Now is the time for the West to lean on Tehran
The recent news that Professor Kavous Seyed-Emami, a 63- year- old environmental activist and Iranian- Canadian dual national, had died under interrogation in Iran is a reminder of Tehran’s arbitrary detention of dual nationals, the regime’s persistent and often fatal use of torture, and its feeble attempts to cover up the causes of prisoner deaths.
With the most significant anti- regime uprising in almost a decade in full swing, the timing could not be worse for Iran’s clerical rulers. Many experts anticipate that the regime’s violent response to recent protests will only inspire more protests like the ones that rocked the country in January. And Seyed-Emami’s death may further erode the false narrative of the regime’s stability. If nothing else, the tragedy should serve as a wake- up call for Western policy- makers concerned by Tehran’s human rights abuses and the mounting discontent on the Iranian street.
In recent years, some of these policy- makers peddled misleading stories to the media in the interest of securing and safeguarding a nuclear deal with Iran. The stories depicted Iranian officials as more co- operative and rational than they actually were. When the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps ( IRGC) claimed that an American patrol boat had violated Iran’s waters in January of 2016, seizing the crew of 10 sailors, the U. S. State Department insisted that their quick release was proof of improved relations. Tehran embraced this implausible spin since it contributed to the regime’s impunity.
The myth of Iran’s political stability has the same effect. Without it, Iran’s negotiating partners may never have rushed to conclude a largely one-sided nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic, much less pursue trade deals that promise to inject money into the ruling establishment. In other words, the U. S. and its allies missed an opportunity to establish policy in solidarity with the Iranian people who are locked in a deep power struggle with the theocratic regime in Tehran.
These disagreements were made clear in 2009 during the Green Movement protests against the ruling regime, but Western powers failed to provide anything but superficial support to protesters and ultimately turned a blind eye to the ensuing brutal crackdown. They then wrote off the uprising in successive years by describing it as one limited to the middle class youth of Tehran while poor and rural Iranians lent legitimacy to the government.
But this year, the protests largely coalesced around smaller cities and towns. The message of these protests, far from showing more deference to the supposedly stable government, was even more definitive than the 2009 uprising. In dozens of cities, protesters chanted slogans like “death to Rouhani” and “death to the dictator.” In so doing, they risked capital punishment under a regime that has engaged in the most serious criminalization of dissent in nearly four decades.
The deaths of activists like Seyed- Emami highlight the severity of this risk, but they also promise to further fuel the outrage that spans urban centres and rural villages throughout the Islamic Republic. And as the full picture of the crackdown on recent protests continues to leak out to the Western world, analysts will be watching to see whether international policymakers continue to bend their narratives about Iran in order to retain the image of a secure and somewhat legitimate national government.
The Iranian people are hopeful that Western narratives are changing to establish more appropriate policies regarding the ayatollahs’ domestic abuses and export of terrorism. Though these hopes were dashed in the past, there is optimism in the wake of the recent protests, which compelled the regime’s highest- ranking officials to admit inconvenient truths about threats to their hold on power.
On Jan. 9, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made public statements acknowledging the leading role played by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in planning and executing the protests. Since attempting to stamp out the pro-democracy resistance group through a campaign of executions and assassination in the 1980s, the regime has committed to portraying it as an insignificant influence on Iranian society. As a consequence of this propaganda, some Western leaders came to falsely believe there was no established alternative to theocracy and no organized movement that could bring about regime change from within.
Khamenei’s statements undermine this belief by letting the world know that the PMOI and its affiliates stand ready to lead their people to a free and democratic future. Maryam Rajavi, president of the PMOI’s parent coalition the National Council of Resistance of Iran, delivered the same message in a Jan. 24 address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council. “The regime is doomed to fall and the Iranian people are determined to continue their struggle to end the rule of religious dictatorship and establish freedom,” she said.
The U.S., Canada, and Europe together can help make that struggle successful by putting to bed the myth that the Iranian regime is a fixture of the Middle East landscape. By putting decisive pressure on the Iranian regime, Western officials can help the Iranian people achieve a brighter future and they may save the lives of Western nationals in the process.