"Women, Life, Freedom" and the Iranian Government's Approach to Potential Future Crises

The second anniversary of the death of Mahsa Zhina Amini in the custody of the morality police provides an opportunity to review the changes the government has adopted following the bloody and violent suppression of the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement; although there has been no change in the fundamental methods of governance, political strategy, or the continuation of authoritarianism and the imposition of a Shiite fundamentalist discourse on society. It seems that the hard core of power has considered strategies to prevent the emergence of similar protest movements, and changes have occurred in form and appearance. These changes can be seen in the allowance for the formation of Masoud Pezeshkian's government and the proposal to establish a government known as "National Accord" with a mixed presence of moderate reformists, principlists, and moderates, transitioning from a monolithic rule to a consolidation of governance. Of course, the government's preventive measures consist of a range of hardware, software, and security approaches. It is expected that they have reorganized special units, transformed the punishment system, and restructured the institutions responsible for countering urban protests and the mobilization framework to optimize the repression apparatus. They also seek to control violence in street confrontations and create barriers in political and media spaces to prevent emotional atmospheres from arising in conflicts and being transmitted to society. At the same time, a greater focus on financial penalties, in a context where a chronic and severe economic crisis has crippled society, has been considered for deterrence. This article attempts to describe the design implemented to strengthen the soft aspect of repression: Mahsa Amini; from the moment she arrived in Tehran until the day her name became a symbol of the rule of the Guardian Jurist and tactical retreat. It seems that the Guardian Jurist system hopes for a change in the balance of power; a change that appears to be a tactical retreat but is actually perceived as a forward movement with the complete demotion of the presidency to the executive vice presidency of the Guardian Jurist, allowing Khamenei to escape the pressure of popular protests, making structural political changes seem impossible in public opinion, and disrupting the process of forming a capable and organized protest movement through Pezeshkian's interactive approach with the absolute power structure. The hard core of power has considered repeating the experience of marginalizing the Green Movement by allowing the "Purple Government" of Hassan Rouhani and subsequently creating disruptions to achieve its programs, promoting minimalism and normalizing despotism while eternalizing the current power structure, to create doubts about the continuation of resistance and the withdrawal from participation in the official mechanisms of the system, preventing the current process from reaching a qualitative leap that could incapacitate the repression apparatus. The achievements of "Women, Life, Freedom" The "Women, Life, Freedom" movement no longer exists in its political and activist form, but its achievements, especially in undermining compulsory hijab and increasing self-confidence in society for reliance on the people's power to transition to democracy and the decline of the Islamic Republic, have been established. The refusal of the majority of people to participate in the fourteenth presidential election showed that the consequences of the Mahsa movement are stronger than the calculations of both main factions of the system. The main issue for society is the confrontation with the institution of the Guardian Jurist and the fundamental change of the existing power structure, and it is not willing to reduce its demands to the replacement of its second and third-tier appointees. However, it seems that both the institution of the Guardian Jurist and the reformist front are still trying to eliminate the grounds for street protests by promoting the moderate approach of Pezeshkian's government and some limited reform measures or increasing the costs of such protests. The repetition of protests similar to the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement that leads to radical and structural slogans will be attacked by both factions this time. Previously, reformists mostly tried to use these protests to weaken Ebrahim Raisi's government and convince the regime to open the political space for them to repair the gap between the nation and the government. However, potential future protests pose an existential threat to them. The experience of the "Moderation Government" in the violent and bloody suppression of the protests of December 2017 and November 2019 is enlightening in this regard. A significant portion of reformists delegitimized the December 2017 protests by attributing them to intra-governmental rivals. A similar pattern continues to be observed, targeting opponents and critics of reformism with destructive attacks and character assassination. Now, reformists have more motivation to prevent and stop street protests compared to that period due to their imaginations regarding a return to power and regaining lost privileges. Therefore, it is not incorrect to assume that in the face of protests similar to the Mahsa movement, Pezeshkian's government, considering its security background, may participate in repression. The government's actions and methods for silencing protests The uncertainty in Iran's political situation is highlighted by the lack of change in the Minister of Intelligence, whose ministry played an active role in the violent repression, arrests, torture, and harassment of Mahsa movement activists. The inclinations and backgrounds of Iskandar Momeni, the Minister of Interior, are similar to those of Ahmad Vahidi, the Minister of Interior in the thirteenth government, and differences in details may not be significant. Pezeshkian's government suffers from the naive belief that the application of sweet language, making deferred promises, and a relative improvement in the economic situation will accept the principle of a closed political and cultural space, suspending demands for political and social freedoms, ending authoritarianism in governance, and expanding channels of political participation in favor of development and economic improvement; while the past records of Iranian society seriously question the realization of this expectation. Overall, uncertainty continues to dominate the political situation in Iran. Factors such as "the lack of political legitimacy of the Islamic Republic," "systematic and widespread repression," "the majority of society's inclination towards revolutionary changes," "the irreparable deep gap between the government and the nation," "the stubborn will of the government to maintain the status quo," "the narrowing of the political participation spectrum," "the inability of opponents to incapacitate the regime's repression apparatus," "the increasing power of countercultural movements," "the growth of unmanageable mega-challenges," "the dire economic situation," and "the continuation of the crisis in foreign policy" are factors that have made the future of Iranian politics uncertain and unpredictable. In this context, it seems unlikely that the government's measures will yield results. Just as the unintended consequence of Rouhani's government was the deepening of the nation-government gap and the radicalization of protests, there is also the possibility that street protests may emerge in a broader form; especially since, unlike Rouhani, Pezeshkian is elected by a minority of the people based on electoral participation, and the majority have already shown indifference to his government and its promises.