Iran: 100 days of protests. What's next?
Shereshevskiy's forecast

ANALYTICS  27 December 2022 - 17:00

Massive protests have been raging for 100 days in Iran. During this time, according to international human rights organisations, more than 500 people have been killed. The vast majority have been killed by Basij, pro-government armed militias affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and police officers. However, more than 50, or 10 per cent, were security forces killed by protesters during the riots. Iranian rioters, mostly young men, sometimes shoot back at those spillers of blood or use edged weapons. Another form of the riot has emerged, group attacks with Molotov cocktails on police and Basij offices, as well as government buildings.

The main slogans of the demonstrators have not changed. They demand the rights of women (Women, Life, Liberty!), and the overthrow of the dictatorship (Death to the dictator! Death to the Islamic Republic!), and there is probably not much else to say about it. Probably some of the demonstrators share democratic views and are in favour of Western-style democracy, there are also monarchists and a small number of socialist-minded workers. In regions populated by ethnic minorities, such as Kurdistan and southern Azerbaijan, there are ideas of national independence or autonomy. Overall, the protesters have not developed any clear positive programme or large-scale organisation in three months - the protests are usually coordinated through the internet. There may be self-help groups in some neighbourhoods that coordinate the protests and assist the wounded.

Some time ago reports surfaced on the abolition of the moral police, but these were later refuted by the Iranian media. It should be recalled that the protests began following the death of Mahsa Amini who was arrested and killed by moral police in Tehran. She was detained for allegedly wearing a hijab improperly and later died from beatings. However, even if the hated vice police is indeed abolished, this, by itself, will not change anything. The sacrifices that society has made will not be forgotten. Iranians can remember such things for decades.

A lot has happened in those 100 days. There were the brutal killings of young girls: one schoolgirl was killed for refusing to sing a patriotic song. There have been massacres in Sistan-e-Baluchestan and Kurdistan - these regions, inhabited by ethnic minorities experienced particular brutality of Basijs, with about half of the dead being Kurds and Baluchis. There are reports from Kurdish regions of people being checked and searched in the streets and if they find medicines on them, they may be arrested, beaten, and mutilated. The fact is that there were the most massive protests and a particularly brutal crackdown, resulting in a mass of injured people. As the police and Basij take the injured from hospitals, the injured protesters do not go to hospitals and try to be treated at home. Therefore, the Basiji have started harassing those who buy medicines.

18,000 people have been arrested, according to the UN, with some very prominent among them, such as actress Taraneh Alidoosti. The IRGC-affiliated agency Tasnim reported that she was suspected of "publishing fakes and stirring up chaos". The government has already executed several of those arrested. Others face the death penalty or years in prison. These measures are designed to intimidate Iranians.

Virtually all analysts agree on the assessment that the government has a chance to reduce protests through violence. But at the same time, Iranian society and the government are incompatible. The regime today lacks the mechanisms to resolve deep social divisions, which means that protests will erupt again and again. The regime can temporarily subdue the protests, but it will not be able to quell the resistance because it is rejected by the majority of the population. According to opinion polls, 84 per cent of Iranians believe the protests will lead to change.

The revolt is fundamentally caused by a complex set of factors. Huge price hikes have played a role: inflation is about 50 per cent, according to official figures. But in reality, it is much higher, and increases in food prices can exceed 100 per cent. Most Iranians live at or below the poverty line, and a large proportion of young people are unemployed, especially university graduates. On the other hand, Iran's working class resents the privatisation of factories and the shift to temporary or part-time employment, which has led to worsening working conditions and wages. An entire generation of people has grown up in the big cities who share predominantly secular values and do not want to submit to a religious dictatorship. Ethnic minorities are protesting against the lack of education in local languages and poverty as the government drains resources from these regions.

However, large external investments in the Iranian economy are virtually ruled out in the face of US sanctions. Neither European nor Chinese corporations will come to Iran, or their presence will be extremely low. The Iranian regime will not be able to create good jobs in large numbers. And its ability to export oil has been drastically reduced due to the sanctions imposed in 2018 by US President Donald Trump. Although the Americans now turn a blind eye to oil exports to the PRC, Iran only sells about 1 million barrels a day - 2-3 times less than it could. This deprives it of a crucial source of currency.

Today, a nuclear deal with Iran is impossible for Americans as long as they say Tehran is attacking its citizens and selling combat drones to Russia, as pointed out by the US National Security Council's strategic communications coordinator, John Kirby. Russia has denied reports of the drones, but Iran has acknowledged that it sold some UAVs to Moscow before the conflict in Ukraine began. "We just don't see the possibility of a deal any time soon as long as Iran continues to kill its citizens and sell drones to Russia. Today we are focused on practical ways to confront Iran in these areas, not on the Iran deal," Kirby said. For his part, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said that "the nuclear deal is not on the agenda".

What about the Iranian economy and political system itself? Are they capable of handling a complex crisis? The likely answer is no. Since 1979 the country has established a regime of a supreme leader, the Velayet-e faqih. Iran is led by a dictator appointed for life who is considered a prominent jurist and theologian. Today the country is ruled by the 83-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields almost absolute power. He relies on the IRGC, a second, special, religious army, which exists alongside the regular army. Interestingly, Iran also has conventionally secular systems of government elected by the people - a president and a parliament - but in practice, their power is not great; the president is more of a proxy for the dictator, overseeing the economic bloc.

The religious structure - the Office of the Supreme Leader, the IRGC, and the Guardian Council (a kind of Islamist supreme court) - seems to exist in parallel with the ordinary state and the economy. It is infiltrating the institutions of the state, courts, police, finance, commerce, and industry, growing through them like cancer. When Iran held parliamentary elections in 2020, the supreme leader sidelined hundreds of candidates with some independence and put people affiliated with the IRGC and the Principalists - the most conservative political circles associated with his office - on the ballot. In the presidential election in 2021, Khamenei eliminated some 600 candidates, allowing only seven to run, with all prominent figures removed, leaving only Raisi. Less than half of Iranians went to the polls, 4 million crossed out all candidates, and Raisi's victory was assured by the stuffing of millions of ballots from indentured state workers. Such an "election" was not much different from simply appointing Ebrahim Raisi, Khamenei's crony and an IRGC man, to the presidency. Finally, Khamenei gave the economy entirely to the IRGC, with the result that representatives of this organisation seized control of major state-owned companies and then privatised some of them in favour of their relatives.

The parallel religious state in Iran is referred to by the word "nezam" - the system. It has now almost completely absorbed the structures of the ordinary state and the economy. The triumph of nezam has paradoxically led to its collapse. An economy run by incompetent officials and their cousins, who steal government subsidies, is in crisis. The ultimate destruction of the institution of the election has led to the loss of legitimacy of the political system - previously the Iranians who elected parliamentarians and the president had the illusion that they could influence anything; now they do not.

The ruling class, consisting of officials, IRGC men, and their privatiser relatives, became isolated. By enriching itself at the expense of taxpayers, it has lost the support of the rest of society - workers, farmers, and small and medium entrepreneurs.

What do we have to look forward to in the future? Two new trends are very important.

First, the working class is gradually getting involved in the protests. This is important because only workers are able to paralyse the economy through strikes. There are small groups of activists who are trying to spread calls for strikes in factories. For example, on December 17 there was news of a protest and strike by workers and employees in the oil and gas industry. They stopped working demanding higher wages. From time to time, workers not only make economic demands but also advocate stopping the executions of those arrested. Activists have formed organisations in specific industries or companies, such as the Haft Tappeh sugarcane Workers' Union. There are also groups in the steel and petrochemical industries.

Some of them advocate the creation of trade unions and their legalisation. Others take a more radical approach, advocating elected illegal workers' committees (Shura) - they could unite the working class, coordinate strikes, and create horizontal alliances, and federations, to fight, and in the future manage the country's economy and even Iran as a whole! However, all these groups are small and the government systematically disperses and arrests their members.

Another trend is the emergence of pockets of armed rebellion. Some Iranians have come to believe that peaceful conversations with such a government are utterly useless, and as a result, people have taken up arms. There have been reports of isolated rebellious villages in the province of Lorestan, and reports that the IRGC has managed to quell the uprising.

But here is the first victory - residents of the town of Abdanan (Ilam province) welcomed their liberated heroine, 16-year-old Sonia Sharifi, on December 14. She was arrested on November 19 and tortured to confess to participating in the armed resistance, for which she faced the death penalty. However, Sonia was released (temporarily, on bail) after residents began posting pictures of their firearms online en masse with the hashtag "ready".

Should these two trends - the labour movement and armed demonstrations - develop, the situation could change. But even if these trends do not gain mass support today, they may gain it in the future. Contradictions in Iranian society have reached a stage where a significant part of it is irritated by literally everything the government does and everything associated with it. During the World Cup, many in Iranian cities celebrated... the defeat of the Iranian national team. The footballers were accused of disrespecting the protests. This kind of celebration is an important sign, for it is unique in the modern world and indicates an extreme degree of discontent among the population.

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