- Tomasz Rydelek
Iran's future is being decided now.
Social protests sweeping the country, economic isolation and a deteriorating security situation in the region. The Islamic Republic of Iran is currently going through one of the most difficult periods in its history. Is this the time of the end of Ayatollhas’ rule? Let’s look at the processes that led to the eruption of popular discontent and the current geopolitical environment. What are Tehran’s prospects?
The death of Mahsa Amini
On 13 September, in Tehran, morality police detained a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini. Why? She was not covering her hair properly - the hijab has been compulsory in Iran since the Islamic revolution. Amini was taken to a local police station. Later the same day, in a comatose state, she was taken to hospital, where she died after two days.
According to unofficial information, Amini was severely beaten by Tehran's morality police and one of the impacts, aimed at her skull, probably led to her death.
The young woman's story - thanks to the internet - quickly circulated throughout the country. The day after Amini's death, on 17 September, the first protests took place outside the hospital, which began to spread throughout the country in the following days.
However, the death of Mahsa Amini was only a pretext or catalyst that led to the protests. Indeed, the reasons for social discontent in Iran go much deeper than moral issues.
Western sanctions
In 2018, President Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement with Iran that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had reached in 2015. The Trump administration not only reinstated the pre-2015 sanctions but also slapped Iran with multiple packages of hefty sanctions. As a result, every sector of the Iranian economy came under US sanctions.
President Trump's administration pursued a so-called 'maximum pressure campaign” towards Iran. The pressure exerted by the Americans was so great that - fearing sanctions - even European companies, which had signed lucrative contracts with the Iranians after 2015, withdrew from Iran.
Joe Biden - back during the election campaign - announced his willingness to reach a compromise with Iran. At the beginning of 2021, talks began to take place in Vienna on the reactivation of the JCPOA - this is the acronym for the 2015 nuclear agreement. However, despite several rounds of negotiations, an agreement with Iran was not reached. In an interview with Foreign Policy in December, US Special Envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, left no doubt: „Iran is not interested in a deal, and we’re focused on other things”.
Domestic economics
Iran's problems are not only related to US sanctions. The Iranian economy suffers from a number of structural problems, among which state interventionism definitely stands out in the first place.
It is estimated that as much as 40% of Iran's GDP is produced by entities directly or indirectly controlled by the state. These entities mainly include so-called bonyads (charitable foundations) and companies in which state capital has the upper hand. More often than not, these entities are poorly managed, are responsible for a huge waste of resources and harbour corruption.
The best example of such a state-owned enterprise is the so-called Executive Headquarters of Imam's Directive, abbreviated as SETAD. This entity was established in 1989 on the personal orders of Ayatollah Khomeini. In theory, the Setad was to, using its powers, make a swift and efficient seizure of assets in the hands of enemies of the Islamic revolution and then redistribute them to various Islamic foundations (bonyads). Once these objectives were fulfilled, the Setad was to be disbanded. The practice, however, was quite different.
Setad was never liquidated and, over the years, began to accumulate more and more wealth, buying up stakes in construction companies, banks, oil companies and gaining enormous influence over the Iranian economy. Today, Setad's wealth is estimated at more than $100 billion.
At the same time, Setad remains beyond any control of state factors. The only person who exercises control over it is the Supreme Leader. Parliament, government agencies or the courts can only intervene in the affairs of the Setad at the personal request of Khamenei.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also has a major influence on the Iranian economy. Among other things, the Corps controls a construction company called Khatam-al Anbiya Construction, which, including external contractors, employs around 1 million people and receives billions of dollars in state contracts every year.
The formula is running out
The tense social situation in Iran also stems from the crisis of the current formula of governance. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has remained an autocratic theocracy with all institutions under the formal or informal control of the Supreme Leader - a position held since 1989 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Iranian system is designed to give Iranians a substitute for freedom and democracy - after all, the president and members of parliament are directly elected. However, this is only a substitute for democracy because, ultimately, the electoral process in Iran is controlled by the establishment headed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The key body in controlling the electoral process in Iran is the Guardian Council. It is a 12-member body that approves or rejects nominations for president and members of parliament.
Six members of the Council are directly elected by the Supreme Leader. The other six, on the other hand, are appointed by Parliament on the proposal of the Head of the Judiciary. Importantly, however, the head of the judiciary is personally elected by the Supreme Leader. As a result, Ayatollah Khamenei has total control over the Guardian Council and can thus block candidates who would threaten his authority.
The supreme leader's total control over Iran's political life is also reinforced by the fact that he personally elects all members of the Expediency Discernment Council. This is a vital body as it resolves any disputes that arise between the parliament and the Guardian Council.
Therefore, full control over the Iranian electoral process is in the hands of the so-called 'establishment' headed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Despite this, elections in Iran have so far been a kind of safety valve to calm tensions in society. Hence, the high voter turnout is characteristic of Iran, much higher than in Western societies. From the overthrow of the Shah until 2019, the average turnout during parliamentary elections in Iran was 61%, and during presidential elections, 67%.
However, this safety valve has been regularly tightened for several years. President Trump's denunciation of the JCPOA in 2018, and the return of US sanctions, led the Iranian establishment to turn away from pragmatists like President Rouhani, who wanted compromise with the US. Instead, the establishment turned to Iranian conservatives, seeing them as the best guardians for the difficult times ahead for the Islamic Republic.
In 2020, when Iran held parliamentary elections, the Guardian Council blocked more than half of the nominations. Most of those rejected were centrist and moderate politicians. In this way, Ayatollah Khamenei - and the Guardian Council controlled by him - de facto paved the way for the conservatives to gain power. In the elections, the Conservatives won as much as 76% of the vote. However, the set-up was so obvious to voters that turnout was only 42%, the worst electoral result since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.
A year later, when presidential elections were held in Iran, the situation repeated itself. The Guardian Council again blocked the candidatures of well-known moderate politicians and secured victory for the conservative candidate Ebrahim Raisi. However, turnout was again meagre at 48%, which in turn is the worst result in the history of Iranian presidential elections.
As Sanam Vakil of Chatham House points out, one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran is electoral legitimacy. Since the revolution, elections in Iran have had two main purposes. On the one hand, they provided the aforementioned safety valve and on the other hand, they were meant to legitimise the continued existence of the Islamic Republic. The elections of 2020 and 2021, on the other hand, fulfilled neither of these objectives. In fact, they had the opposite effect.
Many Iranians - especially those with more moderate views - felt that their vote did not matter at all, as the results of the election were known even before the vote. This had a devastating effect on public sentiment - which was already bad due to US sanctions and the country's worsening economic situation.
How steel hardens - the dynamics of the Iranian protests
Now back to the protests. It is important to note that they have been going on for about three months and their dynamics are highly volatile and unpredictable, making it difficult for the security forces to suppress them.
In the first weeks, most of the protests took place on the campuses of Iranian universities and in Iranian Kurdistan, where Mahsa Amini was from. By the end of September, however, the centre of gravity of the protests had already shifted to Baluchi areas, to the province of Sistan and Baluchestan. The Baluchi protests, however, had to do not so much with Amini's death as with the rape of a 15-year-old Baluchi girl by the chief of police in Chabahar. On 30 September, bloody clashes with police took place in the provincial capital, Zahedan, where at least 40 demonstrators were killed. Some sources say there may have been more casualties, even close to a hundred.
The Zahedan massacre has had a devastating effect on the situation in the entire province. The Baluchi guerrillas, who had been active in the region for years, began attacking Iranian security forces in retaliation. The assassination of 2 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Zahedan attracted the most attention in the Western media. But, there were more similar actions.
By mid-November, the Iranian authorities had managed to bring the situation in the Baluchi areas relatively under control. However, the focus of the protests then shifted again to the Kurdish areas. Huge demonstrations in the cities made the local police lose control of the situation.
Tehran played ruthlessly. First, on 14 November, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops fired on targets inside Iraqi Kurdistan. At the same time, a narrative was initiated that the protests taking place in Iranian Kurdistan are supported by Kurdish groups operating on the Iraqi side of the border. While in Baghdad at the time, the commander of the elite Ghods Force, part of the Corps, General Esmail Ghaani, reportedly even threatened the Iraqis with a ground invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan.
A few days later, on 18 November, Corps troops entered the cities of Mahabad, Bukan, Piranshahr or Sanandaj, located in Iranian Kurdistan. The protesters tried to resist but had little chance against the well-armed and trained Corps troops. This is how the Iranian protests entered a new level, the military pacification of Kurdish towns.
The clashes in Baluchestan's Zahedan and Kurdish towns are reflected in the statistics. Of the approximately 500 demonstrators killed, half were killed in Baluchi and Kurdish areas.
The terror apparatus
The Iranian authorities have an extensive repressive apparatus at their disposal, and actions against demonstrators are being taken on many levels. Above all, access to the internet and the free flow of information is being restricted. If protests occur in a particular place, the police and the so-called Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed, popularly known as the Basij, are immediately deployed.
The Basij is a mass volunteer organisation that is part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Corps itself is an elite formation, but the Basij is more of a militia. This paramilitary formation focuses mainly on promoting the ideals of the Islamic Revolution and suppressing protests.
Iranian Kurdistan protests show that if the situation gets out of the hand of the local police, additional Basij troops are first directed to fight the demonstrators. If they, too, cannot manage to break the resistance, then regular Corps troops come in.
The Iranian authorities are also fighting the protests at the level of information warfare. From the very first weeks of the demonstrations, Iranian leaders, led by Ayatollah Khamenei, have been trying to blame the protests on America and Israel, accusing these countries of trying to carry out a so-called 'colour revolution' in Iran.
The authorities are also trying to break up the unity of the demonstrators themselves, according to the ancient principle of divide and rule. Back in September, all morality police patrols were suspended. For several weeks, the Iranian authorities, led by President Raisi, have been sending signals that they are prepared to make some concessions to the demonstrators. While there can be no question of changing the hijab laws, returning to a looser interpretation of them seems realistic. Such a loose interpretation existed, for example, during the presidency of (2013-2021), who (when it came to hijab issues) criticised the activities of the morality police by stating: "Let people choose their own path to heaven. We cannot send people to heaven by force or the lash.”.
Such announcements of reforms or looser interpretations of the laws are an attempt to divide protesters and discourage further demonstrations by those who took to the streets for the sake of the hijab alone.
Another tool of repression used by the Iranian authorities is mass arrests. Since September, more than 15,000 people have been arrested in Iran for participating in demonstrations. Judicial proceedings are conducted very quickly and the sentences handed down are very harsh. The first death sentences have already appeared, and on 8 December, the first execution was carried out.
The regime is holding firm. Is it really?
The Ayatollahs do not see the current protests as a direct threat to their power. They seem to believe that the protests are too few in number and too poorly coordinated to be successful. Nonetheless, some three months after the protests began, the involvement of significant Basij forces and regular Corps troops, the protests have not been fully suppressed and are still ongoing.
An analysis of Iran's economic, political and social situation leads us to conclude that the Islamic Republic is currently going through one of the most difficult periods in its history. This period is all the more difficult because Iran is not facing a single crisis, but several crises at the same time and occurring on different levels.
Since 2018 and the return of US sanctions, Iran's economic situation has been complicated. The hopes pinned on Joe Biden's assumption of power in the White House have proved to be misplaced. Instead of the reactivation of the JCPOA, the Biden administration has brought Iran a de facto continuation of Trump's campaign of maximum pressure. The pressure that has also led to an outflow of European capital from Iran.
Tehran is actively seeking alternative trade partners in Moscow, Beijing, Delhi or the capitals of Central Asia. From April 2023, Iran will become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which brings together, among others, Russia and China - the two main adversaries of the US. However, cooperation with 'Eastern' countries has its limitations. Russia or China are not in a position to provide the modern technology needed, among other things, to modernise Iran's oil sector. Moreover, even eastern companies fear US sanctions. In 2019, for example, the Chinese state-owned company CNPC withdrew from a $5 billion contract to develop the South Pars field.
The international situation in the Middle East is also playing to Iran's disadvantage. Since the conclusion of the so-called Abrahamic Accords and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Israel, a rapid expansion of cooperation between the Gulf Arab monarchies and Israel is evident. It seems only a matter of time before the Saudis join the emerging political bloc. Iran fears that the expansion of Arab-Israeli cooperation will lead to forming of a broad anti-Iranian military alliance, which will completely change the balance of power in the region.
Iranians are also concerned about the situation in the Caucasus. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Moscow cannot influence what happens in the region. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey are adopting an increasingly assertive stance and trying to impose their demands on Armenia. Iran wants to maintain the fragile status quo by declaring its support for Armenia. In October, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted military manoeuvres along the border with Azerbaijan, during which they practised, among other things, forcing the border river Aras. At the same time, however, Iran cannot afford to antagonise Turkey too much, which is largely helping Tehran to circumvent US sanctions.
What worries Iranians most, however, is the lack of prospects for rapid improvement. The economic condition of the country is bad. Social discontent is growing, and the international situation is becoming increasingly dangerous. As if this were Ftnot enough, Iranian support for Russian aggression against Ukraine and the supply of Iranian drones to Russia have made talks on the reactivation of the JCPOA very difficult. The Iranian establishment is trying to deal with the situation by increasing the influence of hardline, conservative politicians to ensure the Islamic Republic's survival in difficult times. Time will tell whether such a policy by the ayatollahs will secure them another decade of rule.
Tomasz Rydelek
Sources:
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2019/12/parliamentary-elections-loom-legitimacy-irans-regime-has-been-shaken
https://abhaseed.org/publications/wybory-prezydenckie-w-iranie/
https://pulslewantu.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/precz-z-chameneim-precz-z-rouhanim/
https://pulslewantu.pl/czy-iran-rozwiazuje-policje-obyczajowa/
M. Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic
A. Saikal, Iran Rising: The Survival and Future of the Islamic Republic
