Iran resides via one of the crucial harmful moments in its post-revolutionary historical past. Nationwide protests have turn out to be sustained quite than episodic. As a brand new wave of unrest has unfold throughout the nation, violence has intensified. The true dying toll can’t be verified but.
These occasions have revived a well-known query: Is Iran heading in the direction of one other 1979?
The temptation to depend on this analogy is comprehensible. Photographs of mass mobilisation and quickly recurring protests evoke recollections of the ultimate months of the shah’s rule. But the comparability is finally deceptive.
The success of the 1979 revolution can’t be defined solely by mass mobilisation. As an alternative, it was the convergence of coordinated opposition below Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and, extra decisively, the ruling elites’ incapability to successfully repress dissent that ensured its triumph.
Mohammad Reza Shah had most cancers, was closely medicated and was visibly indecisive. His management faltered throughout crises. He left the nation twice amid political upheaval, first in 1953 after being challenged by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and once more in January 1979 as protests unfold nationwide.
Equally vital, the shah’s repressive equipment was fragmented and socially heterogeneous. Aside from SAVAK, the shah’s central intelligence organisation, the police and gendarmerie had been tasked with sustaining social order whereas the Iranian military centered on territorial defence quite than political repression.
These establishments lacked systematic ideological vetting and drew personnel from numerous social and ideological backgrounds. When the shah left the nation, some segments of the police stopped their repressive techniques and cooperated with protesters to take care of public order whereas senior navy commanders hesitated, prioritised self-preservation and finally deserted the monarchy.
The scenario right this moment is essentially completely different. Not like the shah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s management just isn’t marked by hesitation or indecision throughout crises.
Since assuming the place of supreme chief in 1989, Khamenei has overseen a profound transformation of the Islamic Republic into what I describe as a theocratic safety state that depends extra on repression quite than societal consent. Because the supreme chief, he presides over a extremely institutionalised, cohesive, ideologically dedicated and deeply invested coercive equipment. This structural actuality, quite than fashionable sentiment alone, defines the boundaries of revolutionary change in Iran right this moment.
The Islamic Republic’s coercive energy just isn’t concentrated in a single establishment. As an alternative, it’s distributed throughout overlapping organisations with redundant chains of command. These forces are concentrated inside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij, the police, the intelligence providers and the social networks connected to them.
Iran’s coercive establishments are dominated by the regime’s hardcore supporters. Their loyalty just isn’t merely transactional. It’s ideological, institutional and generational. Ideological vetting and patronage be sure that their loyalty just isn’t solely enforced however actively cultivated.
Their social mobility, financial safety and sense of id are tied to the survival of the regime and Khamenei’s management. For them, regime collapse just isn’t a political transition; it’s an existential risk. In moments of disaster, these loyalists act preemptively to forestall the diffusion of protest and body unrest as foreign-backed sedition, decreasing inner obstacles to violence.
Consequently, even protests which might be bigger and extra widespread geographically than these in 1979 wouldn’t essentially problem the regime. As an alternative, they’d result in stricter repression. This highlights a key lesson: Protests by themselves don’t trigger revolutions.
Revolutions happen when mass unrest intersects with elite paralysis or defection. That occurred in 1979, however it has not occurred now.
What might alter this equilibrium just isn’t protest alone however a direct shock to the regime’s management construction. Exterior intervention, significantly by america, would seemingly intention to disrupt elite coordination by focusing on senior political and safety figures with strikes.
Such an strategy would solely generate a real regime disaster if it eliminated Khamenei himself. Energy within the Islamic Republic has been closely centralised inside the workplace of the supreme chief and his internal circle. His sudden absence might set off elite confrontation over succession and weaken cohesion on the high.
However intervention might additionally reinforce loyalist unity. If Khamenei survived, core supporters inside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij and the intelligence providers would nearly definitely shut ranks, as they’ve accomplished throughout earlier exterior confrontations. Underneath these situations, elite defection would stay unlikely.
Even within the occasion of regime collapse, Iran wouldn’t face the institutional vacuum seen in some post-intervention states. The nation’s trendy paperwork, which has maintained continuity for the reason that early twentieth century, would seemingly proceed functioning within the brief time period. Administrative breakdown could be constrained by state capability, social organisation and nationwide id.
Some warn that the autumn of the Islamic Republic would inevitably result in a protracted insurgency. That threat can’t be dismissed. Nonetheless, in contrast to the instances of Iraq or Afghanistan, in Iran, there wouldn’t be exterior state actors keen and capable of finance, organise and maintain armed radical actions. Iranian society has additionally proven deep resistance to spiritual extremism and political radicalism. It’s doable that instability following a regime collapse might be contained.
The actual hazard, then, just isn’t that Iran is on the verge of repeating 1979 however that persistent reliance on that analogy blinds policymakers to how the Islamic Republic features right this moment. Misreading the character of energy in Iran doesn’t improve the probabilities of peaceable change. It will increase the probability that Iranians themselves will bear the price of repression, escalation and extended uncertainty.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
