By John Allen Gay
Iran has now been rocked by three days of street protests. At the time of this writing (early Saturday afternoon here in the United States, Saturday night in Iran), it remains unclear where the protests are going and whether the regime will crack down. I’ll try to provide some insight into the dynamics and point out some things to watch, followed by a quick look at what might happen next if the regime falls, and an assessment of U.S. interests and options.
First, while the origins of the crisis are unclear, economic grievances seem to be the main driver. Egg prices in Iran have been surging and banks have been unstable. Iran’s economy has suffered from a decade of malaise, and this has hit ordinary people hard. A study earlier this month by BBC Persian found that household budgets had fallen by 15 percent over the past 10 years. Consumption of many foods has fallen, too. Ten years ago, Iranians consumed twice as much fish, 39 percent more red meat, 11 percent more bird meats, 38 percent more vegetable oil, 84 percent more sugar, 7 percent more yogurt, and 71 percent more milk than they did last year. The fall in consumption was sharper than the fall in the size of households. This is a shift away from the typical pattern in developing countries: more prosperity means more food, which means a shift toward fish, meat, and other delicious and nutritious animal products. The Hassan Rouhani administration’s new budget featured plans to boost fuel prices, including gasoline, and the administration has increasingly struggled to keep reformists on board, since the pace of social reform seems slow. Pollution is so bad that schools are often closed, especially in these colder months. Water resources are drying up. Unemployment is high.
So there are many legitimate grievances that might have brought both ordinary Iranians and more urbane, reform-minded people into the streets. Rumors have abounded as to how the protests started. One theory is that hardliners wanted to amplify dissent against the Rouhani government. Economic issues have been a traditional centerpiece of conservative critiques of Rouhani, and the protests began in Mashhad, birthplace of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and home to hardline Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda. Alamolhoda’s son-in-law Ebrahim Raisi, in addition to having been a key figure in mass executions in the late 1980s, was Rouhani’s challenger in this year’s presidential elections and is a rumored Khamenei successor. Today (Saturday) is the 9th of Dey on the Persian calendar, when hardliners commemorated demonstrations against the 2009 Green Movement. Might those have been the origin of the current protests? If so, it was an exceptionally foolish move. The demonstrations are now beyond hardline control and have become a crisis for the entire regime.
And where will the crisis go? This is quite unclear. So far there
Via:: American Conservative

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