Changing the Caravan Leader Won’t Solve the Problem. The Entire Caravan Must Change Its Course!

“10 Mehr” Group, March 30, 2025 — 

After a long period of uncertainty regarding the domestic and foreign policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Supreme Leader has finally broken his silence, and with his decisive statements on the root causes of the country’s internal and external problems, he has paved the way for a new course in the revolutionary process.

The firm and defining speech delivered by the Supreme Leader on February 8, 2025, not only put an end to the illusions of pro-West officials in Iran’s foreign policy establishment but also served as a wake-up call regarding the country’s internal situation:

Negotiations with the United States have no impact on solving the country’s problems; we must understand this correctly. Do not let them deceive us into thinking that sitting at the negotiation table with that government will solve this or that issue. No! No problem will be resolved through negotiations with the United States.… Of course, we do have problems domestically — no one denies this. There are numerous economic hardships affecting people’s livelihoods, and almost all segments of society are struggling. However, the solution to these problems lies with internal factors.…

Although Ayatollah Khamenei, in his February 8 speech, did not explicitly clarify what he meant by “internal factors,” the wave that followed this historic speech — along with his subsequent remarks — clearly indicates the intensifying battle over the fundamental political and economic direction of the system.

The first significant impact of Ayatollah Khamenei’s statements was the decisive move by the Iranian Parliament to impeach and remove Abdolnaser Hemmati—who had been granted a vote of confidence just months earlier—due to the worsening economic crisis fueled by neoliberal policies, including currency devaluation and rising inflation. But the matter did not stop at Parliament’s action. Several IRGC commanders, including Brigadier General Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, publicly stated that Iran must put an end to following the prescriptions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and that
those who have implemented such policies should have no place in the government. Following these developments, the head of the Judiciary also urged Mohammad Javad Zarif — the chief architect of Iran’s pro-West foreign policy in the government — to resign from his position, which, despite his initial resistance, he ultimately had no choice but to step down.

However, it appears that such superficial replacements were not sufficient for Ayatollah Khamenei. Since then, he has increasingly sharpened his rhetoric about the so-called “internal factors,” directing his criticism more explicitly at government officials and the corrupt, profiteering oligarchy. Nearly a month after his historic speech, in a meeting with state officials on March 8, he further elaborated on his concept of “internal factors,” identifying the root causes of the country’s problems with greater clarity:

Before the establishment of the Islamic Republic, this country had rulers, administrators, and managers who made decisions — many of which were poor and riddled with corruption. Now, if we gradually begin to follow the path of the Tyrant’s period, to do as those pre-Revolution administrators did, this would be a major crime.… The way they handled foreign policy, domestic affairs, governance, and resource distribution before, is not the way we should operate.
Their path was one thing, our path is something else entirely.… Dependence on foreigners, a system built on oppression, corruption, cronyism, and illicit profiteering — these are fundamentally at odds with the foundations of the Islamic civilization and governance we have sought to establish….

In other words, Ayatollah Khamenei explicitly defined the continuation of the “path followed by the pre- administrators of the Tyrant’s period” namely, “dependence on foreigners, a system of oppression, corruption, cronyism, and illicit profiteering,” as the primary “internal factor” behind Iran’s crises, labeling it a “major crime.” He then took his critique even further, directly naming the main perpetrators of these “major crimes” for the first time, i.e., “prominent and large state-owned enterprises”:

One of the key economic issues is the reform of the national currency system, with the foremost priority being the strengthening of the national currency.… A strong national currency directly impacts both the daily lives of the people and the country’s prestige.… Protecting the national currency is a fundamental concern.… Regarding the currency, the critical issue is the return of foreign exchange earnings by those with export earnings. Some of the largest enterprises — prominent and large state-owned enterprises — generate export revenues in foreign currency, but these funds are not returned to the Central Bank.… If a company is owned by the state, why are its revenues not being made available to the government? Why are they not deposited into the Central Bank? Why? Something must be done about this; fundamental action must be taken.…

Following this explicit condemnation of misconduct within state-owned enterprises, Ayatollah Khamenei, in his Nowruz address on March 20, 2025, directly turned his attention to the nation’s wealthy elite and speculative private-sector investors and accused them of creating “problems for the country”:

For several years now, I have been emphasizing the issue of production and the need for surges in production, public participation in production, and similar initiatives. Why? Because production is one of the key pillars of improving the country’s economy and people’s livelihoods. Domestic production is of great importance. However, production requires investment. But the moment we mention investment some people’s minds immediately turn to foreign investors. No! The investment must come from our own people — from the very liquidity that is already in their hands. Some individuals, instead of channeling their assets into productive ventures, direct their liquidity toward gold, real estate, housing, or foreign currency, and cause problems for the country — they not only fail to benefit the country, they also
exacerbate the country’s economic difficulties.…

These remarks concerning both state-owned enterprises and speculative private-sector capitalists clearly extend beyond mere replacement of certain fraudulent officials within the government and take direct aim at the corrupt neoliberal economic structure and the oligarchy that profits from it. In effect, this serves as a warning to the “oppressive,” “corrupt,” and “privileged” oligarchy that dominates the country’s economy. This, in essence, means that in the Supreme Leader’s view, solving Iran’s economic problems is not merely a matter of dismissing the oligarchy’s functionaries — figures like Hemmati and Zarif — and replacing them with other functionaries. Rather, it requires liberating the entire state from the grip of this oligarchy and placing it in the service of the people, the revolution, and the resistance, thereby
safeguarding the country’s increasingly precarious security. And this, as Ayatollah Khamenei stated, cannot be achieved by merely switching the oligarchy’s carriage horses, but requires a “fundamental action”!

The Problem of “Messianism”

In such circumstances, unfortunately, we see that some sincere and devoted defenders of the revolution, instead of emphasizing the urgent necessity for implementing Ayatollah Khamenei’s recent directives and transforming them into a rallying banner for social forces advocating social justice and democratic rights for the millions, turn their criticism toward Khamenei himself. They ask: Why did he not issue these directives much earlier? Or, if he is truly determined, why does he not explicitly order legal action and the arrest of those who are “causing problems for the country”?

In our view, although these criticisms stem from legitimate concerns for the fate of the country and the revolution, they are not constructive in the current context for several reasons:

First, as one pro-revolution analyst has pointed out, this approach reflects a form of
“messianism” — a tendency to relieve oneself of the responsibility to act and shifting it onto someone else. Such an attitude assumes that, without the broad mobilization of social forces invested in the changes that Ayatollah Khamenei has proposed, he should single-handedly charge into battle on a white horse and singly start a fight against the corrupt oligarchy that has entrenched itself in every fiber of the nation’s political and economic tissues over the past four decades. However, as Ayatollah Khamenei himself has repeatedly emphasized — and as is reflected in the country’s Constitution — his role as the Supreme Leader is not an executive one. Although a significant portion of the Iranian people consider his directives religiously binding, it is the state institutions that are responsible for their implementation. Demanding executive action from the Supreme Leader at the time when his directives are evaded by state institutions — and blaming him rather than the executive bodies for inaction — only deepens public disillusionment and fosters doubts about the sincerity of his statements and thus weakens the revolutionary process.

Second, some ask: If that is the case, then how did the late leader of the Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, issue direct executive orders and, in some cases, even bypassed government institutions? And argue that if Khomeini could do so, then Khamenei can as well; and if he does not, the problem lies in his lack of decisiveness.

The missing element in this argument is an understanding of the difference between the revolutionary atmosphere of the early years following the victory of the revolution — when millions of people were organized and actively present in the political scene — and the current situation, in which, after four decades of the destructive dominance of corrupt pro-West capitalism and its deadly neoliberal policies has driven a vast segment of the population into poverty, deprivation, and disillusionment, distancing them from political engagement. If, at that time, Ayatollah Khomeini was able to exercise such decisiveness, it was because he enjoyed the organized and effective support of the masse and state institutions. Moreover, the corrupt and powerful bourgeoisie that today controls the economic and political arteries of the
country had not yet fully formed and lacked the capacity to put up any resistance against the leader of the Revolution and obstruct the revolutionary process. However, today, Ayatollah Khamenei faces an entirely different reality — a powerful bourgeoisie and multitude state institutions that actively resists his policies. And this situation necessitates a carefully measured and deliberate approach. Hence, his gradual yet forward-moving approach should be understood as a prudent response to the current realities, rather than a sign of “lack of decisiveness.”

This brings us to the most critical flaw in the “messianic” approach: disregarding the balance of economic, political, and social forces and expecting an impossible action from a single individual.

The fact is that, for over nearly four decades, the complex and mafia-like structure of
neoliberal economics has taken such deep roots that no individual action, especially one solely from above, can dismantle its octopus-like grip on the country. The path proposed by Ayatollah Khamenei requires the activation, organization, and mobilization of those social classes and strata whose interests and livelihoods have been trampled upon by this corrupt and parasitic oligarchy. And this is not a task that can be expected to be carried out by Ayatollah Khamenei alone. The way to achieve the desired transformations is not to passively wait for a “savior” from above. Rather, it requires organizing the masses from below and actively bringing them into the field of struggle — an action for which Ayatollah Khamenei — in our view, at expense of serious personal risks — has raised the banner for.

What “Fundamental Action” Entails?

Based on the prevailing objective conditions, Ayatollah Khamenei has step-by-step concretized his diagnosis of the root causes of the country’s economic and political problems and has clarified what must be done: (1) The problem lies with the internal factors; (2) Politically, the internal factor is the “tyrannical” behavior of the administrative and state officials; (3) Economically, the internal factor involves the destructive and “problem-causing” actions of state-owned enterprises, as well as the profit-seeking, speculative, and unproductive capitalist class in the private sector; and, (4) Elimination of these internal factors requires taking a “fundamental action.”

Although Ayatollah Khamenei has not explicitly detailed the precise dimensions of this
“fundamental task” in his speeches — something we hope he will elaborate on in his future statements — his recent remarks on the roots of internal problems provide a useful guide for defining its scope. However, since all economies operating under a neoliberal framework share relatively similar characteristics, before proceeding further, it would be helpful to refer to a past analytical document by the “10 Mehr” Group that outlines key features of such an economic structure — one that has deeply afflicted our country as well:

The separation of production process from accumulation process … has transformed the economic structure … of developing countries:

First, the primary prerequisite for the globalization of the “outsourcing” process has been the “liberalization” of the private sector in these countries, freeing it from state control, and establishment of a direct relationship between the “outsourcing” international capital and local producers of the goods needed by these global firms. As we all know, this “liberalization” of the private sector, now widely recognized as “neoliberal economy,” requires the ending the economic role of the state’s role; opening countries’ economic doors by removing government restrictions on imports, exports, and foreign trade. On the other hand, reducing the production costs in these countries requires weakening the labor laws, especially by suppressing wage levels, preventing the formation of labor unions, and eroding tax regulations to the point where this emerging class of foreign-dependent domestic producers pays little to no taxes.

In other words, while in the era of industrial-capital-led imperialism, the imperialist order relied heavily on strong states in developing countries to control their national economies, in the era of finance-banking-capital-led imperialism — i.e., the world we live in today — this order has increasingly reversed course, and has changed into a system based on weak states and strong private sectors in the developing countries.

Second, the “liberalization” of the private sector of these countries, and the direct integration of this private sector with the “outsourcing” imperialist capital, has led to the emergence, rapid expansion, and growing political power of a neoliberal bourgeois class within these countries — one that is deeply dependent on international capital and the global market — and has turned this bourgeoisie
into a powerful internal political force for imposing the neoliberal economic order on these countries. As a result, the new structural changes in the global imperialist order in the interests of finance-banking capital have created a new dominant contradiction within developing countries, namely, the contradiction between forces of imperialist-driven neoliberalism, on the one hand, and the forces of independent national development, on the other. On one side of this struggle stands the domestic comprador bourgeoisie, which is fully aligned with the “new neoliberal order,” and on the other side stand the highly exploited workers and toiling masses, the domestic capital, and independent states that resist the imposition of this neoliberal model. Naturally, imperialism is not watching this conflict passively. Rather, it is actively intervening to ensure the victory of the neoliberal bourgeoisie within these countries — through interference in the elections; providing financial and political support for neoliberal parties and organizations; strengthening the activities
of NGOs affiliated with imperialist interests; and, if all fails, imposing crippling economic sanctions, which have now become one of the most powerful weapons of global finance-banking capital…. (all emphases added)  

— “10 Mehr” Group’s Assessment of the “Documents of the Seventh [Party] Congress ―Part III,” December 14, 2021.

Given the above characteristics of the neoliberal economic order, and the list of problems outlined by Ayatollah Khamenei, we can deduce the depth and scope of the “fundamental action” implied in his speeches: (1) The process of weakening the state in favor of the private sector must be halted and reversed. (2) The octopus-like dominance of the neoliberal bourgeoisie over the political structure must be ended so that the state can function as a truly independent national one. (3) The country’s foreign trade and currency resources must be brought under state control. (4) Idle and unproductive capital in the private sector must be redirected toward boosting domestic production. (5) Big capitalists must be compelled to pay taxes. (6) Labor laws must be strengthened, and minimum wages must be adjusted to match the
real cost of living for workers and other toiling masses. (7) The right to organize independent labor unions and other professional and civic organizations must be guaranteed. And (8) None of these measures can be achieved through submission to imperialism and the neoliberal bourgeoisie that serves it.

In other words, external resistance is inseparably linked to internal resistance, and to succeed in this struggle, the entire caravan must change its course!

“Fundamental Action” by Who?

If the task of taking such a “fundamental action” is entrusted to the current political structure dominated by the neoliberal bourgeoisie, not only there will not only be any hope for change, but, in the current sensitive regional and global context, the situation will worsen regarding national security. As the experience of the days and weeks following Ayatollah Khamenei’s statements has shown, the economic oligarchy that controls the political structure of the country has no interest or intention in changing course. On the contrary, it has already started to actively defend its class interests with all its power by distorting Ayatollah Khamenei’s statements through media manipulation; creating confusion and delays in decision-making processes; and engaging in both open and covert economic sabotages to prevent the
implementation of the Supreme Leader’s key directives. Over the past four decades, this bourgeoisie has used all its available resources to secure and consolidate its dominance over the country’s direction and has now monopolized all instruments of power. Confronting such a force, which is also backed by international capital, is not an easy task and requires the mobilization of all revolutionary forces at all levels of the society.

Defenders of the Revolution, whether they like to or not, must recognize the reality of class contradictions and organize their actions accordingly. Just as Ayatollah Khamenei stressed that the U.S. should not be trusted at the international level, so should the neoliberal bourgeoisie and its lackeys in the government not be trusted at the national level. It is impossible to convince the neoliberal bourgeoisie, through advice and exhortation, to abandon its class interests and place its ill-gotten wealth and power — gained with the support of international capital and Western power, and through exploitation of the masses and the leniency and inexperience of revolutionary forces — at the service of the Revolution and the process of changing the very neoliberal economic order that has been the source of its enormous profits.

The only force capable of both resisting and having the genuine motivation to bring about the necessary changes in the current sensitive situation is the millions-strong working class and other lower strata of society, who have been the primary victims of this neoliberal economic structure for decades. The revolution of our people in 1979 was carried out by these very forces, and the strength and decisiveness of the leadership of the revolution at the time was due to the active presence of these forces on the front lines of the struggle. Today, the continuation of our homeland’s Revolution, as well as the advancement of Ayatollah Khamenei’s key directives
regarding the necessity of carrying out “fundamental action,” depends on the return of these forces to the political arena.

Given the critical situation our Revolution finds itself in, it is time for these forces — who have always been and continue to be the true defenders of the Revolution — to be brought back to the political scene by Ayatollah Khamenei, and their social power to be harnessed to bring about the changes desired by the leadership of the Revolution.

It is our hope that the true defenders of the Revolution will act with an understanding of this key reality, and, at this critical historical juncture, take immediate steps toward the mobilization of the only forces who are capable save our severely damaged Revolution.