The Godfather of Incitement: How a Religious Singer Became the Islamic Republic's Most Protected Enforcer

The Architect of Weaponized Religion

Mansour Arzifar sits at the intersection of religious ritual and political violence in the Islamic Republic, a position that grants him extraordinary power and absolute immunity. Born on May 22, 1953, in the working-class Khaniabad neighborhood of Tehran, Arzifar learned the traditional craft of eulogizing from his uncle Hassan Arzi at age five. What began as religious performance evolved into something far more sinister: a sophisticated enforcement mechanism operating outside formal state structures yet protected by the highest levels of power.

For nearly three decades, Arzifar has publicly wished death upon senior officials, incited sectarian violence, threatened political figures with physical harm, and escaped accountability for a fire that killed 78 people. His career illuminates a critical feature of the Islamic Republic's governance: the cultivation of informal enforcers who can attack enemies, test political boundaries, and mobilize street violence while the formal state maintains plausible deniability.

The eulogist profession transformed fundamentally after 1979. What had been marginal religious performance under the Pahlavi monarchy became, under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a parallel power structure rivaling the traditional clergy. Arzifar emerged as the godfather of this network, mentoring a generation of eulogists including Mahmoud Karimi, Saeed Haddadian, Abdolreza Helali, and Mohammadreza Taheri. Several achieved university professorships and management positions despite lacking academic credentials, while others accompanied Revolutionary Guard forces to Syria to rally fighters defending Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Yet Arzifar's true employment tells a different story. His official position was with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the civilian intelligence service responsible for surveillance of domestic dissidents and suppression of opposition movements. He retired early in the 2000s after requesting early pension. This institutional backing, combined with direct patronage from Khamenei's office, created a protection structure that rendered him untouchable.

From Rejection to Indispensability

The trajectory of Arzifar's rise reveals the stark difference between Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's approach to religious authority and that of his successor. Khomeini, the Islamic Republic's founder, never allowed Arzifar to perform at his Jamaran residence. According to reformist activist Hadi Mehrani, Khomeini rejected Arzifar because he was "a eulogist who opened his foul mouth at radical Shia ceremonies and mocked Sunni caliphs with vulgar profanity." Audio recordings from these early sessions circulated for years, featuring Arzifar insulting the second caliph of Islam with graphic sectarian slurs that provoked Sunni communities. Despite Sunni protests, these ceremonies continued in central Tehran locations during the first decade of the month of Rabi al-Awwal, when adherents celebrate Eid al-Zahra by cursing figures revered by Sunni Muslims.

Khomeini maintained traditional clerical skepticism toward eulogists, preferring learned clergy to lead religious gatherings. His disciple Morteza Motahhari, a prominent ideologue of the revolution, even wrote extensively critiquing eulogists for exaggeration and unsubstantiated claims. Under Khomeini's leadership, eulogists occupied subordinate positions, performing briefly after clerics finished main sermons.

Everything changed when Ali Khamenei assumed leadership in 1989. Unlike Khomeini, Khamenei lacked prestigious seminary credentials and was never taken seriously as a religious authority by traditional clergy. He needed alternative sources of legitimacy and mobilization capacity. Eulogists provided both. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Khamenei systematically elevated them, holding annual meetings on the birthday of Fatimeh, the Prophet Muhammad's daughter, and channeling substantial resources through newly established foundations.

Arzifar's first entry to Khamenei's compound came through mediation by Morteza Rezaei in the late 1990s. The timing coincided with Mohammad Khatami's reformist presidency from 1997 to 2005, when Khatami won 70 percent of the vote on a platform promoting civil society, rule of law, and political inclusion. Khamenei needed foot soldiers to counter this reformist tide. Arzifar, whose vitriolic style Khomeini had rejected, became valuable precisely because of his willingness to attack enemies with language that formal officials could not use.

Behind closed doors, witnesses report, Arzifar mocked Khamenei himself. Mehrani disclosed that in the water room at the Labas Forushan Hosseinieh in Tehran's bazaar, Arzifar and other eulogists, including Saeed Haddadian, would imitate Khamenei's speaking style and ridicule other preachers. Yet this private contempt coexisted with public devotion, because the relationship was transactional. Khamenei provided wealth, access, and immunity. Arzifar provided enforcement.

The Mechanics of Protected Violence

The operational pattern became clear through repeated incidents. On October 15, 2013, during the Arbaeen ceremony marking the end of the 40-day mourning period after Ashura, Arzifar launched a frontal attack on Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had served as Iran's president from 1989 to 1997. Rafsanjani had recently published an anecdote suggesting that in the early revolutionary period, consideration had been given to dropping the "Death to America" slogan. Speaking from the pulpit at the Day of Arafah ceremony, Arzifar called Rafsanjani "an old hyena" and prayed publicly: "May God bring us news of his death."

The attack was not spontaneous. Rafsanjani represented a pragmatic conservative faction that Khamenei increasingly viewed as threatening. By 2013, Rafsanjani had aligned with reformists and backed Hassan Rouhani's campaign for president. Rouhani won in June 2013 with 50.7 percent of the vote in the first round, a mandate to negotiate with Western powers and lift crippling economic sanctions. Arzifar's attack signaled that even a founding father of the Islamic Republic was not safe from vilification if he crossed factional lines.

Four years later, on January 8, 2017, Rafsanjani died suddenly after swimming at a pool belonging to the Expediency Discernment Council he chaired. Official reports attributed death to a heart attack, but his family raised persistent suspicions. His son Mohsen told Etemad Online that the Supreme National Security Council's investigation was "superficial," that the family was denied access to closed-circuit television footage from the pool, that no water was found in Rafsanjani's lungs, and that he arrived at the hospital "nearly" dead. Rafsanjani's daughter Fatemeh claimed that two months before his death, two people warned her that her father "would be killed in a way that would make it appear a natural death."

In 2018, at another Arafah Day ceremony, Arzifar invoked Rafsanjani's death and extended the threat: "That guy finally died in a pool. This guy will also die in a pool." The reference to "this guy" was Hassan Rouhani, then serving his second term as president after winning re-election in May 2017 with 57.1 percent of the vote.

The pattern held across multiple targets. In September 2010, Arzifar threatened Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a close aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during a radio broadcast: "If appropriate action is not taken regarding Mashaei, I will fix him myself. This creature in the government is like genitals and something must be done about him." In December 2007, he compared Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to Ibn Sa'd, the villain of Karbala who killed Imam Hussein, saying: "If they don't reach the wheat of the presidency, the barley of the municipality or director-general position is enough for them." In 2006, he called space traveler Anousheh Ansari, who had spent nine days on the International Space Station, "illegitimate," offering no evidence for the character assassination.

Each attack drew complaints. Ahmadinejad's government filed charges. Rafsanjani's family submitted formal complaints. Yet every case was archived by the judiciary with direct intervention from Khamenei's office. The supreme leader thus maintained distance from the attacks while ensuring his enforcer faced no consequences.

The Impunity Architecture

The most consequential demonstration of Arzifar's immunity came not from his words but from his administrative negligence. On February 17, 2005, corresponding to the fifth day of Muharram on the Islamic calendar, a fire erupted at the Arq Mosque in central Tehran during a packed mourning ceremony. The mosque, located near Tehran's sprawling bazaar, served as a venue for political gatherings of the bazaar's conservative factions and regularly hosted Arzifar's programs during the mourning months.

At approximately the time of the afternoon congregational prayer, an explosion was heard. Witnesses later reported that a gas canister exploded on the second floor, igniting a tarp ceiling that had been soaked in paraffin to provide warmth during Tehran's cold February weather. Flames cascaded onto the 800-square-meter prayer hall filled with worshippers. Panic ensued as people rushed toward the narrow exit, only to find it locked. There was no secondary exit. In the stampede and inferno, 78 people died and approximately 200 were injured. Many women jumped from second-floor windows; 20 of the dead were women. Others were trampled or died from smoke inhalation. The acrylic fabric commonly used for chadors ignited rapidly, causing severe burns.

Investigators quickly determined that the mosque's trustees bore responsibility for the deaths. The paraffin-soaked tarp created a fire hazard. The locked main entrance with no emergency exit violated basic safety standards. The gas heating system lacked proper inspection. As chairman of the board of trustees, Arzifar was summoned multiple times to the criminal prosecutor's office in Tehran for questioning.

He never appeared. Not once. The summons went unanswered. No arrest warrant was issued. No trial was held. No conviction was recorded. The deaths of 78 people produced no accountability whatsoever for the man administratively responsible for the venue. Families seeking justice found the judicial system unresponsive. The case simply faded from public attention, buried beneath the machinery of state protection.

This episode crystallizes the nature of Arzifar's position within the Islamic Republic. He is not merely protected from consequences for inflammatory speech, which might be explained by First Amendment-style interpretations of religious expression. He is protected from prosecution for criminal negligence resulting in mass death. The message to other officials and to the public is unmistakable: proximity to the supreme leader's office places one above the law entirely.

The Network and Its Operations

Arzifar's influence extends far beyond his individual performances. He constructed a network that functions as an informal parallel state apparatus. In the 1980s, alongside Hojjatoleslam Allah Karam, he established the "Spiritual Renovation of Hezbollah" group, one of the first systematic efforts to organize Hezbollahi street forces. These groups later proved critical during the 2009 Green Movement protests.

After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in June 2009, millions took to the streets claiming fraud. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main opposition candidate, rallied between hundreds of thousands and three million supporters in Tehran on June 15, 2009, the largest demonstration in the Islamic Republic's history. Supreme Leader Khamenei delivered a Friday prayer sermon on June 18 endorsing the election results and declaring the regime would not tolerate the Green Movement. Security forces unleashed a brutal crackdown involving Revolutionary Guards, Basij paramilitary units, and plainclothes enforcers.

Eulogists played a central mobilization role. According to a Revolutionary Guard commander identified as Najad, "If eulogists had not entered the field [in 2009], the Beyt [Leader's office] would have fallen." At Basij rallies, eulogists including Arzifar's students motivated volunteers to confront demonstrators. At least two prominent eulogists personally joined Basij members on the streets attacking protesters.

In August 2009, during a Laylat al-Qadr ceremony at Arq Mosque, Arzifar justified the violence with fabricated claims: "One hundred boys and girls were taken to a pool of alcohol, and after fornication and drug use, they came among the crowd and beat and killed." This blood libel, broadcast to thousands of worshippers, criminalized peaceful protesters and provided religious cover for state repression.

The eulogist network also served the Islamic Republic's regional agenda. As Iran deepened its involvement in Syria's civil war, prominent eulogists including Saeed Haddadian visited battlefields for propaganda purposes. In January 2016, Haddadian and his son traveled to positions near Aleppo, posing in military fatigues and performing for Iranian soldiers and Afghan fighters recruited from refugee communities in Iran. Haddadian told the semi-official Tasnim News Agency, linked to the Revolutionary Guards: "In fighting the terrorists, we are definitely close to victory." He praised Afghan volunteers, countering reports that Iran paid Afghans to fight, and asked audiences to convey greetings to the supreme leader.

The professional advancement of network members demonstrates institutional capture. Saeed Haddadian, despite lacking academic qualifications, was appointed to a teaching position at the University of Tehran in 1997 and became responsible for the Quran section until 2000, then head of the literature office for the supreme leader's representative at the university. In August 2024, while contracts for outspoken lecturers were not renewed after years of service, Haddadian's academic appointment continued, prompting widespread criticism that the government was consolidating control over educational institutions by replacing qualified academics with loyalist eulogists.

In 2015, Khamenei formalized this patronage by ordering establishment of the Dibil bin Ali al-Khuzai Foundation, named after a seventh-century Shia poet, to provide government welfare services including health insurance to professional eulogists. The foundation receives substantial donations from state bodies including the Islamic Propaganda Organization and municipalities, though it lacks a separate budget line. By 2013, its chief claimed approximately 20,000 eulogists had been assembled and trained throughout Iran. Eulogists receive salaries, insurance, loans, and pensions from government entities, effectively transforming religious performers into state employees.

Testing Boundaries, Enforcing Discipline

Arzifar's attacks targeted not only reformists but also conservatives who fell from favor or challenged Khamenei's preferences. During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency from 2005 to 2013, Arzifar initially enjoyed favor as Ahmadinejad cultivated religious conservatives. However, by Ahmadinejad's second term, conflicts arose between the president and Khamenei over power and patronage. Ahmadinejad attempted to place loyalists in positions traditionally controlled by Khamenei's network, including trying to take control of the Intelligence Ministry by firing Minister Heydar Moslehi in 2011. Khamenei reversed the decision, publicly humiliating Ahmadinejad.

Arzifar turned on Ahmadinejad's inner circle. His 2010 threat against Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei came as Mashaei advocated for loosening social restrictions and introduced discourse about an "Iranian School of Islam" that diminished clerical corporate authority. Mashaei even stated that Iranians had no problem with the people of Israel, a stance considered treasonous by hardliners. Arzifar's public threat signaled that Khamenei's network would not tolerate Ahmadinejad building an independent power base.

Yet Arzifar occasionally crossed lines even Khamenei would not ignore. In 2013, following his attack on Rafsanjani, he was suspended from performing at the Leader's Office for two years. This was the second such suspension; in the 2000s he was temporarily banned after attacking Tehran Mayor Ghalibaf. Both times he returned through mediation by other eulogists, all of whom were his former students. The suspensions functioned as brief corrections rather than genuine accountability, reaffirming the hierarchy while ultimately preserving the relationship.

A revealing incident occurred during a dinner at the Leader's Office. An account circulated describing how, after a ceremony, select individuals including the speaker and eulogist were invited to dine with Khamenei. Mahmoud Karimi, performing with Arzifar that night, approached Khamenei and said quietly: "Sir, Haj Mansour Arzifar is not well. Please pray for him." The reference was to Arzifar's deteriorating health after attacking Rafsanjani. According to the witness, Khamenei became visibly angry and responded loudly enough for seven to ten people to hear: "Why does he attack Mr. Hashemi? Doesn't he know it upsets me?"

Khamenei's rebuke was telling. He did not defend Rafsanjani on principle or criticize the act of public death wishes. His objection was personal: the attack upset him. The distinction mattered. Khamenei tolerated, even enabled, Arzifar's attacks on enemies. But Rafsanjani, despite political differences, was a revolutionary comrade. The rebuke communicated boundaries without fundamentally altering the arrangement. Arzifar continued to enjoy protection, wealth, and access.

The 2024 Succession Crisis

Arzifar's activities intensified during the turbulent political period following President Ebrahim Raisi's death. On May 19, 2024, Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and six others died when their helicopter crashed in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border. Official investigation concluded that challenging climatic conditions and sudden dense fog caused the crash, with no signs of sabotage. Raisi, a hardline judiciary chief before becoming president, had been viewed as a potential successor to the aging Khamenei.

Snap elections were scheduled for June 28, with a runoff on July 5, 2024. The Guardian Council allowed only carefully vetted candidates, but reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, a cardiac surgeon and parliamentarian, made it through. Pezeshkian campaigned on ending Iran's isolation, negotiating with Western powers to revive the nuclear deal and lift sanctions, and promoting social freedoms. His main opponent was Saeed Jalili, a hardline former nuclear negotiator known for anti-Western positions.

During the campaign, Arzifar attacked Pezeshkian with characteristic venom. At an Arafah Day ceremony, he mocked Pezeshkian's criticism of harsh hijab enforcement: "The police work hard to implement the Noor Plan [mandatory hijab enforcement], and then that crazy person comes and says the Noor Plan is not Noor [light], it is darkness. This person wants to become our president?" Arzifar publicly endorsed Jalili, publishing his own list of recommended candidates for parliamentary elections in February 2024.

Pezeshkian won the runoff with 53.7 percent of the vote to Jalili's 44.3 percent. Turnout in the first round was 39.93 percent, the lowest in the Islamic Republic's history, rising to 49.68 percent in the runoff. Many analysts interpreted the higher second-round turnout as an effort by moderate voters to prevent Jalili's election. Pezeshkian's victory represented a rebuke to the hardline faction but did not alter fundamental power structures, as foreign and security policy remained under the supreme leader's control.

Most controversially, during Raisi's mourning period, Arzifar and his students made graphic claims about the president's body. One account described viewing Raisi's burned corpse before burial, claiming no family members were present and suggesting they were prevented from seeing the body's condition. The eulogist stated: "The body was in such a state that it could not be seen... Even if his aunt was there, we wouldn't let her see this body." Another claimed Raisi had prayed to die like the members of the Prophet's family, implying the manner of death fulfilled a martyrdom wish. These statements, delivered from religious pulpits, provoked outrage from Raisi's widow and mother, who rejected the characterizations and the exploitation of their grief for political narrative.

Arzifar then took an unprecedented step. At a 2024 Arafah ceremony, he attacked Ali Panaian, a prominent cleric extremely close to Khamenei. Panaian is among the most trusted ideological advisors in the supreme leader's inner circle. Arzifar accused religious scholars of jealousy toward the Leader's authority and criticized governance concepts central to the Islamic Republic's legitimacy. For the first time in the regime's history, state television cut the live broadcast.

The attack on Panaian suggested either that Arzifar had miscalculated, believing himself entirely untouchable, or that factional conflicts within Khamenei's own network had reached a point where even core ideological figures were fair targets. The broadcast cutoff indicated limits, but characteristically, no legal action followed. Arzifar's advanced age and reported health problems may eventually accomplish what the legal system never could: removing him from the scene.

The Broader Enforcement Infrastructure

Arzifar's students replicated his methods with equal impunity. Mahmoud Karimi, one of the most prominent eulogists trained by Arzifar, made headlines in 2013 when he fired a gun during a street argument after a car accident. Witnesses reported Karimi pulled a weapon on a young couple when their vehicles collided. No criminal charges were filed. The incident concluded, according to reports, "in his favor."

The gun incident was not an isolated case of eulogists engaging in violence without consequence. During the 2009 Green Movement, eulogists were documented attacking demonstrators alongside Basij forces. Their institutional backing through the Revolutionary Guards provided logistical support and ensured legal immunity. The message was clear: violence in service of the regime carried no risk.

Saeed Askar, who in 1999 shot Saeed Hajarian, a former intelligence official turned reformist critic, paralyzing him, has never been punished and even committed subsequent attacks on students opposing the government. The pattern of impunity extends across the informal enforcement apparatus. Those with connections to official power structures operate with the confidence that the law will not apply to them.

The intelligence services play a critical role in this architecture. The Ministry of Intelligence and Security, where Arzifar was employed, is constitutionally designated as Iran's highest intelligence authority. Created in 1984 by merging revolutionary committees and the pre-existing SAVAMA service, MOIS directs a coordination council overseeing 16 intelligence agencies. Its primary functions include collecting and analyzing intelligence, infiltrating and suppressing opposition, thwarting threats to the revolutionary order, and maintaining liaisons with Iranian proxies abroad.

A special law requires the intelligence minister to be a cleric, giving the supreme leader, who sits atop the clerical hierarchy, additional influence over the ministry despite it being a cabinet-level agency appointed by the president. This dual control ensures that intelligence operations align with Khamenei's priorities regardless of which president holds office. Arzifar's employment by MOIS provided both financial security and institutional protection, connecting him directly to the regime's surveillance and suppression apparatus.

The 78 Deaths and Systemic Meaning

The Arq Mosque fire stands as the most damning evidence of the consequences of this impunity architecture. Seventy-eight people died because basic safety measures were not implemented. Emergency exits were not provided. The building was locked during a packed ceremony. Flammable materials were used carelessly. Gas equipment was not properly inspected. These were not unforeseeable circumstances; they were predictable results of negligence.

The investigation was straightforward. Cause was determined. Responsibility was assigned. Arzifar, as chairman of the board of trustees, was identified as the appropriate person to answer questions. Then the system simply stopped functioning. Summons were issued and ignored. No enforcement mechanism engaged. No judge ordered his arrest. No prosecutor pursued the case. The families of the 78 dead had no recourse.

This outcome reveals something fundamental about governance in the Islamic Republic. The regime maintains an elaborate legal system with courts, prosecutors, judges, and written laws. It arrests, tries, and executes thousands of people annually for drug offenses, political dissent, and criminal activity. According to Amnesty International, Iran recorded at least 972 executions in 2024, the highest level since 2015, accounting for 64 percent of known executions worldwide. The judiciary operates with ruthless efficiency against those without protection.

But for individuals positioned within the patronage networks surrounding the supreme leader, law becomes optional. Their proximity to power creates a zone of exception where rules do not apply. This is not corruption in the conventional sense of officials breaking laws for personal enrichment, though that certainly occurs. It is structural: certain individuals are systemically placed beyond legal accountability as a feature of how the regime maintains control.

The eulogist network exemplifies what political scientists call "informal institutions" structures that exist outside formal law but exercise real power and shape political outcomes. In Iran, these informal networks are not peripheral to the state; they are essential to its operation. They allow the regime to attack enemies, test public boundaries, mobilize street violence, and enforce ideological discipline without the formal state bearing full responsibility.

Khamenei cultivated eulogists precisely because he lacked the religious authority and clerical legitimacy of his predecessor. He needed populist mobilizers who could speak to the masses in emotional, accessible language, who could organize crowds, and who would be absolutely loyal to him personally rather than to clerical institutions that questioned his credentials. The eulogists provided this capacity. In exchange, they received wealth through donations from the Leader's Office and Astan Quds Razavi, the massive religious foundation managing the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, valued at over $20 billion with nearly half the land in the city.

Sectarianism as Political Strategy

The sectarian dimension of Arzifar's activities warrants particular attention. His early career included ceremonies where he used graphic insults against figures revered by Sunni Muslims, particularly the second caliph of Islam. These "Eid al-Zahra" gatherings, held in the first ten days of Rabi al-Awwal, commemorate the death of a caliph by cursing him. Audio recordings circulated widely, featuring crowds laughing as Arzifar delivered vulgar sectarian abuse.

Sunni communities in Iran and abroad protested these ceremonies repeatedly. The gatherings continue in central Tehran locations to this day. The Islamic Republic's tolerance for this extreme sectarianism while presenting itself as a pan-Islamic force championing Palestinian rights and Muslim unity is a calculated inconsistency. Domestically, sectarian incitement serves to mobilize Shia constituencies and mark boundaries of acceptable identity. Regionally, Iran presents itself as leading the "Axis of Resistance" against Israel and American imperialism, downplaying sectarian elements.

This dual approach became explicit when Iran announced formation of a "United Shia Liberation Army" in 2016 to fight in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, recruiting heavily from non-Iranian Shia Muslims across the region. Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Falaki told Mashregh news agency: "The forces that belong to this army are not Iranians only. In any place where there is a fight, we organize and recruit local people." Analysts noted that using an explicitly sectarian identifier would inflame regional tensions, with the Gulf Coordination Council countries accusing Iran of inciting sectarian violence and conflicts.

Eulogists played a central role in this strategy. Their propaganda emphasized the duty to protect Shia shrines such as Sayyida Zaynab near Damascus, one of the most revered shrines for Shiites, which had endured numerous attacks by the Islamic State. This framing mirrored the role eulogists played during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, when they urged liberation of shrines in Iraq from Saddam Hussein's control. The call to defend sacred sites proved an effective recruitment tool, mobilizing thousands of Afghans, Pakistanis, and others to fight under Iranian command.

The sectarian incitement strategy carries risk. It contradicts Iran's broader claim to represent a revolutionary Islamic model transcending sectarian divisions. It alienates Sunni populations in countries where Iran seeks influence. But the regime calculated that solidifying its Shia base and projecting sectarian power served its interests better than pursuing the pan-Islamic rhetoric of the early revolutionary period. Eulogists like Arzifar became the public voice of this harder sectarian edge.

The Unsustainable Model

The system Arzifar embodies is showing strain. The 2024 presidential election turnout of 39.93 percent in the first round represented a collapse of the regime's legitimacy-generating mechanism. Even Khamenei's loyalists acknowledged the crisis. The improvement to 49.68 percent in the runoff reflected fear of the hardline candidate rather than enthusiasm for the system.

The regime's response to legitimacy crises has been to intensify repression while expanding its informal enforcement capacity. Following the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 after arrest by morality police for allegedly improper hijab, nationwide protests erupted. The regime responded with mass arrests, torture, and executions. Protest leaders were charged with "corruption on earth," a capital offense. Young protesters were hanged publicly to terrorize others. By December 2022, executions were occurring at a rate designed to crush dissent through fear.

Yet this repression strategy requires ever-larger enforcement networks and ever-broader zones of legal exception. As more enforcers operate with impunity, the rule of law becomes increasingly meaningless for the general population. This breeds resentment and delegitimizes the entire system. The regime finds itself trapped: it cannot afford to abandon the informal enforcers who maintain control, but their continued operation erodes whatever legitimacy remains.

The eulogist network faces its own succession crisis. Arzifar is now 71 years old and in declining health. His daughter died of cancer in what his son-in-law described as one of the most bitter experiences that accelerated his aging. The generation of eulogists he trained are themselves middle-aged. While new eulogists continue to emerge, the loss of founding figures raises questions about network cohesion and effectiveness.

Pezeshkian's presidency, assuming he maintains office, may attempt to marginalize the hardline eulogist network. However, his power is structurally limited. The supreme leader controls foreign policy, security policy, and the judiciary. The Guardian Council can veto legislation. The Assembly of Experts, dominated by conservative clerics, selects the supreme leader. Presidents operate within these constraints and can achieve only what the supreme leader permits.

More fundamentally, dismantling the informal enforcement apparatus would require Khamenei to sacrifice a key tool of control. The eulogists provide services the formal state cannot: deniable violence, ideological mobilization, and testing of public boundaries. The regime has invested decades and billions of dollars building this capacity. Abandoning it would require finding alternative mechanisms for social control at a time when the regime faces mounting challenges.

A System Built on Exception

Mansour Arzifar's career spans from the revolutionary period through four presidencies, across economic crises, international sanctions, domestic uprisings, and regional wars. Through it all, he has remained protected, wealthy, and influential. His immunity from prosecution for 78 deaths in the Arq Mosque fire is not an anomaly or failure of justice. It is the system functioning as designed.

The Islamic Republic constructed an architecture of impunity for individuals who serve the supreme leader's interests. This architecture includes formal mechanisms like judiciary officials who archive complaints, intelligence services that provide institutional backing, and foundations that distribute wealth. It includes informal mechanisms like networks of protégés who mediate conflicts, crowds that can be mobilized for street violence, and shared understanding that certain people are above the law.

This system has proven effective at regime survival. It has crushed multiple reform movements, suppressed nationwide protests, and maintained power through sanctions and isolation. But it has done so at enormous cost. The country's legitimacy is exhausted. Younger generations view the regime with contempt. Economic mismanagement, international isolation, and repression have created a society where, according to official statistics now disputed by parliamentarians and experts, over 30 percent live below the poverty line, with some estimates exceeding 50 percent.

The eulogist network represents the regime's commitment to maintaining power through force and manipulation rather than consent. These are men who got rich by threatening officials, inciting sectarian hatred, mobilizing violence, and escaping accountability for negligence that killed dozens. They are not peripheral figures or embarrassing extremists the system reluctantly tolerates. They are core operatives whose activities reveal the regime's true nature: a system built on violence, maintained by fear, and structured around zones of exception where law does not apply.

Arzifar may be exceptional in his longevity and prominence, but the system that produced and protected him is not. It is the deliberate construction of a leadership that has chosen repression over reform, enforcement over accountability, and power over legitimacy. As long as this system remains in place, Iran will continue to be governed not by law, but by the arbitrary will of those with access to the supreme leader's patronage. The 78 people who died in the Arq Mosque fire are testament to what that means in practice: a country where justice is reserved for the powerless, and the powerful live beyond its reach.