Iran Analysis: Fall of the Islamic Republic, Pros and Cons (Mohammadi)

Majid Mohammadi writes for Gozaar:

The Islamic regime in Iran is now on a path to demise and it is time to discuss the arguments for and against its survival. Every observer of Iran’s political developments will consider the advantages and disadvantages of this demise.

There have been some letters (Ezzatullah Sahabi) and statements (Mir Hussein Mousavi) describing the developments of the Green Movement and criticising its speed, but they do not offer any definition of moving fast or slow while complaining about the pace of activists’ actions. This requires discussions on the necessity or the lack of necessity to overthrow the Islamic regime, including the background and consequences.

Most of the people who are against the existing government and do not talk about its demise use this position to avoid radicalisation of the political situation and violence. They are aware of the levels of violence and bloodshed in social revolutions and are frightened of repeating the experience of 1979 when the situation went from bad to worse. Nevertheless, the continuation of this regime may lead to more bloodshed, compared to the price that protesters pay to overthrow it.

Those who believe in overthrowing the regime have very clear reasons: inefficiency, its black profile in violating human rights, its despotic character, a long experience of resistance to reform, multiple dead ends and contradictions in the legal system, and institutionalised discriminations and privileges.

Those who still want this regime to survive have one or more of four rationales: 1) they still see this regime as the only vehicle to enforce Islamic ordinances that they believe in; 2) they have embedded political and economic benefits in this regime; 3) they still hope for reform in this regime; and 4) due to the closed media sphere, they do not have enough information on the regimes’ brutalities and wrongdoings.

There is also a group who is against the existing rulers but does not want the regime to fall for several reasons that will be discussed below.

Why is it that some groups who had suffered under this regime do not want it to collapse but only ask for some gradual reforms? On the other hand, why do some groups insist on overthrowing the regime?....

Too Big to Fail

One possible argument [for those who oppose regime overthrow] is based on the enormous size of the Iranian government and the dependence of millions of people on this monster. They believe if this monster collapses, lots of other institutions and networks towards which this huge vulnerable population leans will be affected.

On the other hand, some people would argue that...we should let (the system) collapse because it leaves no room for efficiency and rationality. The state in Iran has grown in size to a level that every group who comes to power will soon be a bunch of dictators. To make the state small, there is no way other than overthrowing the regime: no political regime voluntarily shrinks its size to limit itself.

In addition, the demise of the Islamic regime will be very expensive for the Iranian people. It is not clear how this monster will react in its last days and how many individuals will be crushed under his feet or how many or which public institutions or resources will be ruined. But nobody can trust this scary phenomenon and every day left of its life means more damage. The Islamic regime has always been fighting against its own citizenry in all aspects of their life and one day people should win this battle....

However what happens after the collapse of the regime is not clear. Whether the government will shrink depends on the policies, agendas, and manifestos of the alternative forces and the mood of the society in that situation.

Collapse

Another possible argument against the toppling of the government is the equivalence of its demise with the disintegration of the whole country and decline of territorial integrity.

The presumption of this argument is the necessity of repression for integration: if Iranian ethnicities are still part of the nation, it is due to that repression....

In reality, the process of integration is due to the cultural developments in the country, and democracy and human rights will further invigorate this national cohesiveness. Iranian ethnicities look for more participation and involvement in their affairs, not disintegration.

The End of Iran and Islam

The tactic of the Iranian totalitarian and authoritarian faction is to equate the Islamic regime and Islam and to label dissidents of the first as the opponents of the second. The ground for this claim is that Islam may guarantee Iran and the Islamic regime will guarantee Islam.

Neither of these correlations holds. Logically, Iran may survive without Islam, and Islam would survive without Iran and without its Islamic regime. The collapse of the Islamic regime will be beneficial for Islam when its darkest features go away....

In the real world, it is not possible to wipe out Islam from the face of Iran, but the elimination of Islamism in power is under way.

Chaos

Some people believe that it is impossible to live in peace in a country with a diverse set of ethnicities, religions, classes, ideologies, and perspectives without a dictator in charge. They do not see a tangible alternative for the existing coercive forces and believe that these forces are the hardcore of the existing regime. Without this hardcore that includes the Islamic Republic Guards Corps and Basij paramilitary, the whole regime will collapse, and that is not in the interest [of these people].

Based on this perspective, the guardian jurist and his plainclothesmen and IRGC loyal members, presenting the regime’s coercive features, have the upper hand. But the 1979 Revolution experience showed Iranians that with the collapse of any regime, the society will not breakdown. People are able to run their communities by themselves while the government is in transition.

Foreign Domination

Loyalists believe that if the regime collapses, foreign countries will conquer Iran and plunder her resources. But the policy of fear does not have sufficient foundation in Iranian society.

In today’s world, foreign powers look for good deals, not the occupation of a country that wants to live in peace with others. The conspiracy theorists who rule Iran scare people about imaginary enemies to prevent people from even thinking about toppling the regime.

Comments

[Guest]

Very naive article. "In today's word" countries don't invade and occupy other countries? Tell that to Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Georgia, Pakistan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, all countries in Iran's immediate neighborhood which have been attacked or occupied by foreign or neighboring power in the past decade.

[LibertyBob]

Majid Muhammadi does seem naive on the issue of foreign domination, which goes to the root of the so-called 'Islamic' Republic in Iran ( a Roman-type government at that). Is Muhammadi aware that the Ayatollah Khomeini, stashed in France, was the CIA's back-up plan in the case that Shah Pahlevi could no logner maintain his grip on Iran (a foreign-funded grip at that)? Muhammdi seems unaware that Iran's Republic is a CIA-crafted republic, whose creation was led by a CIA usurper (Ayatollah Khomeini) of a people's revolt.