Larijani’s ouster: A major purge in the Iranian regime’s faltering state

NCRI – The Iranian Resistance’s President-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, described Ali Larijani’s ouster as the chief nuclear negotiator of the mullahs’ regime, a major purge within the clerical regime as the regime is amid the downward spiral of disintegration. She added that Larijani’s ouster which followed the removal of Maj. Gen. Rahim Safavi, the Commander-in- Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and a number of other members of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, reflect the depth of the crisis within the regime. This will be followed by more resignations and dismissals and in the future, Mrs. Rajavi said.

She added that owing to the acute nature of the regime’s internal crisis, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had two choices, either to get rid of Larijani or Ahmadinejad. He had no choice but to oust Larijani, whom he was using in order to engage in negotiations and deceive the Western countries.

Larijani’s ouster again proves that this regime had no intention of abandoning its drive to obtain nuclear weapons, and that it could not tolerate any schism in its nuclear policy. Larijani’s departure also demonstrates the extent to which the policy of the European Union in negotiating with the religious dictatorship ruling Iran has been futile and a failure.

Replacing Larijani with Saeed Jalili, a low level figure in the regime’s hierarchy, is at the same time indicative of Ahmadinjad’s hegemony over the regime’s nuclear policy. One of Ahmadinejad’s close confidants and a veteran of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, Jalili was a graduate of, and a lecturer at, Imam Sadiq University, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
 
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
October 20, 2007