It's The Foreign Policy, Stupid!

It's The Foreign Policy, Stupid!

By: Erreh Svaia
Caprine Dispersion

You can't hardly call the recent events happening in the streets of Theran a "revolution" it might be better that it isn't a revolution, but it would be better for it to be a more spontaneous civil protest, a push for modernity trying to overcome tradition, and a way for the Iranian youth to open the country's doors to the world, the unfortunate story of revolutions is often one of authentic social unrest, later kidnapped by certain interest groups that steal momentum off from the original movement and uses it in order to install a new group, a new elite in power that usually concentrates power in a more unfair way than even before; in my experience, revolutions rarely end up in an adequate way, violent revolutions are even more unlikely to end up well, people still romanticize these days about the Arab Spring (its most successful story, Tunisia is still under unrest these days), and the so called Color Revolutions, while the Color Revolutions were a more negotiation oriented affair far from street violence (with the exception of Romania), the Arab Spring was a messy one, people should be reminded that while Tunicia became a case of success momentarily, Egypt returned to dictatorship, chaos erupted and still remains in countries like Libya or Iraq, that's why it's so hard to easily fall under the spell of a "romantic revolution ", as it rarely ends up like the utopia it initially promises, in December people filled the streets of Iran in order to demand the economic promises of president Hassan Rouhani to be delivered, Rouhani an apt pragmatist has been able to operate within Iran's limited republic in a more or less efficient way under the shadow of the powerful theocratic regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but if protests become bigger, the cleric elite, in control of the military, the police and the security forces, are surely to decide application of repressive actions against demonstrators and the outcome will surely affect Rouhani political future.

For the Iranian youth it is surely a dead end street, as Iranian Islamist regime will surely apply all its muscle (including the ruthless Islamic Revolutionary Guard) in order to end all protests, as they see protests instigated by foreign agents, "enemies of the regime", such as the USA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but what the Iranian government is not considering is the legitimate claims of the young Iranians, who demand a punishment to corruption, quality employment, a controlled inflation (something Rouhani he been successfully managing) and a way to stop Iranian activism in countries like Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, an activity that surely demands considerable economic resources from a sanctions hurt country that considers better to invest those resources on domestic matters, memories of the so called "green revolution" are still in the mind of young Iranians, technology is still their best ally, and a desire for a more secular state might put the Ayatollah's government in a paranoid mode, more than 20 Iranian dead and more than a thousand arrests on the streets, freedom is not exactly happening in Iran, evolution is not happening within its hybrid regime, and although it might give a very much-needed attention call to the theocratic regime, they will keep blaming foreign intervention a the real reason behind the social unrest, thus justifying the severe repression on what apparently look like spontaneous demonstrations by the religious authoritarians.