More analysis of Iranian politics
Neil MacFarquhar's analysis in the New York Times is instructive.Iran’s Latest Protests Are Seen as the Toughest to Stop
The Iranian government tolerated student-led uprisings in 1999 and 2003 for only a few days before unleashing fearsome crackdowns, sending Basij vigilantes onto campuses, where they flung a few students from the windows; bloodied as many heads as they could with bricks, chains or truncheons; and jailed scores.
Similar intimidation tactics have been on display over the past few days with little result...
First, there is the sheer size of these demonstrations, with protests that are not limited to students, but cut across generations and economic classes. Second, there is a more pronounced, if still nebulous, leadership centered around the leading opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, who has adopted an openly hard-edged attitude toward the government. Third, the current crisis was inspired by common anger over a national election, not the more narrow issues students took to heart...
“This is an order of magnitude different from those earlier demonstrations,” said Juan Cole, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Michigan... “In the earlier student demonstrations, people were saying that the hard-liners were doing things that were wrong. What these demonstrators are saying is that the regime has become so corrupt and so dictatorial that it has become rotten to the core.”...
Mr. Moussavi was a staunch leftist in an era when such leaders admired Che Guevara, and he served as prime minister of Iran during the 1980s when postrevolutionary battles with guerrilla movements left between 10,000 and 20,000 people dead, noted Professor Cole. He is viewed as a much tougher fighter than Mr. Khatami, an ayatollah who came from the very clerical class that runs the country.
“Moussavi was around in some tough times, he has not shown any signs of being intimidated by all this,” said Gary Sick, a senior scholar at Columbia University...
Finally, there has been a critical shift in alliances. In the earlier uprisings, it was basically the reformists calling for change, opposed by both the religious hard-liners and the more pragmatic conservatives. This time, the pragmatists and the reformists have joined forces against the hard-liners, analysts said...
“I expect the situation to polarize further, and given the character of this regime, I think it is a matter of time before they roll in the tanks,” said Professor Cole.
Labels: Iran, political culture, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 9:09 PM
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