A FIRST

September 23, 2022

President Raisi sat down in Tehran with Lesley Stahl of CBS News for the first interview he has given to any foreign news service. She later said, “I was told how to dress, not to sit before he did, and not to interrupt him.” Raisi was asked about the Holocaust and said, “Look, historical events should be investigated by researchers and historians.

There are some signs that it happened.  If so, they should allow it to be investigated and researched,” implying that no one is allowed to probe the Holocaust.  On the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleymani, Raisi said, “That’s the type of actions that the Americans and Zionist regimes are doing in the world.

We are not going to carry out the same actions,” although the Islamic Republic has assassinated dozens of people around the world.  Asked about the executions he ordered in 1988, Raisi said, “They were assassinating people, and what happened to them was exactly proportionate to what they did.”

But none of those he ordered hanged was accused of murder; all had been tried for lesser crimes and sentenced to prison time when they were pulled out of their cells and hanged in revenge for the Mojahedin-e Khalq invasion of western Iran.