Iran Protests and the Prospects of Change

Karzan Kawsin

Since the demonstrations began, Iranian authorities have launched a deadly crackdown on the demonstrators, with reports of forced imprisonments and physical abuse being used especially to target the country’s Kurdish minority. Although the Kurdish areas were the trigger of the demonstrations following the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police on September 16, the protests are increasingly spread all over the country. It is clear that the demonstrators demand their cultural rights and condemn the human rights’ violations, while the state and its supreme leader consider them as rioters and the protests as the externally provoked.
The main obstacle in front of the country’s radical change is the long governing conservatives who have been anti-reform. They even repress the liberal voices who back such a change.
Recently, Iran’s intervention in Ukraine’s War through supplying Russia with attack drones has transformed the West’s perspective towards the country’s intention to come back to the table of nuclear negotiations. The Biden administration has unveiled sanctions against Iranian firms and entities involved in the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia for use in Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. It all comes as the administration has condemned the Islamic republic’s violent suppressing of protests. In response to that, Iran has seemingly returned to its uranium enrichment, still holding to its apparent good faith to resume such negotiations.
Iranian Regime is now using all types of tools to scare away the protestors, from shooting pellets deforming their faces and harming their bodies to executions. The later has already put in place and as of now, two protestors has been executed.
Nowadays, the Iranian regime faces the increasingly tough international sanctions, both for taking sides with Russia in war on Ukraine and violent oppression of peaceful demonstrators across the country. The country has already felt the heat of economic crises further encouraging the public in order to pour to the streets.
It seems that Iran is on the wrong way, since not just the public, but also the cultural and political figures also support the popular uprising and find it difficult for the state to continue without radical reform in its policy and governance. One of the notable politicians who acknowledged the legitimacy of the popular movement was the former president, Mohammad Khatami who was barred from appearing in the media after mass protests were triggered by the disputed 2009 re-election of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The state historically has resorted to temporary solutions to its long-standing problems. It has been thinking that the international community and the opposition forces and figures both inside and outside have been contributing to frequent protests in the country. In this regard, One of the plans the Iranian government is developing is the assassination of the people it deems a threat to the regime. Another is military incursion to allegedly control its border with Iraq.
Protests in Iran may pause for periods of time, but do not seem to ever end. And they become more effective every time they resume. The Iranian state on the other hand has mostly two options; Either it should give in to the demands of people and start gradual reform in all fields of public life, which proves difficult as long as the current political elite rules the country. Or loosen its hold over its nuclear program by meeting the international expectations, which may entice international cooperation followed by easing and removing sanctions. The regime seems to avoid the second option as well, since it might slowly end the rule of the ideological conserves in the country.

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-https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/01/iran-kidnapping-assassination-plots
- https://www.voanews.com/a/iran-increases-troops-near-kurdistan-region-threatening-ground-operation-/6776421.html