How to make the 2nd ‘Persian Spring’ last
Uprising could be more dramatic than in 2009
For nearly a week, tens of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets throughout the Islamic Republic in the largest mass demonstrations of their kind in nearly a decade. In the process, they have raised the tantalizing possibility that we might be witnessing a second “Persian Spring.”
The protests found their roots in Iran’s economic malaise. Despite the promised dividends of the 2015 nuclear deal with the West, ordinary Iranians have seen little tangible improvement in their standard of living. Conditions have steadily worsened over the past year, punctuated by rising commodity prices, a drop in purchasing power and a spike in inflation. Unemployment remains rampant, with 40% of the country’s youth without work. Against this backdrop, the regime’s adventurism in war-torn places such as Syria and Yemen, coupled with widespread corruption, has generated no shortage of grassroots discontent.
But the protests have quickly become much more and now represent a wholesale indictment of Iran’s clerical system itself. The character of the demonstrations — punctuated by chants of “death to the dictator!” (a reference to Iran’s all powerful supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) — make abundantly clear that protesters are seeking fundamental political change.
That trajectory should be familiar, insofar as it mirrors the evolution of the original “Persian Spring.” In 2009, grassroots outrage over the fraudulent re-election of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad coalesced into a larger anti-government wave that came to be known as the “Green Movement.” But Iran’s nascent democrats failed to unite around a coherent political agenda or path forward. They were eventually co-opted into supporting the regime’s new and more “moderate” face, now-President Hassan Rouhani.
Western disinterest was to blame as well. The Obama administration, eager to hammer out some sort of modus vivendi with the ayatollahs, at first remained largely silent in the face of Iran’s ferment. Regime forces were emboldened to brutally suppress the protests without fear of international retribution. The result was a crackdown that left the opposition politically neutered and largely irrelevant.
Today, things appear to be substantially different. These protests aren’t just about a rigged election or factional domestic politics. They reflect a fundamental loss of faith in the stewardship of the Iranian ship of state and in the clerical political system as a whole. That loss of confidence appears to cut across all economic strata. As a result of these features, they could prove to be a good deal more difficult to suppress.
Washington, too, is paying renewed attention. In 2009, the Obama administration’s characterization of the protests as strictly an internal affair demoralized Iran’s democrats and emboldened authorities in Tehran, with tragic results. By contrast, the current White House has done an admirable job of enunciating America’s support for Iran’s protesters.
“Many reports of peaceful protests by Iranian citizens fed up with regime’s corruption & its squandering of the nation’s wealth to fund terrorism abroad,” President Trump tweeted. “Iranian govt should respect their people’s rights, including right to express themselves. The world is watching!”
Other prominent decision-makers on both sides of the political aisle have communicated much the same.
Such sentiments are undoubtedly a good start. But they must be matched by concrete actions on the part of the administration — such as new economic penalties against key regime institutions responsible for repression, including the country’s Central Bank and its feared Basij domestic militia.
By making it more difficult for the ayatollahs to throttle the protesters, the Trump administration can help to create the political space necessary for the Iranian opposition to truly flourish. If that happens, perhaps the second Persian Spring playing out on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities will be able to succeed where the first one failed.