28 Dec
Iran Protests – Potential?
Photo by AFP
Juan Cole sees yet more trouble ahead in Iran, and more problems for the administration:
For the regime to create a member of the Mousavi family as a martyr on Ashura was most unwise. Shiite Islam even more than traditional Catholicism thrives on the blood of martyrs. […] Junior or middle-ranking Ayatollahs favorable to the ideas of Montazeri show up in a number of these reports about protests in provincial cities, suggesting a generational split in the clerical corps and trouble for Khamenei ahead.
The Enduring America blog maintains a comprehensive (if a little messy) near-real-time listing of the developments in Iran, and the blog’s “keeper”, Scott Lucas, teases 5 key points from the Ashura riots, including,
For first time, I can see Government (not just President) falling and Supreme Leader having to compromise to save position.
Stephen Walt at Foreign Policy surmises:
The outcome of this sort of challenge is inherently difficult to forecast, as it is nearly impossible to know ex ante when a critical “tipping point” might be reached. At a minimum, the regime has clearly gotten significantly weaker since the contested election last summer.
At Tehran Bureau, Meir Javedanfar says
the protests now seem to carry the potential to turn into a full-scale civil disobedience campaign, not unlike the first intifada the Palestinians initiated against Israel in 1987.
And Andrew Sullivan asks are some Basij defecting?
It’s obviously too early to declare a “tipping point”, but certainly overseas observers are inching towards the conclusion that the reform movement has not only maintained its momentum but has evolved, and now presents a much more serious and enduring challenge to the regime.
