Ali Safavi: Ending the Strait of Hormuz Blackmail Requires Ending Clerical Rule, Not Managing Its Crises

Ali Safavi, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said protecting international shipping and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open require preventing Iran’s ruling clerics from using this vital waterway to blackmail the international community and threaten regional economies. He stressed that the danger cannot be eliminated through temporary maritime arrangements or fragile agreements, but only by addressing the political and military source that repeatedly generates such threats.

Safavi said the Iranian regime has long treated the Strait of Hormuz, its nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and proxy militias as interconnected instruments of pressure. It activates these levers whenever it faces a domestic crisis or increasing international pressure. Limiting the debate to freedom of navigation while ignoring the nature of the regime would therefore amount to managing and postponing the crisis rather than resolving it.

He emphasized that democratic change in Iran must not be imposed through foreign military intervention. It must be achieved by the Iranian people and their organized Resistance. Iranians have staged successive nationwide uprisings since 2017, openly calling for the overthrow of absolute clerical rule and demonstrating that they reject both the current theocracy and a return to the dictatorship of the Shah.

Safavi described Britain’s recent measures against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as an important step. The IRGC, he said, is not a national military institution but the regime’s principal force for suppressing uprisings, controlling missile and drone programs, financing armed proxies, and threatening international waterways. The Iranian Resistance has for years called for its terrorist designation and has presented extensive documentation of its operations inside Iran and abroad.

He added that the crowds displayed by state media do not reflect Iranian public opinion. The authorities mobilize government employees and families linked to state institutions, threaten participation-dependent groups, exploit poverty by distributing food or assistance, and use manipulated imagery to exaggerate attendance and conceal their social isolation.

Safavi said the widespread boycott of state elections, continuing social protests, and the slogans raised during successive uprisings demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of Iranians reject the regime. The escalation of executions and repression after the latest uprising is not a sign of strength, but evidence of the authorities’ fear that citizens will again take to the streets alongside expanding Resistance Units.

He concluded that lasting peace, freedom of navigation, and regional stability will remain impossible as long as the clerical regime survives. The alternative is neither foreign war nor appeasement, but recognition of the Iranian people’s right to resist dictatorship and support for the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its plan for a democratic, non-nuclear republic that respects the sovereignty of its neighbors and rejects terrorism, proxy militias, and regional coercion.