The fate of the Iranian uprising
Mikhail Shereshevskiy's scenario

ANALYTICS  08 December 2022 - 14:50

Protests in Iran have been going on for already 10 weeks. The main slogans were the demand to overthrow the regime of the Islamic Republic and stop police repression. There is a stalemate situation - the protesters can not throw off the regime, but the regime is not able to suppress the protests. What does the future hold for the country and what do various researchers say about it?

A national survey conducted by the Iranian National Security College and leaked to the media even before the protests began (in early September) showed that the situation in which the Iranian regime finds itself is critical. According to the findings, "75% of the Iranian public is ready to participate in protests because of the lack of justice and equality, as well as the worsening economic situation". As part of this survey, 82% of respondents claimed that the government did not meet their demands, 67% said that they suffered from shortages and 60% replied that Iranian society is unbalanced. Survey editors concluded that the Iran protests developed then without any organized leadership, but rather because of the overwhelming feelings of the majority regarding the many injustices in society. That high spontaneity and self-awareness of hardships will undoubtedly contribute to the outbreak of subsequent protests.

There are various social causes that triggered the riots - economic, environmental, and political. In Iran, the economic crisis has been raging for years, more than half of the population lives at or below the poverty line, and food prices are skyrocketing. Inflation is about 50% year-on-year according to official data, but there is little confidence in the government's figures, and it may have reached triple digits long ago. Iran's desertification is occurring because of an ill-conceived policy of import substitution, which requires increasing water withdrawals from rivers. Still, observers highlight demographics in particular.

There is a revolt in Iran, mostly among the young, the Zoomer generation, those born in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to Holly Dagress, senior fellow for Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council. Members of other age groups also take part in the protests, but the Zoomers are the most notable.

Something similar was typical of the mass protests in Chile in 2019. Perhaps this is a new phenomenon. Or maybe not so new, if we remember the 1968 youth revolutions in France and Italy. But back then, the youth movement was predominantly about students and workers; it had a socialist, self-governing orientation, speaking out against private property and for the power of labor collectives. It opposed bureaucracy - the power of any unelected bosses in the country and especially in the workplace. Today, young people from all social classes participate in the Iranian protests. Their protest is rather anti-dictatorial and generally democratic (bourgeois-democratic). In drawings depicting their future in an Iran freed from religious dictatorship, young people and girls sit together in cafes and enjoy free Western clothing and consumption.

The Zoomers are the first digital generation literally shaped by the Internet. They communicate with their peers in Argentina, the Philippines, India, or Italy, watching the same TV series and discussing similar problems. Of course, everyone is influenced in some way by family, country, the language they speak, and other local characteristics. But the Zoomers are also the first truly globalized generation, Dagress points out.

Israeli researcher Beni Sabti of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security agrees: "This is the protest of the younger generation, the Zoomers. Most of the participants throughout Iran are under 30 years old. Students, especially schoolgirls who hate the hijab, have joined the protests. This generation did not survive the 1979 revolution; it is not connected to its message. On the other hand, the Internet provides access to their peers in the West and around the world ... In recent years, videos went viral on the Internet ridiculing regime leaders and their message ... Young people know that the revolution generation has become corrupt and does not follow the values of the revolution itself. The proof is the harsh criticism of the sons of the elite who lead comfortable lives in the West while their fathers in Iran promote an anti-Western line."

Imagine a modern, say, 18-year-old girl with dyed pink hair, sitting in chat rooms, watching "Mongolorean" and thinking about becoming an IT pro (I realize this is a stereotype, but it's important to point out trends here). On the other side of the barricades are top IRI officials, many of whom climbed up the ladder during or just after the 1978-1979 revolution. They are headed by an 83-year-old old man, the Grand Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader and spiritual leader (Rahbar), i.e. the head of Iran's theocracy, Ali Khamenei. He and his Office control everything, including the economy, the law, and the security forces. Elections of parliament and government mean little - they are not fair, and besides, the president in the Iranian system is only the manager of the economic bloc, with a strong authoritarian leader of the nation. The Bonyads, the companies run by the Supreme Leader, control over $100 billion, about a third of Iran's GDP.

These generations are incompatible and infinitely irritated with each other. In Khamenei's view, he is opposed by simpletons, far removed from the wisdom of the holy books, and, moreover, by young people who understand nothing about life, who can and should be forced to obey the rules that he himself or his colleagues have written. And to them, he is a senile, a dinosaur who has outlived his era.

Karim Sajipour, a columnist for the American publication Foreign Affairs, points out that the Iranian regime has never been stable, but has always relied on extremely powerful structures to keep it in power. Nevertheless, the current protests, which have been going on for ten weeks, are a threat to the system. Never before, in his view, have there been such radical political demands. "Death to the Islamic Republic!" - is the main slogan today.

The protests raging not only in universities but also in schools. There are about 6 million university students in Iran, and when the regime beats up young women in the streets for impropriate wearing of the hijab and kills schoolgirls for refusing to sing patriotic songs, it takes a big risk. Mahsa Amini, the young woman murdered by the vice police in Tehran in mid-September (she died after being detained by police officers who did not like the fact that they thought she wore the hijab improperly), has become a symbol of protests for a reason. This murder has become a symbol of many things at once, from the suppression of youth and women to the suppression of ethnic minorities.

Many Iranians perceive the regime literally as an occupation regime. For example, university students use the slogan, "We won't go anywhere, but we will free the country from you!" during demonstrations. Iranians massively celebrated the country's football team's defeat against the US team, probably the first such event in recent history in which a country celebrates the defeat of its own team. The reason was the demonstrative loyalty of the Iranian players to the regime. However, similar things are typical of some mass protests in Brazil, for example, millions of people took to the streets in 2013 under the slogan "Yes to schools, no to football!" outraged that the government spends big money on soccer while millions have no opportunity for a good education. According to opinion polls, 84% of Iranians today believe that protests can change the regime.

On the other hand, regions inhabited by ethnic minorities, especially Kurdistan and Baluchistan, play an important role in the protests. Similarly, violent protests have been observed in the predominantly Arab-populated province of Khuzestan; Iranian Azerbaijan is slowly stirring. National minorities are unhappy about the lack of schools and education in their languages, as well as economic discrimination - the regime sends funds from these regions to the capital, Tehran, and to Fars Province. Finally, there are many Sunni Muslims among Baluchis and Kurds who are also discriminated against.

The Iranian regime is a theocracy based also on Persian nationalism, i.e., an attempt to create a monolithic Shiite and farcical nation. As a result, ethnic regions have become not only zones of discrimination but also areas of economic disaster. Many children work here, engaging in such dangerous trades as smuggling, with Iranian border guards occasionally killing them when they try to cross the border. Such inequality, economic, ethnic, and religious discrimination, and murder anger minorities. Here the crowds of protesters are denser, and they take up arms more often. For its part, the regime, which is slightly restrained in the capital, Tehran, willingly uses machine guns against the national minorities. Some cities have changed hands several times. Of the approximately 450 people killed in the protests, half are Kurds and Baluchis, according to international human rights organizations.

In recent weeks, protests have increasingly spread to various sectors of the economy. Many businessmen are on strike, having closed their stores. They are occasionally joined by workers in the oil and petrochemical industry. As Karim Sajipour points out, if these forces unite together, it will be difficult for the regime to stop them. However, according to Beni Sabti, there are too few links between the protesters and the economic sectors, and only a few strikes have occurred, even in sensitive sectors such as oil and petrochemicals.

The Iranian protests are multiclass and multinational, involving different social groups. If they join forces, they have a chance. At the same time, the multi-class nature of the protests does not yet allow the various social groups, especially the working class, to develop their own worldviews and form their own corporate associations.

Potentially the most powerful class in Iranian society is the industrial working class, which, together with the construction and transport sectors, constitutes about half of the economically active population. At the end of 1978, a general strike paralyzed Iran's economy, and then the workers who had taken over the factories began to establish self-government, creating elected bodies of power there - workers' councils. Nothing of the kind is happening today and the reasons are not clear.

Efandiyar Bahmangheliji, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, believes that precarious labor has caused the weakness of workers. In Foreign Policy, he points out that many of Iran's factories have been privatized (in effect, put into the hands of relatives of government officials - note). Workers there have been broken up into many small units, hired by different companies. They have become temporarily employed, on individual contracts, without any labor guarantees, and with reduced real wages. They feel deprived of rights and are afraid to strike because in conditions of economic crisis they fear losing their jobs.

However, this explanation can only be partially fair, but it cannot be considered fully satisfactory. Temporary employment and lack of labor rights were characteristic of the vast majority of the working class in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which did not prevent the Paris Commune in 1871 or the Russian workers' councils in 1905-1907 and 1917-1918 from rising up.

In contrast to the Arab Spring of 2011-2013, there is no willingness of the ruling elite to make concessions and no visible signs of division in Iran. The authorities are suppressing the protests with the same determination as before. This is due to several factors.

First, the Iranian dictator, the Supreme Leader-elect for life, Ali Khamenei, has his own doctrine based on the principle of "zero concessions to popular protests". It has both ideological and political justification. The leader of the Vilayat-e Faqih (the state of the supreme jurist-theologian) cannot and should not, according to his convictions, yield to the demands of the grassroots, the profane who are ignorant of the sacred texts. Moreover, the example of the Shah of Iran, who gave a penitential speech during the 1978-1979 revolution and then left the country, has impressed the current Iranian leaders. Karim Sajipour points out that Khamenei was no less impressed by the actions of two other dictators, the Egyptian Hosni Mubarak and the Syrian Bashar al-Assad during the Arab Spring.

In Egypt in 2011, Mubarak, under the pressure of protesters, allowed the possibility of reforms and lost power a few weeks later under the onslaught of the crowds. His colleague Assad made no concessions in a similar situation. This led to terrible destruction, civil war, and the death or exodus of almost half the population from Syria, but the dictator retained power and control over most of the country. According to Khamenei, the example should be taken from Assad. Iran's Supreme Leader believes that any concessions inspire the crowd to believe in their own strength and only increase their demands. He may be right, but, on the other hand, it is also impossible to suppress the public's anger forever. The pressure of steam inside the boiler grows and, sooner or later, may lead to an explosion.

If the Iranian regime were able to achieve impressive economic growth, just as the Chinese dictatorship did, maybe it would compensate for some of the population's discomfort. Indeed, regime officials often cite the example of China, which has proved that a dictatorship can well be sustainable. But unlike China, the Islamic Republic failed to provide an economic boost and plunged the population into poverty due to an inefficient economic structure (more on this below). The legitimacy of the dictatorship in China is linked to high economic growth, while in Iran the situation is different.

Second, Iran now has a fairly cohesive ruling class associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It is the second Iranian army, where the most religious officers and conscripts are selected, but it also performs other functions. In addition to the 120,000 military personnel, the IRGC includes tens of thousands of Basij. These are paramilitary militias drawn from the uneducated and poor population. The Basij receive from the regime decent salaries and apartments by their standards and are also subjected to intense ideological indoctrination. In exchange, they have to disperse or kill regime opponents.

The IRGC's top brass now control most of Iran's ministries and agencies, from the prosecutor's office to the ministry in charge of water management. Sometimes state companies are privatized by friends and relatives of IRGC members. This single bloc of large private and state-owned companies is fed by state subsidies, receives tax exemptions, and is mired in corruption. According to the Iranian opposition, the Supreme Leader gave the country to the IRGC in exchange for keeping him in power. As a result, the IRGC today directly or indirectly controls up to 70% of Iran's GDP (however, this figure is not known exactly). Many officials and businessmen associated with them became millionaires long ago. The court and prosecutor's office are also in their hands, so they are not in danger of being prosecuted for corruption. The businesses they run are often unprofitable but can enjoy endless government subsidies. Virtually all of Iran works and pays taxes for the prosperity of a small group of corrupt people who use religious ideology as a cover. Under such conditions, it is difficult to imagine confident growth in the economy and welfare of the majority of Iranian workers.

Russian expert Nikolai Kozhanov notes that there has long been a process of merging the security forces with the political and religious leadership in the Islamic republic. There may even be an unspoken pact between the IRGC and Ali Khamenei. On the one hand, Khamenei gave the IRGC guarantees of loyalty and guaranteed refusal to interfere directly in politics, and on the other hand, he guaranteed that the IRGC might actively interfere in the country's economic affairs and receive income from the public sector. This view, Kozhanov notes, is reinforced by the existence of a mass of campaigns either directly or indirectly linked to the IRGC. So there is a mutual interest. These people, whose entire power and well-being is based on the existence of the regime, will support it as long as they have these guarantees of being able to manage the country's economy, that is, they are willing to fight for the current regime, even at the risk of their lives.

Israeli analysts, usually well-informed and affiliated with the intelligence and military communities, are rather pessimistic about the overthrow of the regime in Iran.

Jonathan Spyer of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, in his article for The Jerusalem Post, points to the weakness of the protest movement, which is still far from developing an organizational structure capable of leading a coordinated struggle and building a parallel counterpower. Isn't that the main reason for the weakness of the current Internet revolutions? They are made by crowds, poorly coordinated through social networks, and unable to create any solid structures of self-government that oppose the regime. Their participants, representing different social strata, are too individualistic, and their interests too different. They do not and cannot agree on common agendas.

"The regime is not yet using all its possibilities. If Raisi does decide to use them, it could decide the fate of the protest," believes Beni Sabti.

Israeli military analyst Brigadier General Amit Saar, head of research for Israel's military intelligence, explains why, in his view, the Iranian regime will be able to survive the current protests. According to Saar, the regime has created very powerful tools to deal with such protests.

However, Saar notes that the Islamic Republic has faced nationwide protests in the past, but the duration and brutality of the current riots, as well as the young age of the participants and their willingness to use violence against regime figures, make them different from others. The reason for the protests, according to Saar, is primarily the legitimacy crisis of the regime itself, not the elections or the economy. Rioters want to overthrow the power of the Supreme Leader and the entire system he created. This is precisely the circumstance that is of the greatest concern to those in power. The lack of fear among the younger generation - at least 50 members of the Iranian security forces have been killed by protesters across the country - will remain a major problem for the regime, Saar believes. "I think," he reasoned, "that even if these protests subside, the causes will remain, so the Iranian regime will have a problem for years to come".

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is inspired by the example of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who made no concessions to protesters and held onto power. But perhaps he does not take into account that Assad now controls only 60% of Syria, ravaged by civil war. Assad has retained power in the capital and its surrounding areas. But he has lost nearly half of Syria by failing to subdue a number of rebellious regions, which, in turn, have gained the support of foreign powers that saw the weakness of the Syrian regime. Is this not the future of Iran, thanks to Khamenei's tenacity?

Caliber.Az