Iran Feature: Lessons from Middle Eastern Uprisings (Afary)

Just when the Green Movement seemed to have been defeated by the brutal repression of the Iranian regime, the mass uprisings in the Arab World gave it new life. This resurgence of the Green Movement is evident not only in recent street protests in Tehran and other major Iranian cities on February 14, February 20, March 1 and March 8, but also in a variety of articles by activists and thinkers who are reflecting on the lessons of the Middle Eastern uprisings (References are provided at the end of this article). 

In my reading of many of these articles, I have come across three main issues: 1. The need to raise economic demands alongside political demands; 2. The need to go beyond calling for reform and put revolution on the agenda; 3. Warnings about the internal dangers after a movement successfully overthrows a dictator.

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Iran Interview: The State of the Economy (Kaveh Ehsani)

The economy of Iran is in a deep recession, which has only been exacerbated by the recent round of sanctions passed by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States. Aside from more immediate concerns, the Iranian government is also grappling with several deep-rooted problems. First, it is dealing with the burden of a highly politicized, hybrid economic system that combines state, private, and semi-private ownership. The state exerts substantial control over the economy both directly and through semi-private entities such as foundations (bonyads), mutual funds, pension funds and companies linked to military organizations. Estimates vary as to exactly how much of the economy is under state control, partly because the semi-private sector doesn’t operate in a transparent fashion, but it is safe to say that these institutions dominate the economy. Since they are run by politically affiliated appointees, as opposed to managers hired according merit and competence, their activities tend to be highly politicized. Ideally, these institutions should be run according to transparent social and with economic rather than factional political aims, but any major changes will require resolute decisions by a government that is currently not prepared to pay the political cost of unpopular policies.

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Iran Analysis: How Secure is Ahmadinejad?

The Los Angeles Times parallels our analysis with an article this morning, "Iran is Far From United Behind Mahmoud Ahmadinejad".

And this passage in a Council on Foreign Relations interview with Professor Kaveh Ehsani, who is based at Chicago's DePaul University, is striking:

I don't think Ahmadinejad is in such a strong position. In fact, nobody is in a strong position in Iran at this moment.

It's very unclear who has the ultimate legitimacy. The population seems to be highly angered, disillusioned with a lot of the leaders. The Green Movement leaders --- [Mir Hossein] Mousavi and [Mehdi] Karroubi, the two presidential candidates who were the victims of the rigged elections --- seem to have retained their popular support among those who are unsatisfied with the system, but we don't know how strong these sentiments are because there is no way to measure it. There are no opinion polls, there is no free media. All the oppositional press has been suppressed.

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