National Review: Masses vs. Mullahs

[TomSea]

Masses vs. Mullahs | National Review
By


Iran’s rulers are losing their last group of supporters

The chants echoing across Iran in the past month must have unsettled Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani. “Death to Khamenei!” “Death to Rouhani!” “We will die to get our Iran back!” These were not demonstrations in the fashionable neighborhoods of Tehran but a revolt of the provinces. Iran’s aging rulers must have recalled that their own rebellion in 1978 had begun in those very provinces and only later migrated to Tehran. This was not the usual agitation of the intelligentsia and university students for more freedom, but workers and peasants fed up with the Islamic Republic’s corruption and cronyism. They were key to the regime’s hold on power and were supposed to be a reliable constituency at a time when it had lost the allegiance of nearly all other segments of society. In December 2017, the Islamic Republic changed forever.

In a sense, the latest uprising should not have been surprising, because the regime has had a turbulent history. The revolution that launched the Islamic Republic was led by a coalition of Islamists, liberals, and secularists. The Islamists soon ensured their dominance by purging and executing their partners. But this was not enough — the Republic of Virtue had to create its own new man. The founder of the state, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, proclaimed his own cultural revolution.

The universities were closed for two years as a religious review board altered the curriculum, and television and news media bombarded the populace with Islamic propaganda. Every aspect of life had to conform to Islamic strictures, with loyalty tests determining admission to the universities, the civil service, and the armed forces. The new regime encouraged children to inform on parents, students on teachers, and employees on one another. To secure the loyalty of the working class, the revolutionaries constructed an elaborate welfare state and mythologized the proletariat. At the time of his death in 1989, Khomeini must have assured himself, given the “cleansing” of the system and the new constitutional arrangements and authorities, that he had bequeathed his successors a divine republic that would endure forever. This was not to be.

Read more at:  https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/02/05/iran-protests-masses-vs-mullahs/

[Bill Cipher]

I would not hold my breath on this one. 

[Absalom]

A note from history.
After WW 1, the Phalevi Dynasty assumed the Throne
of Iran, ruling from 1925 till 1979, almost 3 generations,
during which Iran prospered culturally and economically.
That was 40 years ago, yet perhaps enough people still
remember their earlier past and want to resurrect it.
We shall see.

[Wingnut]

An note from history.
After WW 1, the Phalevi Dynasty assumed the Throne
of Iran, ruling from 1925 till 1979, almost 3 generations,
during which Iran prospered culturally and economically.
That was 40 years ago, yet perhaps enough people still
remember their earlier past and want to resurrect it.
We shall see.

Yep, everything went to hell in Iran since then. 

[Bigun]

Yep, everything went to hell in Iran since then.

Jimmua Caaaata!

[Bill Cipher]

An note from history.
After WW 1, the Phalevi Dynasty assumed the Throne
of Iran, ruling from 1925 till 1979, almost 3 generations,
during which Iran prospered culturally and economically.
That was 40 years ago, yet perhaps enough people still
remember their earlier past and want to resurrect it.
We shall see.

There were a lot of abuses during the Shah’s reign; things were not all roses and cherries, particularly for the poorer rural population.  The Iranian revolution in 1979 wasn’t some manufactured imposition on people who were otherwise doing quite well. 

[Absalom]

There were a lot of abuses during the Shah’s reign; things were not all roses and cherries, particularly for the poorer rural population.  The Iranian revolution in 1979 wasn’t some manufactured imposition on people who were otherwise doing quite well.

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Hmm..........who knew roses and cherries were an obligation of governance???
Man accepts/embraces his rule, be it Chinese, Greek, Aztec, Hapsburg among
many; or he rejects it, while fighting to change it. It's hardly complicated.
To their credit, the Phalevi's stabilized Iran after the turbulence created by the
Great War, as Kemal did in Turkey, and w/o the noisy antics of the Mullahs.
Perhaps Iran welcomes quietude rather than turbulence. Let's see!