Khamenei's death, the end of velayat-e faqih, and the failure of Mojtaba's succession project

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. It is Wednesday, 21 Aban 1404, 12 November 2025. First, I apologize that on Monday, because I was traveling and my schedule on this trip was disrupted, I was unable to present the program to you. Today the news reported that Ahmad Baldi, a 20-year-old Arab student from Ahvaz who had set himself on fire, has died in hospital. He worked with his mother at the family kiosk, which was the source of income for his six brothers and sisters and his father and mother, and

0:54 he would go there to help his mother. When municipal agents attacked, in protest at how they had treated his mother and at the destruction of the kiosk, he set himself on fire. He was hospitalized at the Taleghani Burn Hospital in Ahvaz, and a large crowd outside the hospital demanded the resignation of the mayor, his deputies and those responsible for this incident. Ultimately he died. At the ceremony his family held, his father, Mojahed Baldi, declared that if the mayor and those involved in the demolition and these actions were not dismissed, he too would set himself on fire, and his relatives and

1:57 close ones would do the same, one by one. In any case, these words and this courageous resistance against the regime ultimately forced the regime to back down quickly, for fear of the protests spreading. Not only was the mayor told to resign, and he did resign, but his deputy was dismissed. The mayor of the district where this kiosk, in Zeytoon Park, was located was dismissed. The head of municipal enforcement was dismissed. And interestingly, the governor of Ahvaz, Abdolazim Shamkhani, who is from the same clan as Mr. Ali Shamkhani, was also dismissed.

2:53 It is said that several people were also arrested. This showed how a regime that tries to claim it never backs down in the face of the people, will never step aside, and has clung to power through force, bullying and repression, becomes frightened and retreats when it is confronted with the people's resistance and struggle. In any case, by setting himself on fire, this young man set the hearts of all Iranians on fire, and everyone shares in the grief of losing him. We offer our sympathy to his family. He showed how the pressures of life and the

3:54 miserable conditions that have been created for people's livelihoods have made life bitter and impossible. Also today came another tragic piece of news: the suicide of Fouad Shams, a 40-year-old journalist. He was a doctoral student in geography, but they had expelled him, thrown him out, and made his life bitter. He could not find work anywhere. During the [13]90s he had also been imprisoned several times. Ultimately, with the pressures that had come down on his life, a few days earlier he was writing in his posts

4:47 that he had essentially reached the end of the line. The Tehran Journalists' Guild Association issued a statement saying that, unfortunately, Fouad Shams had ended his own life. We can see how the pressure on journalists, writers, artists, athletes and others, alongside ordinary people and those whose livelihoods have been squeezed, shows yet other aspects of this regime, and how these pressures go beyond all limits, driving someone who carries the social responsibility of journalism, who stood up for truth and honesty

5:45 and went in and out of prison, to the end of the line. Now, Mr. Pezeshkian's remarks in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the Majlis, yesterday can be separated into two distinct parts. In one part, apart from praising himself and his own work, a series of his remarks focused on the country's problems, and for the umpteenth time Mr. Pezeshkian said these problems are many and that if anyone can solve them, let them come forward and solve them. To him I must say what one of the country's top economists recounted a few years ago: that when some of the country's officials

6:43 come to him and ask, "Doctor, is there a solution for the country's economy? How can it be fixed?", his answer is: "In the toolbox of economics, we economists have very good wrenches and tools with which we can fix economies in even worse shape than Iran's current economy. But we have no wrench that can fix an economy that has been brought to this state within this political structure and system of velayat-e faqih." Along the lines of what this top economist of our country said, I must add that all of the country's problems, in terms of

7:42 management, such as the problems of water, electricity, gas, energy and the environment, all of these, and the major social problems, such as these suicides, the hopelessness, the hardships, addiction, the high divorce rate and so on, all have solutions. They have good solutions, and in the world even worse problems than these have been solved through reason, wisdom and management. But within the framework of velayat-e faqih, and the structure that velayat-e faqih, and especially this particular Supreme Leader, Mr. Khamenei, has intensified and shaped, no solution to any of these problems is conceivable.

8:36 Before turning to the other part of Mr. Pezeshkian's remarks, let me also say this: the solution he ultimately offers is that we should follow the path of the "wise leader," follow the Leader and implement his policies. He says this either purely out of sycophancy and flattery, or genuinely out of ignorance, because Mr. Khamenei is a collection of failed projects. In every area where he has laid out a course or presented a policy, he has created a disaster. And if someone says the country's problems can be solved on the basis of Mr. Khamenei's guidelines and approaches, or programs such as the

9:33 Vision Document and others that he was involved in, he is in fact moving exactly 180 degrees opposite to the solution. As the famous proverb goes, a child in the arms of a sour, ill-tempered, harsh-spoken nanny was constantly crying, and the nanny kept shaking him more and more. The closer she held him, the more the child cried. A wise man passed by and said, "This child is afraid of you. Put him down and he will calm down." And that is exactly what happened. This country has been brought to this state because of the institution of velayat-e faqih, the structure of the constitution of the Islamic Republic, and the performance of this institution and of Khamenei personally

10:30 as the occupant of this seat. And if someone says that by following this things will get better and be fixed, it is exactly the story of that sour, ill-tempered nanny. In fact, this country must be taken out of the hands of this nanny. But the other part of Mr. Pezeshkian's remarks was a point on which he happens to be right. He said that during the 12-day war he thought that if the Leader were killed, we would be at each other's throats, and that this was, in short, his main worry. That is not a wrong statement. Khamenei has run the country in such a way that everything is tied to him, and the fights and disputes between the gangs of plunder and power that

11:28 make up this regime, which is now a consortium of mafia gangs, and the structure in various parts of the country that is directly and indirectly connected to him, have taken such a shape that if Khamenei dies at 86, or is killed and removed from the scene, no one else can take that seat. In other words, velayat-e faqih has reached the end of the line with its second Supreme Leader, Mr. Khamenei. Even if he stays alive, the continuation of the status quo and the accumulation of incompetence will bring things to a point whose result can be nothing but the disintegration of the country.

12:22 We have spoken about this before: Khamenei's project for 15 years has been to build up Mojtaba as his replacement, and he had even asked the Russians to back him so that after him Mojtaba would take the throne. This project of his has also failed, and in practice neither Mojtaba nor anyone else can sit on the throne of velayat-e faqih anymore and continue this path. I have also said before that news from various circles in Washington, European circles and elsewhere indicates that the Russians have decided that, upon Khamenei's death, in whatever form it comes, they will steer things toward the Putin model, in which

13:20 they built a network out of former KGB elements and, by creating insecurity and so on, riding on the hardships that followed the collapse of Soviet communism, managed to seize power. The people, who had been made to feel insecure, consented to their taking positions of power, and once in power they grabbed hold of the sources of wealth and power and created a new dictatorship. It is said that the Russians are pursuing such a project here too. This, of course, is something the West cannot tolerate, and it is in fact a sensitive geostrategic issue in that region. We will talk more about this.

14:16 Now, a poll that the Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, cited from a reliable source at a reliable institution, most likely the Ministry of Intelligence, indicates that 92 percent of the people are dissatisfied and want the current situation to change. Also, a short three-minute video was circulated on group and social networks showing two people in army uniforms standing in a metro station in Tehran, and it is said that... and when people come to harass them, they turn them away. It is said that they were arrested; there is no further news. But overall it can be said that this is a courageous act, and

15:15 using the flag as a national symbol in campaigns is a commendable thing; it has been done in other countries as well. In hope of victory for Iran and Iranians.