We have been down this road before. First come the waves of the oppressed demanding change, then the threats of reprisal from the government. Then? …
Protesters in Iran continued to denounce the nation’s clerical regime on Sunday, even as government officials promised to crack down on dissidents with an “iron fist” if the unrest does not stop.
Tens of thousands of Iranians have taken to streets across the country to protest the ruling clerical elite and its foreign and domestic policies over the past four days. It is the largest mass demonstration against the regime since 2009, when then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election in a widely disputed election.
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The Iranian government warned protesters on Sunday they would face reprisal for the unauthorized demonstrations.
“Those who damage public property, violate law and order and create unrest are responsible for their actions and should pay the price,” Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said, according to a Reuters translation of state media.
What began Thursday as scattered protests over Iran’s faltering economy quickly morphed into a countrywide uprising against the regime’s endemic corruption and foreign interventions, that many Iranians see as the root causes of the country’s economic malaise. Demonstrators have called on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down and even shouted “Long live Reza Shah,” referring to the king who ruled Iran from 1925 to 1941 and was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
The demands break a political taboo in Iran, indicating a level of discontent that represents the single biggest political challenge to the regime since the revolution, that created the Islamic Republic.
Unlike the 2009 unrest, the protests over the weekend appear entirely spontaneous and without direction from opposition leaders. They have also extended far beyond Tehran, the country’s center of political gravity, to smaller, more conservative cities throughout the country, suggesting widespread dissatisfaction with the regime.
Iran has a dual system of republican and clerical rule, but the supreme leader rules for life and is the head of armed forces. The arrangement gives Ayatollah Khamenei more power over foreign and economic policy than Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s current elected president.
Rouhani came into office promising to expand rights to freedom of expression and assembly. He also said the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which is thus far his main achievement, would lead to better economic conditions as international sanctions were lifted as part of the agreement.
Those economic improvements have failed to materialize, with corrupt and incompetent clerical hardliners mismanaging critical economic sectors such as imports and energy. Joblessness is rampant — the unemployment rate in 2017 was over 12 percent — and prices for basic staples like eggs and poultry have soared in recent months.
Anger over the sputtering economy sparked this weekend’s protests, but political grievances have sustained the resistance through an increasingly harsh response by the regime. Demonstrators called for an end to clerical rule on Friday and Saturday and demanded the government roll back its costly intervention in Syria.
“Leave Syria alone, give a thought to us,” protesters chanted, according to BuzzFeed News correspondent Borzou Daragahi.
President Donald Trump’s administration has issued several statements affirming support for the protesters and calling for reform. The State Department had harsh words for the Iranian regime on Friday, saying it has turned Iran into and “economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos.”
Trump himself has tweeted three times about the unrest. He said on Sunday Washington would “closely” monitor the situation for human rights violations.
“Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism,” Trump said on Twitter. “Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!”
Another former high-up in the federal government also used social media to offer his two cents:
With humility about how little we know about what’s happening inside Iran, this much is clear: it’s an Iranian moment and not anyone else’s. But the rights of people to protest peacefully and voice their aspirations are universal and governments everywhere should respect that.
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) December 31, 2017
A couple thousand Twitter users set the former secretary of state straight, but none had a better comeback than Dinesh D’Souza:
With how little you know about what goes on in a closed society, why did you push forward with an unenforceable nuclear arms deal? https://t.co/FOSenwYQ6I
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) December 31, 2017
This report, by Will Racke, was cross posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
