Iranian President: Democracy Advocacy by US, West Is ‘Fake’

During his visit to Jakarta on Tuesday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi bluntly declared that the US and some Western nations are promoting a false front of democratic advocacy. Raisi accused these countries of seeking not the spread of democracy but dominance and exploitation of other nations’ wealth, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Citing the rise of new global powers, Raisi declared that an era of US and global hegemonic “totalitarianism” had come to an end. Additionally, the Iranian president condemned what he called attempts to incite discord among Muslim nations. He asserted that the creation of the Islamic State (IS) group and the spreading of propaganda via a vast “media empire” were Western strategies intended to prevent unity among these countries.

The conspiracy theory suggesting that IS was created by the United States and other Western powers has been circulated in various forms over the years. This theory posits that the US and its allies created or funded IS as a means to destabilize the Middle East, further their own geopolitical interests, and justify military intervention. Iranian officials, such as former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have spread such baseless, evidence-free theories in the past.