State Media and Regime Insiders Admit to Deepening Crisis After 12-Day War
The clerical regime in Iran is entering a new and turbulent era following the recent 12-day war, an era marked by accelerating instability, intensifying factional rivalries, and the growing specter of social upheaval. Every day that passes, the regime finds itself pulled deeper into a vortex of contradictions, facing a crossroads between rehashing its bloody past or heading toward outright defeat.
This reality has now become undeniable even to insiders and supporters of the regime itself. The open disputes among the regime’s judiciary, its so-called reformist camp, and various media outlets reveal a system consumed by fear of collapse.
Judiciary Threats and Media Reactions
In one telling episode, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Eje’i responded to the “reformist” camp’s recent statement with open threats, denouncing it as aligned with “the enemy.” He vowed that the Tehran prosecutor would act accordingly, throwing fuel on the flames of factional strife.
The state-run Ham-Mihan daily struck back the next day, implicitly challenging Eje’i to hold an open trial. “If hearings are public and the verdict convinces the conscience of the people, the result will be different. The reason such trials are not held openly is precisely fear of this outcome,” the paper warned, suggesting that a public trial would mark a turning point in exposing the judiciary’s political nature.
At the same time, the Sharq daily described the escalating confrontation between rival regime factions as a “knockout game,” writing: “These days, domestic political forces, their media arms, and tribunes, both hidden and visible, have fallen upon each other and have practically entered an elimination contest.”
Meanwhile, Setareh Sobh quoted Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, head of the political bureau of the “Reformist Front,” admitting that the regime faces a dire future: “We must revisit the past, otherwise we will be defeated.”
Signs of an Explosive Society
Beyond factional recriminations, the same article laid bare the regime’s structural failure: “Forty-eight percent of Iranians spend more than their income. Forty-two percent have income equal to expenses. That makes 90 percent of the population unable to save, leaving only 10 percent capable of doing so.”
This admission underscores the explosive social situation beneath the surface, where poverty, inequality, and despair leave no space for regime survival. It is precisely this reality that terrifies both the judiciary chief and so-called reformist figures, who scramble to save the system while protecting their own narrow factional interests.
A Regime at an Impasse
The clerical regime’s crisis today is not a contest between “hardliners” and “reformists.” Both factions have spent decades upholding the rule of the supreme leader and suppressing the Iranian people. Their current disputes only reflect fear of an inevitable downfall.
As the Jahan-e Sanat article and others reveal, the system is trapped in a cycle of infighting, economic collapse, and social unrest. The regime’s internal contradictions, its parasitic economy, and the fury of an impoverished population are converging to push it toward the fate its own insiders now fear most: defeat and overthrow.
