Political Developments: Iran

(i) Demonstrations in Iran: Popular demonstrations swept across Iran from 28 December, with the agitators expressing deep-seated anger at their economic plight and robustly condemning their leaders and the political order headed by them.

On 28 December, a local cleric in the holy city of Mashhad urged the populace to come out on to the streets to protest about rising prices. The crowds responded enthusiastically and shouted: “No to high prices” and “Death to Rouhani”. Demonstrations then spread to other towns of Iran, so that in five days more than 50 towns had been affected, including the capital, Tehran.

The slogans too got more political and strident; they included: “Death to the Dictator” (a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei); “Death to the Revolutionary Guards”; “People are paupers, while mullahs live like gods”; “Independence, Freedom, Iranian Republic”, and “We don’t want the Islamic Republic”.

In Qom, Iran’s holiest city, some demonstrators even recalled the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, saying: “Reza Shah, bless your soul”. In some instances, slogans also criticised Iran’s foreign forays, such as: “Leave Syria alone; do something for us” and “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran”.

Initially, state response was restrained, with security forces using water cannon to disperse
the demonstrators. President Rouhani upheld the Iranians’ right to protest, saying that they
were “absolutely free to criticise the government”. But, later when public properties were attacked, strong action was taken, which left about two dozen dead, while hundreds were arrested.

Khamenei blamed the “enemies of Iran” who were using their “money, weapons, politics and intelligence services” to attack the Islamic Republic. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, accused foreign powers – Saudi Arabia, Israel, the US and the UK – of directing a “proxy war” against Iran to “collapse the nation from within”.

The key factors driving the anger were almost identical to those that propelled the Arab
Spring: unemployment, inflation and rampant corruption. Unemployment in the country is
12.5 percent but is much larger among the youth. Inflation has been brought down from a high of 40 percent in 2013 to about 10-12 percent, but the cost of certain essential food items remains high: consumption of bread, milk and meat has decreased between 30-50 percent over the last decade.

The standard of living of Iranians has deteriorated by about 15 percent in the last ten years, leaving at least 14 million, out of a total population of 81 million, living in absolute poverty. Popular anger has been exacerbated by the experience of rampant corruption. On social media, the ongoing agitation was dubbed: “Movement of the hungry”.

Economic policies pursued by Rouhani aggravated popular discontent. Since his election in
2013, he has presented austerity budgets, focusing on: privatisation, tax reform, limited public spending, and encouragement to foreign direct investment. But, Rouhani’s policies crashed against the realities of the Iranian order made up of inefficient state enterprises, cronyism and corruption.

While earlier, the economy was stymied by the sanctions regime, now, after the nuclear agreement, it has been adversely affected by the visceral hostility of the Trump administration, along with its threat to withdraw from the agreement and re-impose sanctions. This has discouraged expansion in trade and foreign investment, which had been envisaged by Rouhani as key benefits after the nuclear agreement to promote employment.

Not surprisingly, unlike the middle-class agitators of the 2009 uprising who were protesting about vote-fraud, this time the demonstrators were from the working class, but also included pensioners, government and private sector employees affected by rising prices, persons who lost their savings in dubious unlicensed savings schemes, and unemployed youth. Again, unlike 2009, when the demonstrations began from Tehran, now the agitations were from smaller provincial centres, with only limited involvement of Tehran. As against a few million who had come out on to the streets in 2009, the total number now was a more modest 20,000-30,000.

There is little likelihood that the Islamic Republic will experience regime change as a result of these agitations, however enthusiastic and fervent they might be, largely on account of
the coercive power available with the state order. But, the anger of the populace is real and very deep.

It affirms that the “business-as-usual” approach of the clerical leadership, and the division of spoils of state assets amongst its constituents, is viewed as illegitimate and unacceptable, and the extraordinary authority enjoyed by unelected leaders, with lifetime appointments,
is an anachronism that has no place in contemporary Iran.

On 7 January, the revolutionary guard corps (IRGC) said security forces had ended the unrest. In a statement on its website, it blamed the unrest on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia. The IRGC also claimed the exiled opposition group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, and supporters of the monarchy that was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution were behind the protests.

Exposing the divide between himself and the hardliners, President Hassan Rouhani said on 5
January that young Iranian protesters were unhappy about far more than just the economy and they would no longer defer to the views and lifestyle of an aging revolutionary elite. He said: “It would be a misrepresentation (of events) and also an insult to Iranian people to say they only had economic demands. People had economic, political and social demands.”

(ii) US hostility towards Iran: On 12 January, President Donald Trump issued his “waiver” of nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. He described this as a “last chance” for the JCPOA parties to negotiate an agreement “to fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal,” including the lack of constraints on ballistic missile development. He called on Congress to state explicitly that “long-range missiles and nuclear weapons programmes are inseparable, and that Iran’s development and testing of missiles should be subject to severe sanctions.” Trump’s statement also called for a supplemental agreement with key allies that would, “impose
new multilateral sanctions if Iran develops or tests long-range missiles.”

US commentator Greg Thielmann, formerly with the US state department, has pointed out that “Iran’s current ballistic missile development programme is neither illegitimate nor disproportionate given that country’s size and security situation”, and called on US policy makers to approach this matter in a more “balanced” manner.

Referring to the Trump administration’s focus on withdrawing from the nuclear agreement on the missiles issue, Thielmann says: “From Washington’s perspective, Iran’s qualitative enhancement of its non-nuclear medium-range missile force is undesirable, but such an outcome does not constitute a game-changer in the political dynamics of the region. On the other hand, losing the JCPOA in a vain attempt to crush Iran’s missile programme would represent a major setback to global non-proliferation goals.”

US Vice President Pence visited Israel on 23 January. He re-affirmed his President’s commitment to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his country’s support for the two- state solution. He had particularly harsh words for Iran: he described Iran as a “brutal
dictatorship” that was seeking “to dominate the wider Arab world” by sowing chaos across West Asia. He also noted: “Iran devoted more than $4 billion to malign activities in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere across the region. It has supported terrorist groups that even now sit on Israel’s doorstep. And worst of all, the Iranian regime has pursued a clandestine nuclear program, and at this very hour is developing advanced ballistic missiles.”

Earlier, on 4 January, French President Emmanuel Macron accused the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia of instigating a war on Iran. The French leader called for dialogue with Tehran and criticized three of his international partners for pursuing what he considered bellicose policies toward a country the trio have increasingly sought to isolate and undermine in recent years. Macron said: ““The official line pursued by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who are our allies in many ways, is almost one that would lead us to war;” it was “a deliberate strategy for some,” he added.

Iran on its part has alleged that low intensity warfare is heating up in areas of the Islamic republic populated by ethnic minorities, including the Kurds in the northwest and the Baloch on the border with Pakistan. Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said it had recently seized two large caches of weapons and explosives in separate operations in Kurdish areas in the west of the country and a Baloch region on the eastern border with Pakistan. It said the Kurdish cache seized in the town of Marivan included bomb-making material, electronic detonators, and rocket propelled grenades while the one in the east contained two dozen remote-controlled bombs.

The ministry accused Saudi Arabia of providing the weapons but offered no evidence to back up its claim. The ministry has blamed the Kingdom for several weapons seizures in the past year.

The Revolutionary Guards said earlier this month that they had captured explosives and suicide vests in the south-eastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan that had been smuggled in by a jihadi group that operates out of the neighbouring Pakistan region of Balochistan. Separately, a Guard commander said that three Guards and three Islamic State militants had been killed in a clash in western Iran.