Fact-checking the Claims of Government Supporters
Which Achievement Became the Pretext for Protests
Fact-checking the claims of government supporters who assert that the recent protests were designed to downplay and sideline the government’s successes, especially the achievements from the New York trip. However, from the perspective of independent international relations experts or political activists, Ebrahim Raisi returned to the country without any achievements, and his one-year record is devoid of any outstanding scores.
Although the publication of images of the truck carrying the luggage of Ebrahim Raisi’s entourage led social media users to conclude that the only achievement of Raisi and his companions’ trip to New York was the American goods they brought back as souvenirs for their families and close ones, ranging from Xboxes to bodybuilding powder and diapers.
From 72% Popularity to 28%
Claims by Raisi’s supporters come at a time when conducted surveys indicate a rapid decline in his popularity and performance assessment. In September, the Asr Iran website conducted an online survey where users could rate Raisi’s performance from very good to very poor. Out of 24,631 participants, nearly 70% gave Raisi’s performance a very poor rating.
In August, the Maniban website conducted a survey on public satisfaction with the performance of the thirteenth government, asking its audience whether Seyed Ebrahim Raisi met their expectations in his one-year presidency. In this survey, 3,537 people participated, with over 88% saying no, and nearly 12% expressing satisfaction with the government’s performance.
The Statis Consulting Group survey in the last week of June of the current year indicated that satisfaction with Raisi’s performance had fallen below 28%. The Q survey in April 2022, during the second 100 days of the government, also showed that about half of the respondents were dissatisfied with the government’s performance.
All this while last October, according to a Gallup survey, 72% of Iranians expressed satisfaction with Raisi’s performance. It is unprecedented for any head of government in Iran to experience such a rapid and significant drop in popularity and performance index from the public’s perspective.
Which Achievement of the Trip
Mohammad Mohajeri, evaluating Raisi’s trip, told Nameh News that the most important meeting of Mr. Raisi was with the French President, which turned into a ping-pong dialogue, and overall, from the news and reports, it appears that it wasn’t a very friendly meeting. There were high expectations about Mr. Raisi’s trip to New York.
According to Mohajeri, it was suggested that because Mr. Raisi would meet political leaders of various countries at the UN, he could resolve the agency issue and pave the way for the revival of the JCPOA in the shadow of these meetings. But none of these events happened, which was predictable.
He also said that most of Mr. Raisi’s speeches at the UN were repetitive or referred to clear and obvious topics. In fact, there was no new discourse in Mr. Raisi’s speeches, so his speech did not attract the audience. This trip yielded no results for the country, and the reason is that the diplomatic apparatus in Mr. Raisi’s government is practically inactive and shut down. Naturally, under such circumstances, any foreign trip by the president remains fruitless.
According to Mohajeri, Raisi’s presence at the Shanghai summit also had no achievements. This pact has a security nature, while we focused on the economic opportunities of Shanghai membership. Interestingly, the final statement of the Shanghai summit explicitly stated that Iran and the P5+1 should comply with the JCPOA provisions. In other words, the government’s claim was that Shanghai could be a channel to bypass the JCPOA, but the members of this pact asked Iran to return to the JCPOA.
Achievements Cannot Be Gained Through Confrontation
Mehdi Zakerian, a university professor and international analyst, also said in an interview with Faraz about Raisi’s trip to New York that in the past, Iran had two achievements: once during Mr. Khatami’s trip, which led the UN to pass a resolution named Dialogue Among Civilizations and that year was named the Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations, with even a committee appointed by the UN Secretary-General for the Dialogue Among Civilizations. Another time was the approval of Mr. Rouhani’s proposal called the World Against Violence and Extremism at the UN General Assembly.
He said, however, regarding Raisi’s trip, we did not witness any specific achievement. The reason is that neither the government had a clear strategy for this trip nor did we see a proper understanding of developments and realities among Mr. Raisi’s entourage. I think our foreign policy has distanced itself from the knowledge of international relations and international law norms. If you base your foreign policy on the UN Charter, even if you want to achieve national interests through the realist school, you will be more successful than with personal and individual interpretations.
According to Zakerian, if Khatami achieved something at the UN, it was because he did not confront the global system. You cannot say our policy is neither East nor West and then fall into the arms of China and Russia and want to thrive, and then go to the UN and say we are neither East nor West while on the other hand, we are with China and Russia. You cannot connect with the world with an ideological view.
Claims of the Supporters
Seyed Ahmad Khatami stated that the enemies intended for the successes of this government to be overshadowed, and these disturbances were also aimed at affecting these successes, which the US President emphasized at the UN. The enemy was looking for an excuse, and since they couldn’t bring people to the streets with the topic of inflation, the issue of Mrs. Mahsa Amini arose to show the officials of the system as untrustworthy to the people, which has been the common denominator of all these seditions.
Zohreh Sadeghat Lajvardi, Tehran’s representative, said the enemy wanted to overshadow and sideline the president’s trip to New York and its achievements by creating disturbances and clashes in the country, which was unsuccessful.
Lotfollah Siahkali, representative of Qazvin, said one of the motivations for instigating these disturbances by anti-revolutionary and dissidents was to sideline the achievements of the presidential trip to the UN headquarters so that the key demands raised by the president at the UN General Assembly would not be heard.
Mohammad Reza Naseri Yazdi, the Friday prayer leader of Yazd, said Iran’s success in Shanghai and the president’s very good speeches at the UN, and on the other hand, the country’s resilience in negotiations all led the enemy to create an excuse from the death of a woman, which both the government and the judiciary are seriously pursuing the cause of death and dealing with any possible wrongdoers, to create a new sedition to downplay all the recent successes of the system.
Saed News stated that even if the death of the late Mahsa Amini had not occurred, internal and external enemies would have supported any other issue that could be used as a pretext to attack the government and the system. Official and permanent membership of Iran in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The presence of Ayatollah Seyed Ebrahim Raisi in Uzbekistan and the confirmation of Iran’s official membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is a major transformation from an economic-security-political perspective for the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the publication of this news would have been very pleasing to the people. Unfortunately, with the dissemination of news of Mahsa’s death by dissidents and uninformed people in the country, the main text was sidelined, and the news of Mahsa’s death became the main focus.