From a Dishonorable Commander to the Defenders of the Shrine
Mir Hossein Mousavi stated in this declaration that the great sin of our government is tampering with the truth of meanings. Every glorious name is assigned to the most disgraceful crimes. Defending the shrine, which means protecting the heart of a believer against the slightest inclination towards oppressors, is referred to as shedding blood in foreign lands to strengthen the foundations of a regime that kills children. He considered the millions of refugees and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria, the infamy of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the emergence of ISIS, ethnic and tribal wars in Yemen, the inclination of Arab countries to align with Israel, and the slogan of the Shiite Crescent as evidence of the malicious intentions of this deviation. He added that the disasters resulting from these actions for Iran and the region all stemmed from a great mistake, which was tampering with the true essence of the people’s wishes. People are thirsty to be free and to choose for themselves, and their choice will certainly be in favor of humanity in general, with any idea and belief, and to the benefit of national interests and the sovereignty of the people.
Mir Hossein Mousavi recalled the Ashura of 2009 and the employment of ill-natured thugs to slash the youth of the people with swords, adding that what was the fate of that dishonorable commander who confessed to and boasted about this crime, other than that his life would be wasted in exile as a sacrifice to another tyrant? He considered this fate a lesson for the survivors to understand that the despot demands everything from them in exchange for the morsels he throws before them.
Mir Hossein Mousavi
«سزای آن سردار بیافتخاری که به این جنایت اعتراف و مباهات کرد چه بود، جز آنکه جانش در غربت به قربانی مستبدی دیگر تلف شود»
Mousavi’s reference was to Commander Hemmati’s admission of using thugs who, with swords and knives, spilled the blood of many people protesting the elections on the ground during Ashura 2009.
However, another part of Mousavi’s statement is about the Defenders of the Shrine, which most people refer to as the Defenders of Assad. Ali Saeedi, the representative of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in the Revolutionary Guard, said in September 2017 regarding the essence of the Defenders of the Shrine in Syria that preserving Bashar al-Assad was among Iran’s red lines in Syria.
Twelve years after the Arab Spring, Mir Hossein Mousavi precisely directed society towards a path that seemed necessary as the Middle East had grown weary of Iran’s increasing interference in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, and perhaps the new generations of these countries can no longer tolerate the presence of individuals like the Defenders of the Shrine.
