Iran arrives at the strategic tipping point of economic collapse and COVID-19 catastrophe. Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs
Photo: English: This Junkers A 20 two-seater was the second aircraft of that type in Iran. This picture Was taken in Germany before the delivery flight to Tehran in the autumn of 1925. Source | IIAF Author | Unknown author Permission (Reusing this file (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia) ) | | This work is now in the public domain (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_domain) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules Twitter: @BatchelorShow Iran arrives at the strategic tipping point of economic collapse and COVID-19 catastrophe. Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs " Iran had already been experiencing significant domestic unrest, and protests had been occurring — largely over food prices and availability — in the streets of all major cities for more than a year. This was evidenced in voter malaise around the February 21, 2020, Majlis (Parliament) elections, with a turnout of only 42.57 percent of registered voters (down more than 19 percent from the 2016 poll). The vote may have otherwise been meaningless, in any event, given that the candidates represent merely alternate sides of the fairly rigidly-Islamist framework approved by the revolutionary clerics. Arguably, the ruling clerics around “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamene‘i have been concerned about more things than popularity ratings from the electorate. They have, now, several decades of experience through the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security (MOIS: Vezarat-e Ettela'at Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran), the internal security Komiteh, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Intelligence Bureau and the like, in controlling civil unrest and breaking up street protests".