https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-is-poisoning-iranian-schoolgirls-khamenei-mullahs-irgc-protest-mahsa-amini-control-regime-9e17109b?mod=opinion_lead_pos6
Iranian news outlets began reporting three months ago that schoolgirls were falling ill with headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue and breathing difficulties. The shrine city of Qom, historic seat of the clerical establishment, appears to have been ground zero, but 25 of the country’s 31 provinces have reported similar outbreaks. A parliamentarian who is part of a fact-finding commission said that upward of 5,000 students and teachers might have been poisoned.
Official reaction ranged from surprise and denial to grudging acknowledgment. Last week the Interior Ministry reported the arrest of several suspects. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called the poisoning “a major and unforgivable crime.”
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Yet there is little doubt that the clerical regime is responsible for this assault. The only two organizations capable of undertaking an operation of this scale are the Intelligence Ministry and the domestic intelligence service of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The question is why the cagey supreme leader would opt for a course of action that was bound to unsettle further his wobbly theocracy. It’s hard to imagine his hand-picked men moving without his consent.
Since the outbreak of the “women, life and freedom” protest movement in September, which was sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, the regime has tried to assert control over the streets without “excess” brutality. Beyond Iranian Baluchistan and Kurdistan, where the government has bloodily repressed dissent, the theocracy has veered away from firing automatic weapons on crowds, as it did in 2019 to suppress a near-insurrection. Authorities prefer to arrest Iranians by the thousand. That way fear spreads without massive bloodshed, burials and religious commemorations that invite more protests. The attack on the girls’ schools—most secondary schools in Iran are single-sex—was probably an effort to intimidate without killing, to create a paralyzing fear in parents and their children.
