Author: Natig NAZIMOGLU
Mass protests, which took place in several cities of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the last days of the past year, are still in the spotlight of the world community. Although the protest movement primarily manifested the internal problems of Iranian politics and economy, it is worth analyzing them in the context of unrelenting attempts of certain external circles to influence Tehran's regional and global position.
Reformers and Conservatives
Iran is suffering from yet another surge of mass unrest. Similar events occurred back in 2009 and 2014. However, those events were mainly related to presidential elections and were provoked by the losing political powers, who questioned the results of the elections. However, the recent protests that swept Iran’s capital city of Tehran and other large cities such as Mashhad, Isfahan, and Resht have caught everyone by surprise, as they have not fit into the framework of a specific electoral process. Nevertheless, it would be inappropriate to analyze them in isolation from Iran’s internal political configuration and the existing socio-economic problems.
According to media reports, at least twenty people became victims of the riots. Iranian authorities claim full control over the situation in the country. Several thousand people were detained but most of them were soon released. Allegedly, the authorities continue keeping only the “rebels” and “saboteurs” in custody, as they consider them the main organizers of anti-government actions.
In fact, the leaders of the Islamic Republic have repeatedly stated that they recognized the right of the people to express their discontent with existing domestic problems. President Hassan Rouhani even promised that he would more actively deal with internal problems, such as the rising prices and unemployment.
Indeed, the volume of socio-economic problems in Iran has grown in recent years, while the population hoped for their early resolution after the removal of international sanctions from the country. However, contrary to expectations, the food prices and taxes rose sharply in 2017 amidst the decline of social subsidies. Unemployment among young people, the main participants of protests, reached 28.8%. One of the reasons that sparked a surge of public discontent was the government’s decision from December 19 to raise fuel prices by almost 50%.
However, the speech of presidential adviser Hesamodin Ashna criticizing the “unbalanced distribution” of the state budget for 2018 was the last drop that sparked a surge of social discontent in Iran. Incidentally, a number of newspaper articles have revealed not only the irrationalism but also the dishonesty of those who drafted the budgets of past years. It turned out that almost half of the state budget had been used to finance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as the Islamic Revolution Fund Mostazafan, which supports various Muslim organizations inside the country and actually controls a number of branches of the Iranian economy.
Dissatisfied with all these manifestations of the state policy, the protesters demanded for the resignation of President Hassan Rouhani and his government. This demonstrates the aggravation of contradictions within the Iranian political elite. The fact that the president's adviser disclosed the secrets of the budget indicates that the very environment of the reformer Rouhani decided to put an end to the excessive financing of such “conservative” centers as IRGC and the Islamic Revolution Fund, making the government to cut the funds for the implementation of social projects significantly. However, the demand for Rouhani’s resignation shows that the “conservatives” have managed to turn the wrath of the people against the government of the “reformers”, which in a formal sense is guilty of all socio-economic problems. Thus, the “reformist” media has explicitly hinted at the former Iranian Attorney General Ibrahim Raisi as the person behind the anti-government protests and whose candidacy for the presidency the Conservatives supported as Rouhani's opponent.
As one of the confidants of the ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, two years ago Raisi became the head of the charitable Islamic foundation Astan Qods Razawi, one of the organizations receiving significant financial support from the budget. Incidentally, the headquarters of the foundation, which reportedly employs about twenty thousand people, is located in Mashhad, the epicenter of the recent protests.
Either way, the ‘reformist-conservative’ squabbles are not able to disguise the equally impressive side of the Iranian protest action. Both the supporters of the moderate Rouhani and the orthodox majority around the head of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, alluded to this factor in their assessment of the ongoing events. It is about the external attempts to interfere in domestic affairs. In fact, it is a serious official pretext supporting the need for a promptly suppression of the protest actions, which both the “reformers” and “conservatives” insist.
External Provokers
Despite the growing contradictions in the establishment, Iranian leadership has unanimously stated that the protests were caused by both internal problems and the external provocation, mentioning the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia as the primary “instigators”. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Khamenei stated that “Iran's enemies have used a wide variety of available resources, including money, weapons, politics, and special services, to challenge the Islamic regime.”
Although Tehran does not mention facts, there is an open support for protest actions in Iranian cities by certain world powers. The U.S. Department of State expressed Washington's readiness to consider the issue of imposing new sanctions against the Islamic Republic. By calling the state structure of Iran “a theocratic regime turned to the past,” CIA Director Michael Pompeo in fact supported interference in Iran's internal affairs. He also expressed his hope that “the Iranians will continue to raise revolts against the authorities” and “these protests are not yet over”. President Donald Trump even promised to help the Iranian people “at the appropriate time”.
It is not difficult to guess the reasons behind the promise of the American president considering the U.S. assistance rendered a while back to the peoples of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and the other countries caught up in the American struggle for the “bright democratic future” of these peoples. To further press on Tehran, the U.S. has launched such a diplomatic tool, which they had repeatedly tested previously – the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley has threatened the Iranian authorities saying that their actions are now “on notice.”
This method of pressure used by Washington did not divide a number of countries that preferred to react with restraint to the protest events in Iran. And it is not just about the countries like Russia and China, which traditionally oppose the U.S. and have warned Americans against interference in Iran's internal affairs and undermining the authority of the UN Security Council, whose duties do not include discussing the domestic situation in various countries. France was also against the attempts to shake the situation in Iran. The country’s permanent representative to the UN, François Delattre expressed the hope that “the changes will come to Iran not from outside but from the Iranian people themselves”.
In his telephone conversation with Hasan Rouhani, the French President Emmanuel Macron stressed that his country does not consider Iran to be either the axis of evil, supporter of terrorism, or a destabilizing factor in the region. Thus, Macron made it clear that the French and American approaches to Iran are different. The position of Paris coincides with the position of most influential European powers, which plan to expand economic cooperation with Teheran after weakening the regime of international anti-Iran sanctions. However, Washington is not happy with the prospect of Iran's ultimate recovery from the existing isolation. The U.S. increasingly threatens to reconsider the international plan of actions for resolving the problem of the Iranian nuclear program, which, in fact, has made further preservation of restrictive measures against Tehran void.
In general, American response to protests in Iran confirms that the U.S. still considers the processes in the Middle East solely from the perspective of its global geopolitical interests. As for Israel and Saudi Arabia, also listed in the Iranian list of main instigators of protests, they continue their efforts to prevent the growth of Tehran’s regional influence. Hence, their complete solidarity with the U.S. intention to call Iran to justice by all available means. At least for the role that Iran has played in the Syrian crisis, leading the settlement process through a path that the strategists of the transatlantic superpower did not expect.
Supporting the stability
It is noteworthy that the Turkic neighbors of Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan, have also supported stability in Iran by consistently following the principle of non-interference of states in the affairs of each other. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed his solidarity with Hasan Rouhani accusing the U.S. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of supporting protesters in Iran.
Baku has also expressed the wish that the events in Iran proceed in a peaceful manner and in accordance with the legislation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This position is completely in line with the logic of Azerbaijan's foreign policy strategy, whose priorities include maintaining regional security and cooperation. A balanced attitude of official Baku regarding South Azerbaijan is also connected with this principle position.
Incidentally, the Azerbaijanis living in Iran practically withdrew from the protests, which unfolded mainly in the populated cities of the Islamic Republic. According to observers, none of the protest movements in Iran has ever been successful unless supported by Azerbaijanis. It seems that the same thing happened this time too, given the noticeable fade-out of the protest energy of the “fighters with the Iranian regime.”
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