Participants in the countrywide protests in Iran are urging a retreat from costly foreign fights and more aid at home. Even if regime change does not take place, Tehran's clerical rulers may have to pull in their horns. But if they slash Iran's military footprint in Syria, then Bashar al-Assad's grip on power may again become tenuous. The West could exploit these tensions by pressuring Moscow and Damascus to stop sabotaging UN negotiations on a Syrian political settlement.
The protests that erupted throughout Iran just a few days before the end of 2017 have resulted in over twenty dead and two thousand Iranians arrested. While Grand Ayatollah Khamenei blames “enemies of Iran,” dissatisfaction appears to be widespread among his people. Likewise, Iran's ally Russia has warned the West not to meddle.
Ordinary Iranians ought to be living better, but are not. Oil output has climbed back to levels before 2011, when the West, Russia and China imposed sanctions to spur Iran to limit nuclear proliferation risks. Those sanctions were lifted after a 2015 accord, but living standards have lagged. Protests broke out in response to an end to some consumer subsidies as well as anger over corruption and social policies.
Ordinary Iranians, to say nothing of minority Kurds or Arabs, are struggling with higher prices for food and fuel. Even Iranian war veterans are speaking out; one eloquent veteran says he belongs to “the forgotten.” Meanwhile, Iran's sclerotic leadership lavishes spending on the powerful Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps and other elites while largely ignoring the demands of most people. Similar factors led to the Arab Spring uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa in 2011.
The European Union has called on Iran's leaders to refrain from the use of violence against the protesters. President Trump and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley have gone further, praising the protesters and calling for a special session of the UN Security Council. Having kept mostly quiet during 2009 anti-government protests in Iran, this time U.S. leaders appear likely to be more supportive.…
The remainder of this commentary is available at nationalinterest.org.
Colin P. Clarke is a political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and an associate fellow at ICCT-The Hague. William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at RAND and was U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia and a U.S.-Soviet nuclear testing commission.
This commentary originally appeared on The National Interest on January 11, 2018. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
