Why Iran is not repeating 1979

Iran is surviving done 1 of the astir unsafe moments successful its post-revolutionary history. Nationwide protests person go sustained alternatively than episodic. As a caller question of unrest has dispersed crossed the country, unit has intensified. The existent decease toll cannot beryllium verified yet.

These events person revived a acquainted question: Is Iran heading towards different 1979?

The temptation to trust connected this analogy is understandable. Images of wide mobilisation and rapidly recurring protests evoke memories of the last months of the shah’s rule. Yet the examination is yet misleading.

The occurrence of the 1979 gyration cannot beryllium explained solely by wide mobilisation. Instead, it was the convergence of coordinated absorption nether Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and, much decisively, the ruling elites’ inability to efficaciously repress dissent that ensured its triumph.

Mohammad Reza Shah had cancer, was heavy medicated and was visibly indecisive. His enactment faltered during crises. He near the state doubly amid governmental upheaval, archetypal successful 1953 aft being challenged by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and again successful January 1979 arsenic protests dispersed nationwide.

Equally important, the shah’s repressive apparatus was fragmented and socially heterogeneous. Apart from SAVAK, the shah’s cardinal quality organisation, the constabulary and gendarmerie were tasked with maintaining societal bid portion the Iranian service focused connected territorial defence alternatively than governmental repression.

These institutions lacked systematic ideological vetting and drew unit from divers societal and ideological backgrounds. When the shah near the country, immoderate segments of the constabulary stopped their repressive tactics and cooperated with protesters to support nationalist bid portion elder subject commanders hesitated, prioritised self-preservation and yet abandoned the monarchy.

The concern contiguous is fundamentally different. Unlike the shah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s enactment is not marked by hesitation oregon indecision during crises.

Since assuming the presumption of ultimate person successful 1989, Khamenei has overseen a profound translation of the Islamic Republic into what I picture arsenic a theocratic information authorities that relies much connected repression alternatively than societal consent. As the ultimate leader, helium presides implicit a highly institutionalised, cohesive, ideologically committed and profoundly invested coercive apparatus. This structural reality, alternatively than fashionable sentiment alone, defines the limits of revolutionary alteration successful Iran today.

The Islamic Republic’s coercive powerfulness is not concentrated successful a azygous institution. Instead, it is distributed crossed overlapping organisations with redundant chains of command. These forces are concentrated wrong the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij, the police, the quality services and the societal networks attached to them.

Iran’s coercive institutions are dominated by the regime’s hardcore supporters. Their loyalty is not simply transactional. It is ideological, organization and generational. Ideological vetting and patronage guarantee that their loyalty is not lone enforced but actively cultivated.

Their societal mobility, economical information and consciousness of individuality are tied to the endurance of the authorities and Khamenei’s leadership. For them, authorities illness is not a governmental transition; it is an existential threat. In moments of crisis, these loyalists enactment preemptively to forestall the diffusion of protestation and framework unrest arsenic foreign-backed sedition, lowering interior barriers to violence.

Consequently, adjacent protests that are larger and much wide geographically than those successful 1979 would not fundamentally situation the regime. Instead, they would pb to stricter repression. This highlights a cardinal lesson: Protests by themselves bash not origin revolutions.

Revolutions hap erstwhile wide unrest intersects with elite paralysis oregon defection. That happened successful 1979, but it has not happened now.

What could change this equilibrium is not protestation unsocial but a nonstop daze to the regime’s enactment structure. External intervention, peculiarly by the United States, would apt purpose to disrupt elite coordination by targeting elder governmental and information figures with strikes.

Such an attack would lone make a genuine authorities situation if it removed Khamenei himself. Power successful the Islamic Republic has been heavy centralised wrong the bureau of the ultimate person and his interior circle. His abrupt lack could trigger elite confrontation implicit succession and weaken cohesion astatine the top.

But involution could besides reenforce loyalist unity. If Khamenei survived, halfway supporters wrong the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij and the quality services would astir surely adjacent ranks, arsenic they person done during erstwhile outer confrontations. Under those conditions, elite defection would stay unlikely.

Even successful the lawsuit of authorities collapse, Iran would not look the organization vacuum seen successful immoderate post-intervention states. The country’s modern bureaucracy, which has maintained continuity since the aboriginal 20th century, would apt proceed functioning successful the abbreviated term. Administrative breakdown would beryllium constrained by authorities capacity, societal organisation and nationalist identity.

Some pass that the autumn of the Islamic Republic would inevitably pb to a prolonged insurgency. That hazard cannot beryllium dismissed. However, dissimilar the cases of Iraq oregon Afghanistan, successful Iran, determination would not beryllium outer authorities actors consenting and capable to finance, organise and prolong equipped extremist movements. Iranian nine has besides shown heavy absorption to spiritual extremism and governmental radicalism. It is imaginable that instability pursuing a authorities illness could beryllium contained.

The existent danger, then, is not that Iran is connected the verge of repeating 1979 but that persistent reliance connected that analogy blinds policymakers to however the Islamic Republic functions today. Misreading the quality of powerfulness successful Iran does not summation the chances of peaceful change. It increases the likelihood that Iranians themselves volition carnivore the outgo of repression, escalation and prolonged uncertainty.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.