Understanding Iranian politics

Political change may be inevitable, but it’s not imminent

Following weeks of widespread protests, many speculate that the Iranian regime is facing imminent collapse. But this isn’t new; since 1979, foreign observers and domestic opponents of the regime have anticipated its fall every time mass protests have erupted.

For example, during the protests in 2018, the head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran expressed optimism about an imminent demise. They soon discovered that the government had not only survived but had grown stronger, becoming a permanent reality projecting power throughout the Middle East.

The current spate of unrest started in September after a 22-year-old woman died while in custody of the morality police. Women also played a pivotal role in the unrest in 2017-18, when similar demands were made to what Iranians are calling for today.

In the current demonstrations, however, the protesters are demanding not just social and political reforms but the regime’s complete ouster. According to one young activist, the protests are no longer a reform movement but a revolutionary avant-garde giving birth to a new nation.

Having endured many financial, social and cultural upheavals, especially affecting women and ethnic minorities, the Iranian people are saying enough is enough. Youth from all walks of life have nothing to lose and seem intent on keeping the protests going.

Predicting Change

Political change in Iran may be inevitable, but it’s not imminent. After 10 weeks of demonstrations, the regime seems no closer to making concessions. Rather, it seems confident that the protests will eventually die out, just as previous waves of unrest have.

Protest movements of the past attracted millions of people from across the country representing diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. The current protests, however, are limited to thousands of mostly young demonstrators organized in small groups and have not managed to draw the middle class into the fray.

The unrest isn’t surprising. Iran’s existing political makeup is untenable, and its religious ideology is outdated. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps recognizes the need to streamline state machinery, eliminate political competitors, monopolize power and strike a delicate balance between secularism and Shiite Islam. It sees preserving Iran’s complex national identity that cuts across ethnicity as a matter of overriding importance.

But with the forces that previously ushered in political change no longer present, it doesn’t believe a successful uprising is possible.

One of those forces is the Iranian bazaar, a large marketplace that grew over centuries to become an economic institution, representing Iran’s tradition of capitalism. The bazaar was one of three pillars of Iran’s political system, the other two being the clergy and the political elite.

Over the years, it has lost its role as a vehicle for political transformation, but decades ago, capitalist relations resulting from European imports brought changes that shook the pillars of traditional society, leading to alliances between the bazaar and the clergy as they worked against the monarchy. These coalitions led to widespread protest movements against the autocratic rule of the Qajar kings and later the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

These uprisings included the tobacco concession protests in 1891, the constitutional revolution in 1906, the movement to nationalize the oil industry in 1950, the June 1963 uprising and the Islamic revolution in 1979. The tobacco protests, carried out by shopkeepers and merchants, emanated mainly from the bazaar in Tehran. They formed the backbone of the constitutional movement, which involved clerics and other social groups against the Qajar shah, Nasser al-Din Shah.

The oil industry nationalization movement also involved bazaar merchants who supported Ayatollah Kashani and nationalist leader Mohammad Mossadegh. The merchants’ support was also crucial to the success of the 1963 uprising and the Islamic revolution 16 years later.

The pre-revolutionary bazaar was an active institution within Iranian civil society,

playing a prominent role in restricting and eventually overthrowing the monarchy through its alliance with the clergy. In the lead-up to the revolution, the merchants and clerics organized about two-thirds of the demonstrations and marches in Iranian cities and formed dozens of financial support communities.

After the revolution, however, the relationship between the bazaar and the government changed. The traditional bazaar merchants became part of the political establishment, assuming political and economic positions in the state and thus losing their influence in civil society.

The bazaar was splintered into two camps – one allied with the regime and another disloyal to it – but the split didn’t become evident until after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, and more precisely during President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s time in office from 1989 to 1997.

Rafsanjani opened the door for the IRGC to become an economic entity. In May 2004, the IRGC prevented reformist President Mohammad Khatami from opening Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran because it wanted to control the lion’s share in its operations.

Conservative Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the mayor of Tehran at the time, facilitated IRGC-linked companies’ domination of private sector activities. The group also maintained substantial influence over the political system, including the judiciary, parliament and presidency, to ensure expansion of its economic activity, despite Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s ban on the military’s involvement in political affairs.

The IRGC facilitated Ahmadinejad’s victory in the 2005 and 2009 presidential elections. During his time in office, the military elements in parliament, government, governorates and municipal councils expanded.

The IRGC excluded the private sector from most oil industry and road construction projects. It invested in publishing, media and journalism, and took advantage of economic sanctions to expand the importation of smuggled goods and commodities, prompting Ahmadinejad to describe IRGC commanders as the smuggling brothers. The IRGC even built secret ports to traffic goods into the country. Its annual non-taxable income from illicit business exceeds $140 billion.

There is a major divide between traditional bazaar merchants and the new merchants in Iran’s military bureaucracy. The Port of Dubai and the free trade zones on the islands of Kish and Qeshm further weakened the bazaar and crippled its ability to influence politics.

The bazaar as an institution lost its homogeneity after the revolution. The great merchants who helped finance its success joined the political elite and became one of the constituents of the new political system. They gave up on production and focused on imports and distribution of goods until a new class of IRGC-affiliated merchants emerged.

These economic changes caused the fragmentation of the conservatives into rival political groups.

Weakened Conservatives

Conservatives in Iran today are weakening, divided over selection of a successor to current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wants the title to go to his son and has already given him the title of ayatollah. Khamenei recently dismissed the IRGC intelligence chief because he opposed the idea of inheritance of the position.

Presently, there is no figure within the Iranian regime who could take over the leadership with the support of political actors from different factions. All the political leaders who could be candidates have controversial pasts that make them unacceptable to some. Also absent is an independent and charismatic religious figure capable of filling the looming political vacuum.

Meanwhile, the religious establishment is fixated on the past. It can’t let go of unpopular propositions that consider the West, especially the United States, its main enemy.

From this standpoint, Iran has only one way forward: to move ahead with strength and not give in to intimidation. Very few Iranians accept the establishment’s antiquated reasoning, and most take issue with Khamenei’s disparaging remarks about the protesters, who he said were either deceived or agents of the enemy. Describing them as agents of foreigners only increases their anger and motivation to continue protesting.

Political instability is likely to continue, considering opposition to any successor to the supreme leader is inevitable.

The most prominent candidates are over 80 years old, but two younger potential nominees are current President Ebrahim Raisi and the head of the judiciary, Amoli Larijani. However, they come from a similar school of thought as Khamenei and are not amenable to reform, let alone political transformation.

Changes Ahead

Since the 1979 revolution, Iranian society has undergone massive, unexpected and transformational cultural shifts, effectively dividing it between secular-minded individuals and religious enthusiasts fully committed to the revolution’s mission. It’s necessary to consider the social realities present during the transition between supreme leaders to anticipate what lies ahead.

Defenders of the Islamic regime have introduced the concept of collective charisma when discussing the revolutionary generation that overthrew the shah. Under this concept, where charisma is possessed not by the individual but by the group, the ceremonial supreme leader will derive his status from the charisma of the position and not the other way around.

The history of the religious establishment is full of conflict with the political establishment, yet it has demonstrated considerable capacity to persevere. The regime will not fall but will reinvent itself. Its strategy to survive the current unrest is to instill enough fear in the protesters that they stay home.

With the support of Iraqi and Lebanese Shiite militias, the authorities have used excessive coercion and judicial penalties, including the death penalty, to intimidate those calling for change. Tehran has also tried to shift the focus by launching strikes on targets in northern Iraq, claiming that it is responding to extremist Kurdish groups that smuggle weapons into the country.

Most Iranians will not seek a fundamental change that affects their national identity, believing it could disintegrate the country. The IRGC, meanwhile, will cling to power while recasting itself as first among unequals, just like the militaries in other regional countries such as Egypt and Algeria.

Most likely, the people will accept the transition process so long as it excludes the conservatives from the decision-making process without undermining the role of Shiism in safeguarding Iran’s territorial integrity and preserving its national identity.

Hilal Khashan is a Professor of political science at the American University of Beirut.