نامه‌ای خطاب به مجتبی خامنه‌ای

A Preliminary Word

Mr. Mojtaba Khamenei's leadership is shrouded in ambiguity. He is an absent leader. No one knows whether he is alive or dead, conscious or in a coma, whether he still has the use of his arms and legs. This made me hesitate to publish this letter. But then I reasoned that it does not matter if the letter is addressed even to a dead man. What matters is to set out the gravest errors of the Ali Khamenei era and to point to the right direction on the most urgent issues facing Iran, our homeland. So I decided to publish it.

Mr. Mojtaba Khamenei,

Greetings.

I opposed your father, and I have paid the price for that opposition with prison, confiscation of my property, and exile. Nor do I regret it. All that I have is not worth a single hair on the head of Iran's young people. But I am sorry that your father took the wrong path and led the country down a road whose outcome is the wretched and miserable state of Iran today: an impoverished and suffering people, a corrupt and thieving regime, and a dark and uncertain future. History will remember your father as an incompetent and ignorant leader with the blood of thousands of Iranians on his hands, who, through his blundering, his meddling in every affair of the country, and dead-end projects such as the nuclear program, inflicted enormous losses on the nation. The last act of his life was the slaughter of thousands of people, and his final legacy was a war whose ominous shadow still hangs over the country. Do not follow in your father's footsteps. Learn from his mistakes and do not repeat them.

One year after your father became Leader, I wrote to him in a private letter that the path he was taking was wrong, and that I foresaw a day when he would stand on one side and an entire nation on the other. At various junctures over his 37 years in power, I wrote to him in several other letters, private and public, and warned him. Many others also counseled him out of genuine concern, but the answer to all of them was torture, prison, murder and exile. The curse of despotism ultimately deprived him of hearing the advice of sincere and well-meaning counselors, and in the end he was surrounded by a band of base, contemptible opportunists whose greatest talent was saying what he liked to hear.

You have no doubt come across this passage from the words of Imam Ali, who says:

لَا تَكُفُّوا عَنْ مَقَالَةٍ بِحَقٍّ، أَوْ مَشُورَةٍ بِعَدْلٍ، فَإِنِّي لَسْتُ فِي نَفْسِي بِفَوْقِ أَنْ أُخْطِئَ، (Nahj al-Balagha, Sermon 216)

In today's language, Imam Ali is saying: "I do not consider myself above error; so help me with words of truth and just counsel." He regards giving such counsel as a duty of the people, and listening to it as a duty of his own. So I too, in

fulfilling this duty and as an exercise of my responsibility as a citizen, set out the following points for you:

1. The people are the owners of the country, the masters of the house. Remember that you are the servant of the people and have taken on the management of some of their affairs as their agent. Make peace with the people. Dismantle the machinery of torture, prison and execution. Free the political prisoners, and listen with all your heart to their criticisms and what they have to say.

2. Come to the rescue of a society suffering from hunger and poverty. More than seven of the country's ten income deciles have fallen below the poverty line, and half of this population of ninety million lives below the absolute poverty line. The only immediate remedy is to return the people's assets to the people. Your father wrongfully seized more than half of the country's economy, and he also gave free rein to bodies such as the IRGC (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) to enter economic activity, so that they too came to control at least thirty percent of Iran's economy. Return these assets to the people. Economists have sound, well-tested methods for doing this. Consult them, and they will show you how, from these plundered assets, you can pay every Iranian household below the poverty line a living allowance equivalent to three hundred dollars a month, until further notice, while the wheels of the country's economy are steered back onto the right track.

3. Get the IRGC and the country's military, police, intelligence and judicial forces out of politics and the economy. Allowing them into these arenas has, on the one hand, bred corruption and decay and robbed citizens of free competition and equal opportunity in the political and economic spheres. On the other hand, it has dragged these very bodies, which should be defenders of the people's rights and of the integrity of the country and the nation, into factionalism and division. In effect, the holders of power and wealth recruited allies from within these bodies, or some of their senior officials themselves seized the seat of power and wealth, and the state turned into a rule of thieves, a kleptocracy. This threatens the very survival of the country.

4. Take the two pillars of hostility to America and the destruction of Israel off the table of the country's foreign policy. For 47 years these two have been the main pillars of Iran's foreign policy. Every alignment and estrangement in Iran's foreign policy has been determined by them. Irreparable loss of life and billions of dollars in financial damage have been the result of this foreign policy. A foreign policy must serve the national interest and secure a better life for the people of any country, not sacrifice the people's lives to empty, hollow slogans and ideals. Do not fear the clamor of a handful of rabble-rousers and opportunists. Fear God, and work for the good of God's family (iyal Allah), that is, the people. By doing so you can also lift the ominous shadow of war from the country and bring peace and calm to the people.

5. Halt dead-end and harmful projects such as edging toward a nuclear weapon or strengthening proxy groups. Cutting your losses, at whatever point you do it, is a gain. As it happens, both projects grew out of those two pillars of foreign policy. If you take those two pillars off the table, there will be no need for these projects that are so destructive to the national interest.

6. Set aside the delusion called "cultural invasion." A culture is enriched and grows through exchange with other cultures. Your father coined this false term in order to impose his personal views on various cultural matters, and used it as a pretext to crush the country's thinkers and people of culture. Be a defender of "freedom of choice" in every sphere, from economics and politics to society and culture. Religion, too, is part of every country's culture. You cannot force a particular reading of a religion down a nation's throat through coercion and arrests. You have no doubt seen this famous verse of the Quran that says: "There is no compulsion in religion; the right path has become distinct from error…" (al-Baqara 2:256). The great Shia and Sunni exegetes unanimously hold that this verse has not been abrogated, that it explicitly affirms the free choice of religion, and that compulsion in religion is wrong (Tafsir al-Tabari, vol. 5, and Allameh Tabatabai's Tafsir al-Mizan, vol. 2, under the commentary on verse 256 of Surat al-Baqara). For forty-seven years the Islamic Republic has acted contrary to this verse of the Quran, and the result has been an entire generation turning away from religion. Act in accordance with God's counsel.

7. By doing the above, you can finally bring the people out of the "current sensitive circumstances," and only then can one begin to think about designing and building the country. The first step on this path is reforming the system of government. This constitution, with its philosophy and structure, has been put to the test for 47 years and has produced catastrophe. Go back to the owners of the country, that is, the people, and ask them. Holding a yes-or-no referendum on the constitution as a whole, monitored by the people's trusted representatives and by impartial international organizations, can be the first step toward reforming the country, improving its affairs and securing the sovereignty of the people. In this way, backed by the people's vote, put an end to this heretical innovation of the jurist's unlimited authority over all the affairs of the state. And if you still wish to engage in politics and share in power, submit yourself to the people's vote. You know better than anyone how flawed this Guardian Council and its handpicking of members of the Assembly of Experts are, and that the vote of this Assembly of Experts confers no popular legitimacy on anyone.

No one has seen you at work or in a position of responsibility, and your record in running the country is still blank. Before you take the path of error, slaughter of the people and despotism, as your father did, and leave behind a dark record of your own, think about your responsibility toward the people and about the judgment of the Most Just of Judges.

I tell you what duty requires me to convey;
Whether you take my words as counsel or as a burden.

O God, by Your grace and mercy, bring the close of my life
To a good end, for that is the utmost of my hopes.

(Saadi, Qasida 36)

And my success is only through God.

Mohsen Sazegara

Tir 1405 (June–July 2026)