Daily Times

The recent crisis in Iran, which was highlighted by the authorities using excessive force to suppress angry protestors, reveals that people have grown disillusioned and disenchanted with the country’s clerical regime. While the revolution in 1979 was successful in overthrowing the Shah’s regime, it couldn’t deliver much more. The revolution has faded, if it hasn’t gone backward. And the regime has become like any other political system that has been in place for nearly 40 years; corrupt and self-serving. The masses, once again asked to tighten their belts with reduced subsidies and increased prices, have had enough of it.  Lacking any alternative avenues to air their grievances, they showed their anger by protesting all over the country.

However, it is important to stress that these protestors were not demanding a new political order. What they want is a better economic deal, so that they can live their lives free of deprivation. But they do question the existing system’s ability to solve their problems. Since there is no alternative in sight, these protests basically served the purpose of motivating the regime to reform and deliver. Every time there have been protests, the system seems to close in on itself by using force to quell protests or blame external forces like the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It is true that Trump, Netanyahu and others who are opposed to the Iran’s clerical regime, would like to change the existing political order in Iran but to attribute the internal unrest in Iran, as its leaders do, to foreign engineering is willful ignorance. Iran’s leaders must acknowledge that economic factors like rising prices, rising unemployment and the country’s ailing financial system are creating widespread alienation and distress. The collapse of fraudulent businesses and unregulated financial institutions have wiped out whatever little savings people might have, thus only compounding the distress caused by an austerity budget curtailing subsidies and raising prices.

As Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow on Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution has reportedly said, “many protests in Iran are over economic issues” but when these remain unresolved it tends to bring the system into question. According to Maloney, “Banks are shutting down without any kind of notice and it’s creating a huge political and economic backlash at the local level”.

President Rouhani and his supporters, who are relative moderates, are on the defensive on the question of the economy. Rouhani’s election as President of the country was supposed to bring in economic relief, especially after the 2015 nuclear deal that had lifted some of the sanctions on the country. But nothing of substance happened to lift people’s economic woes, exacerbated further with the budgetary measures to cut subsidies and increased prices. At the same time, funds for clerical institutions and Revolutionary Guard Corps were substantially increased.

It is important to note that 60 percent of Iranians are under 30, and they see dim prospects for their future.  Most of them were born after the 1979 revolution and they lack the intense of anti-American and anti-imperialism passion of the revolutionary generation, many of whom now occupy the seats of power.

The Iranian establishment is not monolithic. It has its moderates, like Rouhani and his supporters, and hardliners that control the military and security apparatus. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, tends to be the arbiter but is most often infavour of the hardliners. Therefore, the so-called moderates cannot operate beyond the limits imposed by Iran’s establishment. Operating under these constraints, they are bound to fail to deliver. In the process, they too are discredited. And with no alternate political avenues, popular protests tend to go nowhere. The same happened during the Arab Spring. The demonstrations fizzled out and or were crushed by state power.

It is important to note that 60 percent of Iranians are under 30, and they see dim prospects for their future. Most of them were born after the 1979 revolution and they lack the intense of anti-American and anti-imperialism passion of the revolutionary generation, many of whom now occupy the seats of power

An insight into this, as well as the ongoing tensions between the moderates and hardliners, is revealed in Rouhani’s response to the recent protests in the country. In an apparent dig at his hardline critics, President Rouhani said, as reported by the ISNA news agency (quoted in The New York Times), “One cannot force one’s lifestyle on the future generations [as the hardliners would like]. The problem is that we want two generations after us to live the way we like them to”.

Adding punch to his remarks, he added, “Some imagine that the people only want money and a good economy, but will someone accept a considerable amount of money per month when for instance the cyber network would be completely blocked?”. He also asked, “Is freedom and the life of the people purchasable with money? [referring apparently to the over-emphasis on economic factors behind the recent protests] Why do some give the wrong reasons? This is an insult to the people.”

Indeed some among Rouhani’s supporters believe that the first protest in the city of Mashhad was actually masterminded by the hardliners, in an attempt to discredit the government.  In his analyses, Rouhani sought to broaden the depth of people’s grievances leading to protests. According to him, “The people have demands, some of which are economic, social and security-related, and all these demands should be heeded”. And he added that, “We have no infallible officials [including apparently Iran’s supreme leader] and any authority can be criticized”.

Referring to the knee jerk reaction to shut down access to social media, Rouhani reportedly said that, “Everything good has its disadvantages [referring to social media]but one cannot say that, for instance, automobile and motorcycle factories should be completely closed due to the dangers that these present.

Here we have. Rouhani’s reported remarks about the depth and breadth of Iran’s problems and the resultant popular protests should be the starting point for a united Iranian leadership to tackle their country’s problems.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.co.au

Published in Daily Times, January 20^th 2018.