[A-List] Another Iranian Revolution? Not Likely

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/opinion/06leverett.html>
January 6, 2010
Op-Ed Contributors
Another Iranian Revolution? Not Likely
By FLYNT LEVERETT and HILLARY MANN LEVERETT

THE Islamic Republic of Iran is not about to implode. Nevertheless,
the misguided idea that it may do so is becoming enshrined as
conventional wisdom in Washington.

For President Obama, this misconception provides a bit of cover; it
helps obscure his failure to follow up on his campaign promises about
engaging Iran with any serious, strategically grounded proposals.
Meanwhile, those who have never supported diplomatic engagement with
Iran are now pushing the idea that the Tehran government might
collapse to support their arguments for military strikes against
Iranian nuclear targets and adopting “regime change” as the ultimate
goal of America’s Iran policy.

Let’s start with the most recent events. On Dec. 27, large crowds
poured into the streets of cities across Iran to commemorate the
Shiite holy day of Ashura; this coincided with mourning observances
for a revered cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who had
died a week earlier. Protesters used the occasion to gather in Tehran
and elsewhere, setting off clashes with security forces.

Important events, no doubt. But assertions that the Islamic Republic
is now imploding in the fashion of the shah’s regime in 1979 do not
hold up to even the most minimal scrutiny. Antigovernment Iranian Web
sites claim there were “tens of thousands” of Ashura protesters;
others in Iran say there were 2,000 to 4,000. Whichever estimate is
more accurate, one thing we do know is that much of Iranian society
was upset by the protesters using a sacred day to make a political
statement.

Vastly more Iranians took to the streets on Dec. 30, in demonstrations
organized by the government to show support for the Islamic Republic
(one Web site that opposed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election
in June estimated the crowds at one million people). Photographs and
video clips lend considerable plausibility to this estimate — meaning
this was possibly the largest crowd in the streets of Tehran since
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s funeral in 1989. In its wake, even
President Ahmadinejad’s principal challenger in last June’s
presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, felt compelled to
acknowledge the “unacceptable radicalism” of some Ashura protesters.

The focus in the West on the antigovernment demonstrations has blinded
many to an inconvenient but inescapable truth: the Iranians who used
Ashura to make a political protest do not represent anything close to
a majority. Those who talk so confidently about an “opposition” in
Iran as the vanguard for a new revolution should be made to answer
three tough questions: First, what does this opposition want? Second,
who leads it? Third, through what process will this opposition
displace the government in Tehran?

In the case of the 1979 revolutionaries, the answers to these
questions were clear. They wanted to oust the American-backed regime
of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and to replace it with an Islamic
republic. Everyone knew who led the revolution: Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, who despite living in exile in Paris could mobilize huge
crowds in Iran simply by sending cassette tapes into the country.
While supporters disagreed about the revolution’s long-term agenda,
Khomeini’s ideas were well known from his writings and public
statements. After the shah’s departure, Khomeini returned to Iran with
a draft constitution for the new political order in hand. As a result,
the basic structure of the Islamic Republic was set up remarkably
quickly.

Beyond expressing inchoate discontent, what does the current
“opposition” want? It is no longer championing Mr. Mousavi’s
presidential candidacy; Mr. Mousavi himself has now redefined his
agenda as “national reconciliation.” Some protesters seem to want
expanded personal freedoms and interaction with the rest of the world,
but have no comprehensive agenda. Others — who have received
considerable Western press coverage — have taken to calling for the
Islamic Republic’s replacement with an (ostensibly secular) “Iranian
Republic.” But University of Maryland polling after the election and
popular reaction to the Ashura protests suggest that most Iranians are
unmoved, if not repelled, by calls for the Islamic Republic’s
abolition.

With Mr. Mousavi increasingly marginalized, who else might lead this
supposed revolution? Surely not Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the
former president who became a leading figure in the protests after
last summer’s election. Yes, he is an accomplished political actor, is
considered a “founding father” of the state and heads the Assembly of
Experts, a body that can replace the Islamic Republic’s supreme
leader. But Mr. Rafsanjani lost his 2005 bid to regain the presidency
in a landslide to Mr. Ahmadinejad, and has shown no inclination to
spur the masses to bring down the system he helped create.

Nor will Mohammad Khatami, the reformist elected president in 1997,
lead the charge; in 1999, at the height of his popularity, he publicly
disowned widespread student demonstrations protesting the closing of a
newspaper that had supported his administration.

Many of the Westerners who see the opposition displacing the Islamic
Republic emphasize the potential for unrest during Shiite mourning
rituals, which take place at three-, seven- and 40-day intervals after
a person’s death. During the final months of the shah’s rule, his
opponents used mourning rituals held for demonstrators killed by
security forces to catalyze further protests. But does this mean that
a steady stream of mourning rituals for fallen protesters today will
set off a similarly escalating spiral of protests, eventually sweeping
away Iran’s political order?

That is highly unlikely. First, Ayatollah Montazeri had unique
standing in the Islamic Republic’s history; it is not surprising that
the coincidence of his seven-day observance with the Ashura
observation would have drawn crowds. His 40-day observance — which
will fall on Jan. 29 — and the early February commemoration of the
1979 revolution might also encourage public activism. But there is
nothing in the Islamic Republic’s history to support projections that
future mourning rituals for those killed in the Ashura protests will
elicit similar attention.

For example, in late 1998 four prominent intellectuals were
assassinated, allegedly by state intelligence officers, prompting
considerable public outrage. Yet the mourning rituals for the victims
did not prompt large-scale protests. In 1999, nationwide student
protests were violently suppressed, with at least five people killed
and 1,200 detained. Once again, though, the mourning dates for those
who died did not generate significant new demonstrations. Likewise,
after the presidential election in June, none of the deaths associated
with security force action — even that of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young
woman whose murder became a cause célèbre of the YouTube age —
resulted in further unrest.

In keeping with this pattern, the seven-day mourning observances for
those killed in the Ashura protests generated no significant
demonstrations in Iran. Clearly, comparisons of the Ashura protests to
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, projecting a cascade of
monumental consequences to follow, are fanciful. The Islamic Republic
will continue to be Iran’s government. And, even if there were changes
in some top leadership positions — such as the replacement of Mr.
Ahmadinejad as president by Ali Larijani, the speaker of the
Parliament, as some Westerners speculate — this would not
fundamentally change Iran’s approach on regional politics, its nuclear
program and other matters of concern.

The Obama administration’s half-hearted efforts at diplomacy with
Tehran have given engagement a bad name. As a result, support for more
coercive options is building across the American political spectrum.
The president will do a real disservice to American interests if he
waits in vain for Iranian political dynamics to “solve” the problems
with his Iran policy.

As a model, the president would do well to look to China. Since
President Richard Nixon’s opening there (which took place amid the
Cultural Revolution), successive American administrations have been
wise enough not to let political conflict — whether among the ruling
elite or between the state and the public, as in the Tiananmen Square
protests and ethnic separatism in Xinjiang — divert Washington from
sustained, strategic engagement with Beijing. President Obama needs to
begin displaying similar statesmanship in his approach to Iran.

Flynt Leverett directs the New America Foundation’s Iran Initiative
and is a professor of international affairs at Pennsylvania State
University. Hillary Mann Leverett heads a political risk consultancy.
They publish the Web site The Race for Iran.