Iran’s domestic and foreign policies are “irrational, Taliban-style, and propaganda based,” Faezeh Hashemi, a former politician and daughter of Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, said in an interview with the Iran Monitor, published last week.

Rafsanjani, one of the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic, chose Ali Khamenei as the supreme leader of Iran and was the fourth president of Iran from 1989 until 1997. His considerable power during his 40-year career in Iranian leadership earned him the nickname of “Akbar Shah.”

His daughter Hashemi, a former journalist who served as a member of the Iranian parliament from 1996 to 2000, and later served time in prison for anti-regime activity, noted in the interview that Iran was involved in the killing of half a million Muslims in Syria and thousands of Muslims in Yemen. She added that since it’s highly unlikely that Israel has killed 100-200,000 Palestinians, “we’ve killed more Muslims than Israel with our wrong policies.”

Hashemi also claimed in the interview that Iran’s new president  Ebrahim Raisi, the “Butcher of Tehran” is just a “front man.”

“There are others who puppeteer him from behind the scenes and influence his decision-making,” she said, adding that his election to the position was rigged. “Everything was pre-planned for his election and anything that could possibly prevent his election was taken out of the way.”

Hashemi also slammed the Iranian government’s economic policies and excoriated Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, the head of Raisi’s economic team, who worked for an organization throughout his career that confiscated people’s properties.

“There is no bright prospect for Iran’s economy,” she said, complaining that inexperienced officials had been appointed to key positions. “Corruption is not limited to financial corruption and astronomical salaries,” she asserted. “Appointing incapable individuals to key posts will lead to corruption.”

“Sanctions have caused essential problems but the impact of mismanagement is worse. If it wasn’t for mismanagement, we wouldn’t have been sanctioned in the first place.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)