The Islamic Republic of Iran Is Doomed But things are likely to get much, much worse before they—eventually—get better.By RAY TAKEYH
January 02, 2018 The protests sweeping Iran belie the once popular notion that the spirit of the Green Revolution that nearly toppled the Islamic Republic in 2009 has been extinguished. It is possible that an Islamist regime with little compunction about killing its own citizens will survive this latest challenge to its authority. Should it survive , the Iranian theocracy will not be the same, with the principal casualty of this week being the presidency of Hassan Rouhani. As the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his hardline disciples assess their predicament, they are likely to hunker down and insist on more repression at home.
Rouhani, a long-time functionary of the regime, ran a cynical and subversive presidential campaign in 2017. Facing a formidable hardline opponent in Ebrahem Raisi, Rouhani spent much of his reelection campaign castigating official corruption and even alluded to one of the regime’s darkest chapters, the mass murder of political prisoners in summer of 1988. He promised rapid economic growth, a human rights charter and an accountable government free of graft. Rouhani who as one the stalwarts of the regime had participated in all of its previous acts of repression, particularly the student uprisings of 1999 and the Green revolt of 2009, had no intention of enacting such sweeping reforms. This was cheap politics that led to popular disaffection and finally the nationwide protest we’re seeing now. His presidency is all but crippled as he has lost the confidence of both the public and the conservative oligarchs who abjure all reform as a dangerous pathway to the regime’s collapse.
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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/02/the-islamic-republic-of-iran-is-doomed-216210?lo=ap_b1
