Iran in World Media: What Impact Will Protests Have on the Islamic Republic?

Some international media outlets, noting the decline of protests in Iran, argue that recent events should not be underestimated. Al Jazeera reports that the leaderless street protests in Iran, which have confused and surprised the global community, are of significant importance: "The protesters depicted the deep anger of the Iranian people over the lack of economic and political progress in the country." The report adds that Hassan Rouhani has taken four encouraging steps so far: the nuclear agreement, confronting hardliners, adhering to the IMF's guidelines for economic reform, and finally combating governmental corruption, but none of these have yielded results. Al Jazeera further notes that while the protesters' slogans initially targeted the poor living conditions, they quickly aimed at the entire system, with unprecedented criticism directed at the leadership and Iran's support for regional chaos. The report raises the question of how Rouhani can persuade Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of Iran, to agree to a "surgical reform of the economic system." However, there is also the possibility that hardliners will focus the country's attention more on militarization and seek to present a more militaristic image of Iran to the global community. Hardliners do not believe in the people's demands. Politico also reports that the Islamic Republic, whose officials have no qualms about killing their own citizens, may resort to violence against protesters, similar to what happened in the events of 2009, to survive once again. However, this regime will no longer be in its previous state. The report adds that if Ali Khamenei and his hardline supporters assess the situation as critical, they will resort to more violence and coercion in the country. According to this report, the Iranian people protested against the squandering of national assets during the crises in Arab countries, but the Iranian government is not expected to change its course. The Iranian government, which considers itself a borderless revolutionary entity, has seized a good opportunity to expand its influence in the region. Politico states: "Reformists, who once tried to align the religious government with human rights standards, have failed and stepped aside, deepening the rift between the people and the government." The report states that Rouhani, who has a long history in the Islamic Republic's administration, focused most of his campaign slogans against corruption in the recent elections against his principlist rival, Ebrahim Raisi, and even referred to one of the dark corners of the Islamic Republic's history, the mass execution of political prisoners in the summer of 1988. He promised rapid economic growth, a charter of citizen rights, and the formation of a government free of embezzlement; however, Rouhani, who has long been one of the pillars of the Iranian regime in suppressing the student movement of 1999 and the 2009 election protests, is reluctant to pursue deep reforms, as such actions would exacerbate unrest, while he has lost the trust of both the people and the principlists, who view any reforms as a precursor to regime change. The report adds that Khamenei and the principlists believe they are implementing God's will on earth and such a government has no belief in public will and the people. However, Politico writes that Khamenei, with his "resistance economy" model, prefers to cut the economy off from oil, protect domestic industries from foreign competition, hand the Iranian market over to domestic companies instead of Western ones, and draw the country's financial resources from abroad to within. However, Rouhani is looking for foreign investment, which has always been met with distrust by Iran's leader, as he considers integration into the global financial system a trap for the Islamic Republic. The report adds that Khamenei's austerity economy is unlikely to improve people's welfare, but in his view, the only way to save the Islamic Revolution is to isolate the country from the West. Where do reformists stand? The Washington Post also reports, penned by Mohammad Ali Kadiour, a reformist political activist in Iran, that the recent protests in Iran, like the revolutions of recent years in the region, known as the Arab Spring, were leaderless. The report adds that reformists could have claimed leadership of the protests, but so far they have preferred to stand aside. Some say they fear Iran will become another Syria, while others cite their support for Rouhani's moderate government as an example. Mr. Kadiour states, however, that his research shows the roots of this issue go back to the formation of the reformist strategy in the 1990s. The report continues that the origin of reformism was based on modernizing the religious government from within the system, accompanied by intellectual activities, women's rights, the middle class, and student movements. Initially, reformists were not optimistic due to fear of power institutions, increased repression, and the consequences of their actions, and even in the face of ongoing repression of reformist movements, they preferred to maintain calm to gain the trust of the Islamic Republic's institutions. The protests of 2009 also saw millions of Tehranis in the streets, which led some reformists to consider mobilizing the public against the government, but ultimately the protests subsided, and the severe government crackdown convinced them that public mobilization could not be a way to advance their goals. The report adds that leaderless protests can be a boon in the short term, as the Islamic Republic will not have a specific target for repression, but in the long term, it will be problematic, as besides the lack of strategy, the people will also lack a representative for negotiations and presenting demands to the government. The report states that in the events of 2009, the leadership of the protests was in the hands of reformists, and the protesters were mainly from the academic class and political activists. However, the joining of the poor classes and rural areas to the protests could bridge the gap between the capital and the provinces, as well as the middle and lower classes of society. He then refers to the views of reformists like Hamid Reza Jalali Pour and Mostafa Tajzadeh, who, while affirming the right to protest, have warned against the country sliding into a situation similar to Syria and Afghanistan. The reactions of some other reformists, such as Abbas Abdi, have been much harsher, labeling the protesters as "unpredictable and irrational."