Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?”

Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election, summarized in The Next Explosion in Iran .

A Hard Look at the Numbers: What Actually Happened in the Iranian Presidential Election?

The more you read about it the less you understand…

It may be correct that the Twitter students don’t represent the majority of Iranians, but this time it appears that the unrest was not concentrated in this section of the society. At least in Tehran, it plainly involved many more people. Friedman is basically debunking another very common cliche, that’s why his point is not valid. Mousawi is a conservative person himself and the bulk of his support comes from the pretty conservative middle class. He is not a revolutionary. He is more about Khomeinism with human face and people who demonstrated for him are not necessarily against Islamic republic as such, not even against the Supreme leader. That in provinces people are not supportive of greened-up students has very little to do with the actual situation since the crowds that demonstrated this time featured people shouting Allahu Akbar and heavily clad women.

And in general I am not sure that the ruling elite in Iran has such an overwhelming support among the clergy. Shia Islam has always had a very strong anti political quietest stream and Khomeinism in many ways is a very radical departure from the traditional Shia doctrines. By now many Shia clerics seem to have got completely disillusioned with the system. In fact, this process started already under Khomeini himself when the grand Ayatollah Montazeri refused to cooperate with the system and was put under house arrest. The fact that Khamenei is not considered to be a prominent scholar says it all since this system is supposed to be led by Shia scholars and yet they could find no person of impressive scholarly credentials to take the post of Supreme Leader. In Iraq the leading Ayatollahs are clearly distancing themselves from politics in general and Khomeinism in particular which makes me doubt very much these interpretations of Iran as struggle of the clerical establishment against the greened-up students or some internal struggle within the clerical elite. It has started as a theocracy, but by now it’s very difficult in my view to claim that the ruling elite represents the Shiite clergy.

And I should also note that it takes time for the attitudes of younger generations to percolate through the rest of society, and as such I can’t agree with Nobody that the situation resembles the Soviet Union in its last days. For the Soviet stagnation began from around 1965 and it took a generation to produce revolutionary change. (It should also be noted that its last decade, from the late Brezhnev period and particularly under Andropov, saw authoritarian tightening and increased belligerence). Assuming the Iranian stagnation began from around 1989, when Rafsanjani first came to the Presidency (and perhaps he should be compared more to Khruschev – his call for a dialog of civilizations sounds similar to the concept of peaceful co-existence!, though perhaps I’m stretching analogies too far), that means there’s still a few years left.

PS. Sorry for quoting pay-walled Stratfor so much, but this is an excellent summary – The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test.

G. Friedman emphasizes how Westerners are deceiving themselves by thinking it is the Twittering university-going youth of Iran who speak for the true voice of the people (i.e. conceiving it in terms of Prague 1968 or the fall of the Berlin Wall); whereas the Iranian “silent majority”, who don’t speak English, lack computers and live in small towns, are not supportive of the greened-up students and favor Ahmadinjad’s platform of “moral renewal”, struggle against corruption and assertive foreign policy. Not surprisingly, they have no love lost for the students. The real issue at stake is the conflict between the corrupt old clerical elite and the new, pious, wave represented by Ahmadinejad.

Whether there would be a change in attitudes towards the West is hard to say. If the Iranians found themselves again in a relationship of exploitation the amelioration of attitudes would most probably be short lived.

And this brings us to the next point – the society is very conservative. The society may be conservative, but according to the same poll most people seem to want direct elections of the Supreme Leader. It’s correct that Mousawi being associated with reformists does not mean that he is not conservative. But in the same way, the polls indicating that most Iranians are conservative does not mean that they are not reformists.

Finally the real problem about Ahmalala grand ambitions is that they seem to be counter productive. As a matter of fact, the Sunnis have no need for Shias even in the capacity of cheap cannon fodder for liberation of Jerusalem. The only thing that the Sunnis want from the Shias is for the latter to lie down and shut up. In this sense the services Iran is offering to the Arab world for liberation of Palestine are facing severe lack of demand if not worse. The last street battles in Beirut scared the last shit out of Iran’s neighbors to the West, since nothing can scare the Arabs more than a sight of a Shia militia supported by Iran taking over an Arab capital.

Iran’s nuclear program has already spawned five or six nuclear programs in the Arab world. The Arabs don’t really mind Israel since they don’t view Israeli ambitions expanding beyond the West Bank at most, but they are absolutely paranoiac about the Persians. So the end result of this nuclear adventure may well be Iran targeted by nuclear weapons by several countries from the Arab side. Probably a few high ranking Iranian officials are absolutely not happy about such a prospect. Let alone for the sake of the Israeli Arab conflict taking place two thousands kilometers away from Iran.

The thing is that under the Shah Iran was carrying out a very reasonable foreign policy and he has largely succeeded to be a friend of everybody. He settled a couple of territorial disputes with the Arabs, recognized Israel and yet had very good relationships with the Saudis and Gulf Arabs. He was a very close US ally and yet he was on friendly terms with the Soviets too. And this basically fits the reputation of skillful merchants the Iranians have. The revolution was a departure from these policies, but now the nature is taking its course. Not all nations obssess themselves with this superpower business the Russian style. Even Ahmalala may be less of a power hungry megalomaniac and more like a genuinly ideologically inspired person. And about the idea of exporting this ideology by such grotesque and gross ways, a controversy started even when Khomeini was still alive. Let alone now when many young people can hardly care less, while some others in the establishment fail to see anything practical about it.

This is such an empty argument. People and regimes change and Iran of 2009 is not Iran of 1981. Iran is a rapidly normalizing society with the older generation about to be replaced by the Iranian version of the Western Me generation that grew up in two child families now norm in Tehran and other big cities. The next generation is going to be way more spoiled, individualistic and self centered than the current one. It’s in no hurry to die on battlefields.

True enough, though it should be noted that according to the quoted poll it is the 18-24 year age group that is most supportive of Ahmadinejad. And Tehran is not Iran.

Ideological radicalization is hardly limited to older generations (which in fact if anything tend to be conservative). Germany transitioned to 2-child families as early as the 1920′s but in hindsight that didn’t end up having much of a moderating effect. (PS: that is to illustrate a point, not claim that Iran is the next Nazi Germany, though Ahmadinejad’s remarks on the Holocaust and Israel certainly give cause for concern).

Also, opinion polls indicate that Iran remains a very conservative society. Although it’s true that its society is more progressive than in the surrounding “secular” Arab states, this is of course entirely relative. I don’t really think calling its youth a “Western Me” force is valid.

The same Stratfor pointed out in another article that Iran will have to cut support for its proteges in the region because of the dire state of its economy. And in general Iranian regional ambitions have hit the wall already… Iran does not have enough foothold in the region to support its ambitions, while there exists the danger of Balcanaization of Iran itself with unending unrest among the Kurds, Ahwazi Arabs and Baluchis. If for any reason the Azeri minority fails to continue get impressed, the country may simply disintegrate.

Iranian support for its regional proxies isn’t financially debilitating, it’s chump change (the part of the budget it must cut to balance the books is in its regressive and very expensive gasoline subsidies). Its main reason for cutting this support is if it wanted to reach an accommodation with the US, but I don’t see signs of Ahmadinejad showing reason.

And that’s not really surprising either. Incidentally,

@Leos,

The fact that the US is covertly sponsoring color revolution in Iran, as well as ethnic frictions in its peripheral regions, is a barrier to Iran agreeing on a dialog with the US under the current regime. (This incidentally shows that Obama’s policy towards Iran is very intelligent. He offers reconciliation, but doesn’t match actions to words; meanwhile, Iran’s image gets hurt). And an incentive for Iran to continue its pursuit of hegemony in the Gulf region, in part to counter these US moves.

I don’t agree that its influence is currently in secular decline (as opposed to experiencing occasional reversals).

Iran: The Rise of a Regional Power – Barry Rubin
Iran is a great power – Thomas PM Barnett

In particular, I would note that the current peace in Iraq probably depends a lot on temporary Iranian acquiescence.

The thing about Iran is that the revolution is running out of steam with the regime itself having lost most of its teeth. Whatever bloodshed Mousawi and others were capable of in the past, it’s clear that in 2009 Iran
Iran may acquire a nuclear bomb but it will serve deterrence purpose only

I don’t think it’s running out of steam now, though it probably will within the next decade because I don’t see the regime’s current policies as unsustainable in the longterm. Its demographic dividend of a youthful population with an excellent demographic profile (few old people, decreasing numbers of children, 72% of working-age) is going to start reversing itself by then; the US and Israel will take more steps to contain its nuclear and hegemonic ambitions; and eventually its likely the hardliners will be squeezed out by the moderates and reformers who would prefer amicable relations with the West and their trade and investment into developing its natural gas reserves.

Time is moving against the Iranian hardliners and so are geopolitical trends, and they realize it.

This article is very interesting, note the lookalike symbols of Green revolution and those of Oborona and the Serbian Otpor.
http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=6589