerics who prop up the Assembly of Experts represent “Mofsed-e-filarz” (“Corruption on Earth”) and should pay the price for their crimes.

The post Target Iran’s ‘Assembly of Experts’ – opinion appeared first on World Israel News.

Before assuming Hezbollah’s leadership, Hashem Safieddine had been the head of the executive council, where he oversaw its political affairs while also serving on the Jihad Council, which directed the group’s military operations.

Hashem Safieddine, Hezbollah's new leader

He wasn't deemed important enough to have a pager or communication device, to be invited to any meeting of the top command, or to be present in Nasrallah's bunker.

He is the leader now

pic.twitter.com/0TzaYjgJx5

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) September 29, 2024

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