“Iranians can’t wait till 2020”, Le Monde diplomatique
By Camelia Entekhabifard, Paris, 10 August 2018
There’s nowhere like Iran to generate weekly, if not daily, headlines around the world. Since the 1979 revolution, there’s always been some event or other to make headlines; wherever I went, from Senegal to the Maldives, I always found a story on Iran in the local newspaper. Its geostrategic location in the Middle East, with its wealth and natural resources, mean the country can’t be ignored or demolished.
Since last December, the world has been hearing of demonstrations in Iran’s cities. The last one was just last week; it started with grievances over unemployment and the mismanaged economy but quickly turned into chants for regime change and ‘death to the mullahs’.
Tired of endless economic hardship, but also corruption, mismanagement and use of religion as a mark of legitimacy through which to govern, protestors feel as though the regime is holding them hostage.
The new sanctions, following President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal, will further fuel public anger over rising living costs, as more people stand to lose their jobs and the foreign companies prepare to leave (some have gone already). Will economic hardship prompt more Iranians to declare publicly how much they hate the ruling system and to demand change?
During last week’s protests, no one cursed the United States or blamed Donald Trump for the economic situation. Iranians look around and see poverty, unemployment, discrimination, religious oppression and, perhaps worse, international humiliation. They compare themselves with neighbouring Arab countries with soaring economies whose citizens enjoy a comfortable life.
After weeks of silence from officials, who had turned a blind eye to the protests, President Hassan Rohani finally, on 6 August, appeared live on state television and addressed the nation. He dismissed the protesters as a small group of people whose issue wasn’t really the economy, and asked the nation to unite against US sanctions in order to overcome the damage in the short term.
Read also Bernard Hourcade, “Iran returns to the world”, Le Monde diplomatique, February 2018.
Rohani neglected to address the question on most people’s minds: why do Iranians have to endure sanctions when the country is neither at war nor in a state of emergency? He didn’t explain how people with so little income, especially since the local currency lost its value against the US dollar, are supposed to support their families faced with the high cost of the living.
Ordinary Iranians are not satisfied with the president’s explanation of the recent protests. Each town and city has its own set of grievances and motivations but the common theme is mismanagement and corruption within the system.
For now Iranians have no choice than to wait to see if the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei will permit his government to open a channel for discussion with the United States (similar to the exception he made in 2015 allowing Rohani to enter into nuclear talks with the US and the West).
The first round of US sanctions implemented on 7 August will likely be followed by a still tougher round in early November on the oil industry. The date chosen for the second round of sanctions, 4 November, is the anniversary of the US embassy’s occupation in Tehran in 1979 when US diplomats were held hostage for 444 days and the two countries cut diplomatic ties. It may be a coincidence that Trump chose this date to punish the Tehran regime, but it will certainly remind Americans of the long-standing allegations against the Islamic Republic for its support of Hamas and Hizbollah and its radical agenda.
Perhaps Trump does want talks that could address all the issues between the two nations in what he called a ‘comprehensive deal’. However, for Iran’s clerical establishment it is too soon, and too difficult, to agree to face-to-face talks with the US. But if the regime is counting on the next US election to see if Trump is reelected or not, they are wasting their time. For Trump is not the real threat; in the words of the man himself, he’s a businessman and a dealmaker. The real threat, and the immediate danger to the Islamic Republic, is its own people who cannot wait till 2020.