As Iran braces for vote, regime foes plan major ‘free Iran’ rally Saturday in Berlin

Iranian voters will go to the polls Friday to choose their next president, with anti-U.S. hard-liners dominating the list of major candidates.

A day later, tens of thousands of people are expected to rally in the streets of Berlin against the Iranian government. Organizers say the German event will offer further proof that the tide is turning against the clerical regime of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its “sham” election process that cares little for what the Iranian people truly want.

The “Great Gathering for a Free Iran” rally on Saturday will be organized by the world’s largest exiled Iranian dissident movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and its associate group, the exiled People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK). The NCRI, led by President-elect Maryam Rajavi, says the weekend is a key opportunity for Iranian dissidents and democracy-minded demonstrators to make their voices heard.

Organizers said the election process on Friday will accomplish little other than potentially expedite the downfall of a regime that has lost the trust of its people. The unscheduled election was required after hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi and top aides were killed in a helicopter crash on May 24.

“The process of the regime’s overthrow has been accelerated, and the regime’s prospects are quite dark and disastrous,” said Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Speakers at Saturday’s rally will include Peter Altmaier, a member of the German parliament and former adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Alejo Vidal-Quadras, former vice president of the European Parliament.

Organizers promised “the most significant political event organized by the Iranian resistance.” The demonstration is especially pivotal in Iran and the broader Middle East.

NCRI officials said the campaign leading up to Iran’s snap election has laid bare the fundamental weakness of the regime.

They said the election must be put in its proper context and reject the Western analysis that at least one major candidate, cardiologist and former Health Minister Masoud Pezeshkian, is a moderate who favors better relations with the West and defends the now-discredited Iran nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers.

“There are no major differences among the four candidates in the sham elections, all of whose candidacies have been permitted through the filters and screening of Khamenei and the Guardian Council. Khamenei does not feel even slightly threatened by any of them,” Mr. Mohaddessin said.

He said election turnout is expected to be low and that the aftermath will be crucial for the 85-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei.

“Khamenei must find a president that would help him install his desired successor. Otherwise, the ensuing and intensifying power struggle will have severe consequences for the regime’s future. However, Khamenei’s task is not easy by any stretch of the imagination,” Mr. Mohaddessin said.

Iran at a crossroads

It’s unclear how the election results could alter what is left of U.S.-Iran diplomatic efforts.

Critics say the Biden administration, in its desire to resurrect an Obama-era nuclear deal with Tehran, spent years essentially appeasing a regime that supports terrorist groups around the world, including the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

The Iranian military’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, backs Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Shiite militias that target U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, and other groups across the Middle East, analysts and U.S. government officials say.

IRGC’s network of regional allies, its “Axis of Resistance,” seems destined to live on no matter what happens in the presidential election.

Of the four men running, three are considered hard-liners cut from the same political cloth as Raisi. Some analysts and political observers consider Mr. Pezeshkian a reformist, but he has received some cryptic but clear criticism from the supreme leader.

There is no clear front-runner. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote on Friday, the contest will head to a runoff between the top vote-getters.

Some foreign policy experts say the circumstances surrounding Raisi’s death have exposed core weaknesses inside the Iranian regime. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently described Iran as a “country that is teetering.” He pointed to an arsenal of rapidly aging military equipment that is nearly impossible to replace because of the crushing economic sanctions on Tehran since the collapse of the nuclear deal.

“One of the interesting side effects about that wreck: That helicopter was an American helicopter, bought while the Shah was in power. It has not been replaceable because of American sanctions,” Mr. Gingrich recently told “The Washington Brief,” a monthly online forum hosted by the Washington Times Foundation.

“It was literally a 45-year-old helicopter, and helicopters are hard to maintain. And the Iranians have this problem across their whole military system. They have a substantial amount of equipment which is in danger of breaking,” Mr. Gingrich said. “You’re seeing a country that is teetering.”

Despite its apparent military shortcomings, Iran nearly found itself in a full-blown war with Israel earlier this year.

Iran fired more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in April. Israeli and U.S. defenses shot down the vast majority. Iran was responding to an April 1 strike on a portion of the Iranian diplomatic complex in Damascus, Syria. The strike, thought to have been carried out by Israel, killed Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi and other Iranian officials.

Regime critics say the IRGC is the key component in Iran’s malign activities throughout the Middle East and the shield protecting the ayatollah’s government.

The NCRI and the MEK have offices in several nations, including the U.S., and a history of organizing peaceful anti-regime rallies. Iran’s clerical government accuses the dissident movement of being a terrorist operation.

An Iranian diplomat was convicted of plotting to bomb an annual rally held by the MEK near Paris in 2018. Citing security concerns, French authorities initially tried to block the group’s plans for a rally last year.

Regime critics have often been at odds with Biden administration policy. In 2018, President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal, the Obama-era pact that limited Iran’s nuclear programs in exchange for relief from American economic sanctions.

The Biden administration tried to resurrect that agreement and spent nearly two years engaged in behind-the-scenes diplomacy with Tehran.

The administration’s attempts to spur nuclear diplomacy with Tehran broke down in 2022 amid aggressive posturing by Iranian officials and Western anger over Iran’s support of Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Despite its diplomatic outreach to Iran, the Biden administration has upheld the State Department’s long-standing designation of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism and kept in place a Trump-era designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

Officials have said President Biden would use force if necessary to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Under Mr. Biden, U.S. troops also have struck Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria and led a bombing campaign against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.