Here are the things that caught my attention--and unless you have been keeping up to date on the events in Iran this will make little sense.
1) The protest movement has lasted so long. I thought it would be over after a few days.
2) Important clerics have opposed the Ahmadinejad-Khameini group. Very surprising. I thought they would be cowed into silence.
And here is what is missing:
3) No one from among the security forces (internal intel., army, police) has sided with the protesters. Until this happens the movement will be very limited in its influence to actually change the country.
Sincerely,
Abu Daoud
3 comments:
The thing that's driving the protests is the economy. Had Ahmadinejad loosened up the patronage system the imams had set up, there wouldn't have been much of a contest, nor the protests that followed. The weak economy is the biggest threat to the Islamic Republic and at least some of the imams (but obviously not all or even most of them) know it.
Most of Ahmadinejad's opponents come from the educated urbanites. As long as most of the enforcers are recruited from the rest of society, the chances of a flip on their part aren't great, all other things being equal.
In some ways Iran is going through what the U.S. went through in the 1960's, i.e., an educated "baby boom" revolts. (And in some ways the U.S. is going through this again.) But this is the Middle East, and just as Khomeni ruthlessly crushed the opposition after the Shah was overthrown, the current regime has few Western style scruples in grinding down its enemies.
And it's not over, from what I hear. I don't know how true it is, but I heard that the Shia mourning cycle lasts forty days, with periodic intensity in the 3rd, 7th and 40th days. Some were saying that forty days after "Neda" died, there will be another outbreak of protest.
Any truth to this "mourning cycle" stuff, Abu Daoud?
Hi Rob,
I would defer to someone who knows more about Shi'a Islam. What you propose sounds quite reasonable, but I don't know. Most of my exeperience with Islam and study of it has been related to the way (al sunna), not the sect (al shi'a).
AD
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