Iran, caught in a huge economic crisis, is on the boil with street protests erupting over the worsening economic conditions. Hundreds have been killed in firing by security forces though the actual numbers are under wraps due to suspension of internet and other communication facilities across Iran. The protest started by harried shopkeepers and spread to middle and lower income localities has gripped all 31 provinces, threatening a fundamentalist rule by clerics that started 45 years ago. The Ayatollah Khamenei-led regime is tottering and its threat of severe reprisals has only helped aggravate the law and order situation. Notably, a promise of help from US President Donald Trump has added to the moral strength of the anti-government protesters.
The Western sanctions against Iran’s nuclear programme were the main reason why oil-rich Iran’s economy suffered a hit in recent years. The 12-day war with Israel in which the US too got involved, added to the nation’s economic downturn. The resultant inflation, aided also by large-scale corruption in the governance system, made life unbearable to the common man. The Iranian currency is collapsing due to the sanctions, and governmental services have been seriously hit as well. Iranians are battling frequent power outages and shortages in tapped water supply across towns. Shop shelves are turning empty. The situation is tailor-made for anarchy from which the clerics may not have an easy escape. Iran, a nation of 91 million and formerly known as Persia, has been facing internal odds for quite some time. Women came out into the streets boldly in 2022, under the banner of ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement, seeking more freedom in a land where, during the rule of the Shah, they had a happy-go-lucky life. That life ended by around 1980 when the clerics ousted him and grabbed power. The epochal holding of a set of Americans as hostages by the Ayatollah-led fanatics then could end only after the electoral victory of tough-talking Ronald Reagan in the United States. The Ayatollahs carried their rule forward for many years, introducing Islamic fundamental streaks into the Shia-dominated nation’s governance and sharply cutting down the people’s freedom. An era of Shah’s close association with the US and his western styles in administration had ended abruptly. Here now is time for a rethinking in Iran. With Donald Trump acting hard in Venezuela, the threats he now held out to the clerics in Iran assume more seriousness.
Inspiration comes to the protesters also from Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of Shah, from his base in the US. His announcement that the protesters would target and seize the city centres across Iran sounds ominous. Notably, when the US under George Bush junior initiated a pro-democracy offensive in the Middle East spanning part of Asia as well since 2004, a while after the Al Qaeda bombings in the US, Iran remained unaffected. Iraq had fallen, followed by regime changes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen around 2011-12. Pro-democracy movements sprang up in several other nations in the region, and in Afghanistan, but their tempo could not be sustained. The US itself failed to keep up the momentum.
