French Iranian sociologist, academic and essayist Azadeh Kian analyses the motivations of the Tehran regime, the issues at stake in the march to war and the driving forces behind the powerful protest movement that is undermining the power of the Revolutionary Guards.

– How do you explain the mullahs’ belligerent escalation?

– Azadeh Kian: It was primarily a show of force to prove that despite sanctions and international isolation, Tehran had managed to manufacture a large quantity of drones and missiles. Then it was to avenge the seven Revolutionary Guards killed in the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on1 April. Finally, the regime was showing its supporters, such as the Palestinian Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi Hachd al-Chaabi and the Yemeni Houthis, that they could count on the Islamic Republic being in possession of a large arsenal. That said, the regime feared the Israeli response. This is why it limited the damage by informing the Arab countries in the region of its intention to attack. Once the operation was over, the authorities announced that the case was closed.

– Weren’t there also domestic political reasons for this?

– The regime is highly unpopular. With this military offensive, he therefore intended to try and forge closer links with a civil society that is deeply opposed to him. He failed. For example, Le Monde de l’Industrie dared to headline “Missiles did not hit Israel but did hit the Tehran stock exchange”. The newspaper was immediately suspended, and its journalists accused of spying for Israel. The day before the attack, the morality police were extremely violent towards women who did not respect the headscarf. The hardening is obvious. The Revolutionary Guards manage civil, military and diplomatic affairs. They have been absolutely everywhere for a long time: their hold dates back to 2005 under the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  The growing influence of the Guardians has changed society considerably. There had always been discordant voices within the government and the clergy. Some leading ayatollahs are in favour of the separation of religion and state. For two years, they have been threatened by the intelligence services. Many men and women religious have joined the protest movements because they are outraged by violence.  They are hunted down, and many are imprisoned.

– You describe an absolute power that has eliminated all other players, even if they are supporters of the regime…

– The Guardians seem to control even the Guide of the Revolution! While the army has remained very poor, they have cornered 40% of the economy. They have the upper hand on nuclear and ballistic missile issues. International sanctions have not affected them. On the contrary, they profited by selling oil unofficially. This smuggling enabled them to grow rich and develop their nuclear programme. Iran will soon become what is known as a “threshold country”. Uranium enrichment to 90% will be achieved in the next few days! Rafael Grossi, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is due to visit the site to resume negotiations. This means putting pressure on the international community. Let me remind you that Russia and China do not look favourably on a nuclear Iran. They do not take part in its programme.

– In the face of this tyranny, a large majority of the Iranian population is standing firm. How do you explain such constant mobilisation despite the danger? Can it bring down the regime, as has been thought on several occasions?

– Iran is indeed one of the countries in the world with the highest number of mass protests. In June 2009, almost three million people demonstrated peacefully against the rigging of the presidential election. They called for institutional reform within the regime itself. The response was fierce repression by the Basij militia, with hundreds of murders and over five thousand prisoners. In December 2017 and January 2018, a vast popular movement threw thousands of young people onto the streets in more than a hundred small and medium-sized towns. Once again, the repression was bloody. In 2019, when the price of petrol is tripled, there will be new protests and new violence from the regime: 1,500 victims! In June 2021, the election of the candidate chosen by the Leader and the Guardians, Ebraim Raissi, was marked by a record abstention rate: only 44% turnout. But those who are forced to take part hijack the machine by voting blank. When Jina Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish girl arrested by the police for wearing a loose veil, was murdered on 16 September 2022, it was the last straw. The cup was already full, particularly in Kurdistan and Baluchistan, two regions discriminated against because they are Sunni.  Two weeks after Mahsa, a 14-year-old Baluch girl was raped by the chief of police in Chahbahar, in the south of the province.

– However, the revolt united all sections of the population…

– It’s very spectacular. Like the repression: six hundred demonstrators killed, tens of thousands arrested. Mehdi Nasiri, the former editor of the Keyhan newspaper, a mouthpiece of the regime, claims that 100,000 people have been imprisoned. So, Nasiri went over to the opposition. More than a dozen people were executed. Rapper Toomaj Salehi has just been sentenced to death, prompting huge emotion. There are also corruption scandals, such as the one involving the Friday prayer imam in Tehran, who is close to the leader Ali Khamenei. The shock was such that only 140 people attended one of the recent prayers, compared with the usual attendance of several thousand.

– Against this backdrop, what are the conditions for the fall of such a hated regime?

– While previous movements had weakened the regime, the wave of protests that followed Jina Mahsa’s murder asserted a fundamental incompatibility with the government. The separation of religion and state has become a major demand. For the first time, Kurds, Baluchis and Persians are defining themselves as Iranians, regardless of their ethnicity or beliefs. Having worked extensively in Sunni areas in the past, I can see the difference today. Of course, the issue of women’s equality is paramount. In the underground or on the street, when a girl is arrested by the vice police, passers-by intervene and come to her rescue. In this context, those in power are very afraid. But to date there is no viable and reliable political alternative, either in Iran or in the diaspora. However, I think the regime will collapse on its own. History teaches us that a revolution is always triggered by three factors: economic crisis, war and protest. The Islamic Republic has all three. But change will not come from outside. The diaspora has a duty to support the actions of their compatriots, but Iranians, with everything they have suffered, will never accept someone who has left the country claiming to embody an alternative. The majority of the population is under 40, born after the revolution, after the Iran-Iraq war. She is very open to the world, very rebellious. She’s the future.

BioExpress

Azadeh Kian, professor of sociology at Université Paris-Cité, is the author of ‘‘Femmes et pouvoir en Islam’’ (Michalon, 2019) and Rethinking gender, ethnicity and religion in Iran (Bloomsbury, London and New York, 2023)