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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / What’s Going On In Iran?

What’s Going On In Iran?

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Somebody asked that on the previous thread. Short answer is I don’t know. But there’s more I can add. My Twitter feed has been full of reports from Iran. Demonstrations and rioting in several cities across the country are in their fourth day. Reports are that the demonstrations were started by the IRGC (hard-liners) to weaken President Rouhani and they got out of hand. I am taking pretty much everything provisionally. There are not a lot of reporters in Iran. People are not able to verify video purported to show events, and some look faked. Bellingcat is trying to start up a video verification and are asking for help.

My sense is that a great many people in Iran don’t know a lot about what is happening either. There are no clear leaders of the demonstrations, which have spread rapidly. Here’s a report from two days ago by Borzou Daragahi, who is in Istanbul. He’s a good person to follow on Twitter, too.

The government is taking a relatively moderate line, although two demonstrators have been killed.

There are a gajillion hot takes. Sir Lawrence Freedman, a historian at Kings College London, provided the all-purpose take.

Most of the hottest takes are of the form “The situation in Iran proves what I’ve been saying all along.” Of particular interest to me is the tie-in with the nuclear agreement. Most of those opposing the agreement are endorsing the demonstrations and hoping, sometimes openly, that they will lead to regime change, which is their goal. That’s not to say that a more open and democratic regime wouldn’t be an improvement, but getting there, as we’ve seen in Syria, has many pitfalls.

Donald Trump and a number of congresscritters have weighed in with statements supporting the demonstrators. Mike Pence has said he agrees with everything his boss says. The first Trump tweet was a copy of a Sarah Sanders tweet and relatively responsible. An argument continues as to whether we should support the demonstrators and their desire for greater democracy or if US support poisons the cause for many Iranians. The US is not popular in Iran, including among opponents of the regime.

Suzanne Maloney is another person you might want to follow on Twitter. Here is the start of one of her tweet threads on that subject.

The point is being made over and over again that if the Trump administration is sympathetic to the Iranian people, they might lift their immigration ban. Some of the people involved in the demonstrations will need to leave the country if the regime shuts down the protests.

And with that, I’ll open the thread for additional comments and questions. Fully open thread to come.

Reader Interactions

23Comments

  3. 3.

    mike in dc

    Well, being leaderless might be an advantage here. You can’t just round someone up and be done with it. And it seems to be spreading around the entire country, which probably puts further strain on the security forces. That some forces available during the last protests are now committed in Syria probably also helps the protesters. I hear mixed reports about the extent to which protesters have (potential) access to arms to fight back.

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

  7. 7.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Another person to follow and thread worth reading.

  8. 8.

    Chris

    Curious: from what I’ve read of the 2009 protests when I had to do some research about them, one of the Green Movement’s problems was that it didn’t get much traction in the working class and especially the country, remaining mainly a middle class urbanites phenomenon. Any indication that the current protests have broader appeal than that?

  9. 9.

    Brachiator

    @Cheryl Rofer: Doesn’t Russia have an interest in Iran? Has Putin said anything?

    Also, I get a sense that the protests have a lot to do with frustration at economic problems. This is not necessarily a pro-democracy movement or a deep renunciation of the government or the system. And the protesters may see the West, especially sanctions, as part of the problem. They may also see the sanctions as unfair and not a reasonable response to anything the government has done.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    The US is not popular in Iran

    More accurately, the U.S. government is not popular. As an aggregate (aspirationally, culturally, opportunistically, etc., even commercially to an extent) unpopular would be off the mark as a description of big slices of the Iranian populace’s views regarding the U.S.

  12. 12.

    fuckwit

    Here’s my prediction:

    1) The protests are being driven by a group MORE right-wing, and MORE anti-American, MORE violent, and MORE warmongering than the current mullah government, possibly sponsored by Russia

    2) The people in the USA cheering them on are idiots

    3) This is Syria all over again, where no matter who wins, we lose, as do the people of the country in question. Possible winners, if any, might include Russia and China.

  16. 16.

    Steeplejack

    @Anne Laurie:

    Trump:

    The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer.

    Wait, is he talking about Iran or America? Looks like the Trump gypsy Twitter curse might be catching up to him in real time.

  17. 17.

    Chip Daniels

    The enemies of a repressive regime are not necessarily desirous of “democracy” . As we saw in Syria, there could be, and likely are, multiple groups and agendas going on.
    We pretty much just have to wait and see what rises and consolidates the protests, if anything.

  18. 18.

    Starfish

    @Chris: From what I have been reading, this protest is mostly working class due to the high cost of food and housing. Basically, the cost of their groceries are comparable to ours while the wages are about a third.

    I like Negar.

    The good peopleof Iran have been banned from traveling to the US by your travel ban which essentially considers them terrorists. Iranian parents now can’t visit their children who study here, miss their graduations, weddings, birth of grandchildren, and other life events. https://t.co/bvFOzwOzuC— Negar (@NegarMortazavi) December 31, 2017

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    The Iranian-American woman who cuts my hair was visiting her family in Tehran when Donnie tried to impose Muslim Ban 1.0 in January. She just went back to visit them again for 5 weeks starting on December 27th.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  23. 23.

    bluefish

    If the Trump Administration is sympathetic to the Iranian people … lifting of travel ban etc.

    That would be a problem right there — Trump himself is sympathetic to no one other than himself, certainly not to his own people, really, much less anyone else’s — In order to affect any change along those lines, one would first have to manipulate him into doing the right thing. And then hope that that would stick for more than 12 hours. To then go on in an attempt to achieve anything at all. His personality disorder makes everything take so much longer — except for the grifting grafting schemes that seem to be his strong suit.

    Excuse the howlingly obvious comment. Too many brownies already this morning. I want this SOB out of there so badly this very year that I feel like I’m tripping sometimes. It blows my mind every day that so much of his craziness and corruption, his total unfitness for the job, have already been normalized–turned into talk about his inimitable “style.” It’s sheer insanity. Where is that pipe thingie again?

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