Ali Safavi, Originally published by Washington Examiner, September 1, 2026
The regime in Tehran is reeling under a collapsing economy, public anger, systemic corruption, and its inability to resolve Iran’s multiplying crises. International attention is therefore turning toward the decisive internal factor: the Iranian people and organized resistance. Decades of Western engagement failed to moderate the regime, while the wars of 2025 and 2026 showed that military conflict cannot deliver democratic change. Such change can come only through Iranians themselves.
Against this backdrop, Ehsan Mousavi recycles allegations against the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) that have circulated for decades through the propaganda of both the Shah’s secret police and the clerical regime. He treats contested accusations as settled fact, omits decisive chronology, and makes sweeping claims about public opinion while disregarding the democratic program of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, of which the MEK is a member.
Mousavi’s appeal to what is supposedly “modern” should not be accepted at face value. The social examples on which he relies reveal a narrow, class-coded conception of modernity rather than a political test of democracy. The relevant standards are not conformity to a particular western lifestyle, but commitment to popular sovereignty, political pluralism, equal rights, and the peaceful transfer of power through the ballot box. READ MORE …