Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's has revealed his vision for the Islamic Republic in the year 2065 in a document published on his official website. His solutions for the problems ahead, however, look more mystical rather than practical.
According to Khamenei, the document officially called the "Islamic-Iranian Blueprint for Progress" (IIBP), "has laid the main foundations and ideals of progress and has drafted the ideal horizon of the country for the five decades to come."
Based on IIBP, Iran must be one of the worlds five leading advanced countries in the world in terms of "thought, science and technology."
Elsewhere in the document Khamenei wishes that "by 2065 Iran would be one of the world's top ten largest economies, one of the four top Asian countries and one of the top seven countries in the world as far as progress and justice are concerned."
Yet another far-fetched goal in Khamenei's vision for 2065 is "uprooting poverty, corruption and discrimination in Iran." However, he did not mention how Iranians can tolerate poverty, corruption and discrimination for another five decades.
Iranians have reacted to the lofty document in funny or critical ways. Abolfazl Ahmadi tweeted that "When Khamenei publishes his vision for the next 50 years, this means there is no deadlock and there will be a regime change."
The IIBP is a sequel to a previous 20-year vision document which was officially called "The Outlook” document. It was published in 2005 and was supposed to make Iran a developed country by 2025.
Experts contend that not only none of the previous document’s cultural, scientific, economic, social and political goals have been attained, but corruption, lack of social justice and various forms of discrimination as well as the most biting economic crisis in the country's history has brought the Islamic Republic on the verge of an implosion as the world has already seen two rounds of nationwide unrest as well as several other politically and economically motivated protests in Iran since January.
Setting another deadline for the next five decade, and abandoning the previous document may signal the failure of the 20-year outlook.
Meanwhile, Khamenei's office has called on the country's elite as well as the administration and Parliament to review the IIBP, and has set up a center headed by his cousin Sadeq Vaez Zadeh to prepare a revised version of the document within two years.
This comes while the administration and the parliament have been criticized for the incapability to sort out the country's economic crisis and major foreign policy issues.
While the document released on October 14 does not offer any details on the practicality of the ideas meant to bring about development and progress for the deeply troubled Islamic Republic, it offers some vague theoretical "foundations, ideals and prudence," about matters such as "a parallel metaphysical world that exists next to the material world."
The document says progress can be attained via "resorting to divine guidelines" and "the leadership by innocent Imams," as well as "paying attention to the eternal materialization of Allah's word."
The document states elsewhere that "divine revelation flourishes wisdom. Therefor creating a civilization and bringing about Islamic progress is reliant on Islamic principles, values and teachings which are also based on human wisdom and knowledge."
The ideals defined for 2065 in Khamenei's vision includes, among other things, "belief in the occult, compassion and brotherhood with Muslims and powerful confrontation with the enemies."
In the chapter entitled "prudence," some of the requirements for making Iran "one of the top four Asian countries as well as one of the top seven countries in the world" include "strengthening monotheistic culture and belief in resurrection and the occult."
The document's publication comes at a time when Iran's economy is languishing in a bottleneck because of mismanagement and sanctions while the country's top officials deny a crisis or a deadlock exists.
In the meantime, Iranians on social media, where they can express their views with relative freedom have criticized the 2065 vision document.
Abolfazl Ahmadi tweeted that "When Khamenei publishes his vision for the next 50 years, this means there is no deadlock, but there will be a regime change."