Iran has a new spiritual leader. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei was elected as the third leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Council of Experts. He is the son of martyred leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

Iranologist Ashot Badalyan in his opinion, it should be expected that the Iranian side will ensure the safety of Mojtaba Khamenei by all possible means, taking into account the threats coming from the USA and Israel.

“Iran’s message is clear, which was also expressed by the Secretary of the Security Council, Ali Larijani, that even in war conditions and in the background of Trump’s threatening statements to bombard the building where the meeting will be held, they called a meeting and elected a supreme spiritual leader. This also contains another message that the system in Iran is stable and does not depend on the person.

The US and Israel expected that if they killed Ali Khamenei, the system would collapse quickly, but we did not see the collapse of the system, it is still stable. 168TV-in “Revue” he said during the program.

According to him, the actions of Iran and the US will probably be limited to airstrikes on the places where the supreme spiritual leader of Iran is located. “The Iranian side will certainly take all measures to protect him. The capabilities of the USA and Israel should not be underestimated either, because they have advanced systems, they can even track movements from space with satellites. After the assassination of Ali Khamenei, the British Daily Mail published an article, according to which they were able to identify Khamenei’s location.

With the help of cameras in Tehran, they were able to determine the movement of security officers’ cars, where they park their cars, and thus they were able to reveal Ali Khamenei’s location. It should be emphasized that during these 47 years of the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, such a situation had not yet occurred and this is the first time that such a war situation was created, the supreme spiritual leader was killed and a new one was elected.

It is too early to make predictions about the end of the war, because the USA and Israel have not achieved their goals, and conditional, if the war ends today, then what did all this give the USA and Israel? If the problem was the assassination of Ali Khamenei, then Mojtaba Khamenei was elected, who may have an even more radical position than his father.

As for the nuclear program, even last year, Trump stated that it was eliminated, and there is no longer a nuclear program in Iran, that is, the question will arise: what was Israel’s goal? The system is stable, it works, a new supreme spiritual leader has been elected and a chaotic situation has not been created in the country. In other words, stopping the war under these conditions will be a blow to the reputation of the USA and Israel, which they are aware of, and it is difficult to predict a cessation of hostilities.”

According to him, during the military operations of this year and last year, the USA and Israel expected that mass protests would start inside Iran and a chaotic situation would arise, but neither last year nor this year, such developments took place. “It is interesting that in January of this year, when protests were going on in Iran, and Trump announced that he would support the protesters, but there was no outstanding action by Trump, and already when the military operations started, we see more marches, rallies and anti-American and anti-Israel appeals by supporters of the government. In other words, at this moment, the expectations that the USA and Israel had when starting the military operations were not justified, and the society acted unitedly.

Regarding the possible effects of this war on Armenia, he mentioned that at the moment the consequences will be mostly economic.

Details in the 168TV video

—

168TVof “Trigger” the guest of the program former head of the Israeli “Nativ” special service, military-political analyst Yakov Kedmi:

During the program, the aggravation of the situation around Iran was discussed, including the goals and consequences of the actions of Israel and the USA, the announcements about the possible change of the regime in Tehran, as well as the hypotheses of the preparation of different scenarios for the development of the conflict.

Special attention was paid to the reports of Iranian missile and drone attacks directed at a number of countries in the region, the information about the attack on the Nakhichevan airport, and the movement of heavy equipment by Azerbaijan to the Iranian border.

During the program, the topic of the possibility of a ground operation against Iran from the territory of Iraq or Azerbaijan was raised.

The visits of American officials to Armenia and Azerbaijan were discussed.

Reference was made to the issue of creating a possible “humanitarian corridor” connecting Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan through the territory of Armenia and the regional risks associated with it.

The air also talked about the change of Iran’s supreme leader, Israeli security structures urging their citizens to refrain from visiting a number of countries in the South Caucasus, as well as the impact of the conflict on energy markets and oil prices.

In the historical context, the document of 1982, known as the “Oded Inon Plan”, was mentioned.

In addition, during the program, the hypotheses of the possible involvement of major powers in the conflict, the role of the EU in the world and the situation around Russia and China were touched upon.

Hayk Derzyan

—

Head of the “Wings of Unity” political initiative, former RA MP Arman Tatoyan writes. “For me, those who imagine the future of Armenia in the “union composition” are either Nikol Pashinyan’s agents and help him to appear as a “savior”, or they are ordinary unpatriotic people.

And now, specifically to CP and its propagandists. The “saviors” of Armenia’s independence, every day you destroy, simply erode the security of our country and keep it secret from us. A few days ago I showed everything with facts.

Are you the guarantor of our sovereignty, are you the ones expecting a position? You listen to Aliyev’s statements, you don’t come out from under the table. Come on, don’t you have anything to say to Azerbaijan, which is reshaping our borders with your silent permission, or do you also want to enter a union state with Azerbaijan?

Don’t try to drag us into your games.

This is why I say that I will be the candidate of Armenia in the upcoming elections. I will always be guided by the interests of Armenia in my decisions.”

—

On March 6, the results of the survey published by the American International Republican Institute, IRI, were published.

The survey participants answered the question “If the parliamentary elections were scheduled for next Sunday, who would you vote for?”

According to this survey conducted on February 3-13 among 1,500 citizens of Armenia, the rating of the “City Agreement” compared to the summer of 2025 was 24% in the Republic, 15% in the city of Yerevan.

The opposition is suspicious of the International Republican Institute published three months before the National Assembly elections of inquiry to the results.

Of course, we do not intend to analyze the results of the survey, especially since this requires professional training, nor to cast doubt on them, but one remarkable circumstance nevertheless attracted our attention.

Nikol Pashinyan had a meeting with Daniel Twining, president of the International Republican Institute (IRI), in Washington, about two months before the poll was conducted, and exactly one month after the date of its publication.

   

According to the meeting posted on the government website messageDuring the meeting, the course of cooperation between the RA government and the Institute, the programs implemented in Armenia, as well as further joint steps aimed at deepening democratic reforms were discussed. Pashinyan highly appreciated the support of the International Republican Institute and emphasized the importance of developing the capacity of public communication, considering it as the basis of open and transparent governance.

Such a coincidence.

—

“Pressing” in the program Satik Seyranyan the guest political scientist, the chairman of the “Democratic Alternative” party, Suren Surenyants։

A few days ago, the former Secretary of the Security Council of the Republic of Artsakh, Vitaly Balasanyan, made another statement in a conversation with journalists, in which it was said:

“It’s a shame, it’s a shame. I strongly doubt that there will be elections here, because the international situation, in general, in our region is a catastrophic, extremely difficult situation. They talk about peace, but now there is no document. The Armenian authorities are talking about a piece of paper, but it is not even a memorandum. In the near future, the political map will change, now those who understood their place, role, importance, learned that they are in the world order, will be saved very soon. Armenia should maintain very good relations with Iran, and we should be part of the Union. I don’t know what they will call it now, but it is the same as the Soviet Union,” said Balasanyan.

The authorities, the Communist Party, and their propagandists immediately began to present his words as the viewpoint of the opposition.

What does Vitaly Balasanyan have to do with the opposition in general, whose point of view is he actually expressing?

The main theses of the interview with Suren Surenyants are below.

• I never considered Vitaly Balasanyan a person with serious mental abilities and I did not take his statements seriously. Vitaly Balasanyan unwittingly voiced an idea that is a gift to the government, because the entire narrative of the government is built on it, as if the entire opposition is a Russian citizen. And it is more important that he made this statement from the courtyard of the Mother See. If you say in the same interview that you have close relations with the Catholicos, then you say that Armenia should be a part of the Union State, and this is in the case when the nail of the government’s anti-Church campaign is His Holiness’s alleged pro-Russianness. As the head of a political force, let me say that Vitaly Balasanyan made a reprehensible statement. Any statement that would question Armenia’s sovereignty is foreign to me. People like Vitaly Balasanyan are the counter-pole of pseudo-Westerners. A person who does not stand out for his active public activities, suddenly appears in the pre-election stage and says such things to the media, gives rise to suspicion that, to put it mildly, his game is not honest.

Official propaganda received a gift in the name of Vitaly Balasanyan:

• Unlike Azerbaijan and Central Asian countries, we won our sovereignty with the 1988 movement.

• The question of joining the Russia-Belarus Union was never discussed at the official level, neither in Moscow nor in Yerevan. 

• Of course, Nikol Pashinyan destroyed our sovereignty, but that does not mean that the solution is to become someone’s outpost. The 1988 movement was an independent, anti-imperialist movement. Vitaly Balasanyan should first explain his statement and then say that it is his personal opinion and has nothing to do with any political force. I have not seen Vitaly Balasanyan in any serious opposition format after 2023 and, frankly, I don’t want to see him.

• Donald Trump has become a hostage of “Epstein’s coalition”. There is no hint of strategy in Trump’s actions. Israel has a strategy, which through its lobbying structures was able to place Trump in its pocket. Israel’s strategy is clear. they are on the path of dismembering Iran. They imagine 6-7 states instead of Iran. It is already obvious that some hopes of Tel-Aviv and Washington have not come true. Iran is neither Venezuela nor Syria. The loss of a spiritual leader could not destroy Iran:

• Mojtaba Khamenei, the new spiritual leader, became the consensus of various factions of the Iranian elite and a large part of society. Iran’s message is that they will continue to fight with the same toughness. At the moment, at least, Iran’s political system shows no visible cracks.

• It is not that Aliyev has no desire to join the anti-Iranian operations, but Aliyev is not adventurous. He would take such a drastic step if the Iranian system were tottering. If today he is looking for diplomatic ways to solve the issue with Iran, then he has information that the Iranian system is still stable:

• Turkey does not need Iranian chaos or fragmentation. He will prevent Azerbaijan from such an adventure.

• At the moment, Pezeshkian or Aragchi is playing more of a decoration role because at the moment all the power in Iran is concentrated in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Ali Larijani and others.:

• I have doubts about the International Republican Institute, IRI polls, because I was aware of different results before they were published. But even with their results, the public’s positive attitude towards TRIPP is 44% against 48% negative. Nikol Pashinyan needs a new success story, because even after all this preaching, there is no positive consensus among the public regarding TRIPP. 

Besides, in any case, whether Iran wins or loses this war, TRIPP loses its relevance. Moreover, if Aliyev sees that the roads are not opening, Aliyev will not be able to resist the temptation to take it. That’s why the official propaganda of Armenia is lobbying uncontrollably about giving Azerbaijan a humanitarian corridor. This is an Azeri demand, which the CP government has a problem of packing. They want a road, let them go to Nakhijevan through the borders of Armenia’s sovereignty, with a border guard, customs point, why are you doing special propaganda? Or, what humanitarian corridor do you provide? Does Azerbaijan behave very humanitarianly when ours? holds captives. The government is creating all the grounds not for a humanitarian corridor, but for giving Azerbaijan a privileged path, because it has understood that TRIPP will not be implemented.:

• God forbid, Iran will be divided. In that case, our statehood will face serious danger, Armenia will become a Turkish enclave. The worst scenario for Armenia in this war is the fragmentation of Iran.

• When there was a pause in the middle of serious acts in the circus, a novice clown was sent to keep the people busy. For the big players, Nikol Pashinyan is the clown who was sent to occupy the people so that people don’t realize what is happening around them, don’t see the real dangers, don’t see what disasters the partition of Iran is fraught with for us, that if they lose the Armenian-Iranian border, you won’t need anyone, that there are 10-20 million Azerbaijanis in the north of Iran, that you are surrounded by enemies from several sides.: 

• Yes, it is necessary to maintain neutrality in this war. no one says that you should take someone’s side, but neutrality does not mean degradation, it does not mean a happy bus presentation in a fire, a discotheque, the only niche in which Nikol Pashinyan felt valued is playing crazy. Nikol Pashinyan certainly has a loss of adequacy, but let’s not overestimate it, because he is adequate to keep his power. This man destroyed half of the Motherland and was not held accountable. Now he is thinking: if he did such a thing and was not punished, why should he be punished for rigging the election? It’s our fault for letting a man who lost a war get re-elected.

• Only a very strong public consolidation will bring Nikol Pashinyan to rejection. A very large participation in the elections should be ensured. The public must become a subject. People, don’t do such a thing on June 7 that the Azerbaijani special forces will have the right to make arrests in Armenia later.:

• There won’t be a miracle on June 7 if you don’t lay the groundwork for it by June 7 and don’t have a plan by June 8, because you’re dealing with a kamikaze government that will blow up the country by blowing itself up. It is still in the mood of “Either I will be the prime minister or Armenia will not have a prime minister” in 2018. We must have a scenario for post-election developments. What are we going to do if the monkey’s hand turns out to be a grenade on the night of June 7, when he realizes that he has lost the election? 

We are dealing with absolute collaborator authorities, which is ready to destroy the state, only to reproduce itself. The government has external supporters in these elections: the West, Turkey, Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, the opposition has no external supporters. The only supporter of the opposition is the people. Any political force that waits for help from outside will be destroyed. On September 21, the Armenian people were waiting for Dabro? People should know one thing, by voting for Nikol Pashinyan, they will vote for the “Western Azerbaijan” faction in the National Assembly. I don’t want to become anyone’s satellite, even more so I don’t want to become a dog tied to the door of Turkey and Azerbaijan. If the people left conscious choice, Nikol Pashinyan cannot even receive asylum from his Kaya Kalas and others.

Nikol Pashinyan’s regional visits suggest that even in the regions he receives a slap. The conscious choice of the people can turn the government’s happy bus into a hellish bus:

Details in the video.

—