From Khomeini to Khamenei: Iran awaits another revolution
If one permits an infidel to continue in his role as a corrupter of the earth, his moral suffering will be all the worse. If one kills the infidel, and this stops him from perpetrating his misdeeds, his death will be a blessing to him - Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Thirty-nine years down the tumultuous voyage after Ruhollah Khomeini triggered the seemingly radical Islamist tsunami, the Ayatollah’s words sound extremely ironic. From "Death to America" in 1979, Iran is suddenly reverberating with "Death to dictator (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)" in 2018. The Rouhani government and the new Ayatollah are the "infidel" for the angry and agitated Iranian youth, who want to end their "suffering".
The puritanical, xenophobic Khomeini had given the battle cry against the Pahlavi dynasty, led by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who had inked the "Satanic pact" with Uncle Sam. While the pro-America Pahlavi was seen by the outside world as the harbinger of economic development and progressive, the Khomeini-led Mullahs despised the Shah.
Under the Shah, the Iranian Army, armed with sophisticated US-supplied weapons, had become extremely powerful. His most potent and feared weapon to quell dissent at home was the secret police SAVAK, which was formed with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Mossad. The brutal and oppressive SAVAK allegedly killed and tortured thousands of Shah’s opponents.
The virulent opposition of the Mullahs to the increasing "westernisation" of Iran, economic discontent, unemployment and corruption would soon mutate into the revolution, which finally dislodged the Shah. The Iranians could never forget the CIA’s collusion with the UK in overthrowing nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who attempted to nationalise British petroleum interests, in 1953.
Pahlavi’s White Revolution, initially seen as an agent of national development, including industrial growth and land reforms, alienated the clerics and the landlords.
The government started buying lands from the landlords and sold them to ordinary Iranians at lower rates. The powerful Mullahs, who were abhorrent to their slipping grip on education and family law, portrayed themselves as the new face of the urban class and the intelligentsia. The clerics detested decisions like allowing women to vote and run for elected office as anti-Islamic and pro-West. The lack of higher education and low literacy rate angered the youth and unequal distribution of wealth irked the masses. Khomeini stoked their anger by targeting Pahlavi directly during his fierce speech at Feyziyeh School in 1963.
In fact, the White Revolution catalysed the Islamic Revolution, with the masses, students and merchants rallying behind Khomeini to overthrow the Shah. Once the Pahlavi dynasty was uprooted, Khomeini turned the course of Iran, which was on the verge of junking its puritanical garb and embracing modern values. Khomeini’s contempt towards the West, especially "America, the great Satan", and his unwavering faith in Islamist values, was clearly visible on the contours of his frightening visage.
A plebiscite in March 1979 that gave way to an Islamic Republic and a new Constitution that created the position of Vilayat-e-Faqih — the national religious leader — cemented the Ayatollah’s grip permanently. Now, Khomeini controlled the Army and the Revolutionary Guards and was set to shape Iran’s future — he dragged the war with Iran, allowed the 444-day seige of the US Embassy in Tehran and thousands, including the Shah’s supporters, were executed.
Several decades later, the Islamic nation is in the throes of another "revolution"— though nascent — but this time it is both against the new Ayatollah and the moderate Rouhani. Rising unemployment, fluctuating inflation, spiking cost of food, increasing poverty and above all the modern Iranian youth, who is politically, socially and internationally aware, form the core of the biggest demonstrations since the 2009 election protests against ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The nascent "Spring Revolution", which has spread to 50 cities, has claimed 21 lives so far with the government trying to nip it in the bud. The clerics, led by Khamenei, and the reformist Rouhani, face the biggest hurricane of discontent in a decade.
Like Khomeini, Rouhani was seen as a catalyst for change — especially by the youth — who would end the economic miseries compounded by the crippling Western sanctions over its N-programme and junk the veil of stifling puritanical norms strictly enforced by the conservatives.
In his first term, Rouhani’s biggest diplomatic achievement globally was the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the P5+1 (the five UNSC permanent members China, France, Russia, the UK and the US plus Germany) and the European Union in Geneva in 2015. The landmark nuclear deal lifted the economic sanctions with Tehran agreeing to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, reduce its low-enriched uranium by 98 per cent and cut down its gas centrifuges for 13 years. It was agreed that Iran would recover around $100 billion of its frozen assets in overseas banks. In 2015, Iran’s GDP shrunk 1.4 per cent in 2015, but it spiked to 12.3 per cent the next year after most sanctions were lifted.
Rouhani swept back to a massive victory last year on the back of young Iranians who were yearning for change. He dubbed the conservatives as “those who cut out tongues and sewed mouths shut”. But the lifting of the economic sanctions has not had the desired impact on the economy. Foreign firms are still reluctant to do deal with Iran as US curbs on financial transactions remain. Inflation has been fluctuating massively since 2013. “The nuclear deal is overwhelmingly supported by the Iranian public, but there was an expectation that much more economic development would come out of it,” Trita Parsi, president, National Iranian American Council, had told CNN.
The youth is enraged at the rising joblessness with the official unemployment rate at 12.4 per cent. According to the BBC, the under-30 population has been the worst affected with the ILO estimating that 26.7 per cent in the 15-24-year-old category are jobless.
Social media and the smartphone played a massive role in spreading the demonstrations. Protests were organised and photos and videos were shared on the Telegram app, which was finally blocked by the government.
According to the World Bank, poverty shot up to 10.5 per cent in 2014, when Rouhani became president for the first time. His draft budget proposes cuts in the government cash transfers to low-income families. The spiralling cost of food is one of the major reasons for the protests. A 50 per cent rise in the price of eggs apparently triggered the first protest in Mashhad. The consumption of eggs and meat has come down drastically. According to the budget, fuel price will shoot up by 50 per cent.
The leak of Rouhani’s draft budget showed how Iran was spending billions on hardliners, the military and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. The youth are peeved at the staggering amounts of money Tehran spends on the Hezbollah, the Syrian war and its Mideast ambitions while poverty and unemployment rates are rising.
Khamenei has blamed Iran’s foreign rivals for the demonstrations. “In recent days, enemies of Iran used different tools including cash, weapons, politics and intelligence apparatus to create troubles for the Islamic Republic,” he said.
The biggest disadvantage the protesters have is that they are rudderless. With no leader leading the protests, the Basij militia will likely crush the demonstrators like the Green Movement in 2009, which was led by Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. Unless the protests spread to the whole of Iran, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij will quickly move to snuff it out.
It is up to Rouhani to heal the scars permanently by fulfilling the promises he made to the youth on the campaign trail for the second time. Otherwise, the increasing chasm between the government and the Iranians will widen further and trigger another revolution.