Protests aren't enough to topple the Islamic Republic

by Michael Rubin
Los
Angeles Times
June 19, 2009

http://www.meforum.org/2166/protests-not-enough-to-topple-islamic-republic

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Street protests in Iran are important but are themselves not
enough to force change. The supreme leader will not be swayed because he
considers himself accountable to God, not to the people. Indeed, even the
Islamic Republic's clerical establishment is irrelevant in this calculus.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's invocation of folk religion -- his appeals
to the messianic Hidden Imam, for example -- is a way to bypass senior
religious figures who, according to Shiite theology, will be among the
greatest obstacles to the Hidden Imam's return. Nor does the supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pay too much heed to his fellow clerics in
Qom. They have always refused to bestow on Khamenei a level of religious
legitimacy to match his ambition. Today, the majority of Iran's grand
ayatollahs oppose the concept of theological rule. Not by coincidence, the
majority are now in prison or under house arrest.

Khamenei can weather the public's disdain so long as the
Revolutionary Guard serves as his Praetorian Guard. Khomeini, the Islamic
Republic's founder, formed the Revolutionary Guard to defend his
revolutionary vision. It is more powerful than the army and answers only
to the supreme leader. That the Islamic Republic has lost legitimacy in
the eyes of the Iranian public is now evident to the outside world, but it
is not news to the regime. In September 2007, Mohammad Ali Jafari, the new
Revolutionary Guard chief, reconfigured the force into 31 units -- one for
each province and two for Tehran -- on the theory that a velvet revolution
posed a greater threat to regime security than any external enemy.
Guardsmen are not stationed in their home cities so that they do not
hesitate to fire on crowds that might include family and friends.

In the public mind, the Islamic revolution 30 years ago
looms large. The regime is not aloof to this. It understands the shah's
mistakes and is determined not to repeat them. Next month marks the 10th
anniversary of the student uprising, which erupted after the security
forces attacked a student dormitory. Their brutality shocked the Iranian
public, and demonstrations spread throughout the country. For a few days,
regime survival was also subject to speculation.

In the aftermath of the protests, the Chinese government
supplied security consultants to Tehran. Rather than bash heads and risk
protests and endless cycles of mourning, Iranian security services began
photographing demonstrations, after which they would arrest participants
over the course of a month when they were alone and could not spark mob
reaction. With the assistance of European businessmen, the Iranian
government upgraded its surveillance of communication (and the
Internet).

Ultimately, the theocracy will fall only if servicemen in
the Revolutionary Guard switch sides. There will be compromise. The end
will come only over Khamenei's dead body. Certainly, Iran today is a
tinderbox. The question is whether the regime is better at putting out
fires than demonstrators are at starting them.

Michael
Rubin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is a
resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate
School.

Related Topics: Iran Michael
Rubin

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