No Regime Change in Sight for Iran

Four months after a nationwide uprising erupted in Iran, a lethal crackdown and an ailing economy have quieted antigovernment street demonstrations. Students still occasionally gather at universities and high schools, and others shout slogans from city rooftops and balconies. But organized protests have largely tapered off. Those still willing to demonstrate gather in small groups, scattered around Tehran and other cities with little coordination.

Crowds of demonstrators have instead given way to a quieter form of rebellion. Thousands of women in Tehran now walk outdoors without the compulsory headscarf, or hijab. It is a form of civil disobedience unlikely to topple the regime but which many say will be difficult to contain in the future.

The protests began in mid-September, set off by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict Islamic dress code. Demands for greater freedom quickly escalated into calls for the overthrow of the clerical leadership, in one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since its founding four decades ago.

The government, initially caught by surprise, rebounded with deadly force. Hundreds of protesters have been blinded by rubber bullets and metal pellets in street clashes. Thousands have been arrested, some by police using electronic surveillance, including data from ride-hailing apps, to detain people after they returned from rallies. At least 16 people have been sentenced to death for their role in the protests. Four have been executed. Rights groups estimate that more than 500 protesters have been killed.

The antigovernment movement hasn’t settled on a political platform with the potential to unite Iranians. Millions oppose the Islamic Republic but are split over what should replace it. According to a poll in March last year by Gamaan, an independent research group based in the Netherlands, 34% of Iranians in the survey, including men and women, said they would prefer to live in a secular republic; 22% preferred an Islamic republic; 19% wanted a constitutional monarchy.

Inflation and Iran’s plummeting currency have exacerbated an economic crisis that makes it difficult to sustain the antigovernment movement and expand popular support, according to economists and protesters. Workers, merchants and business owners have been among the hardest hit by Iran’s economic troubles. They make up the same groups that protesters would need to trigger a change in Iran’s leadership, according to political analysts.

The national currency, the rial, has lost around 30% of its value since mid-September, plummeting to a historic low last week of 450,000 to the dollar on the open market. Inflation topped 40% for the fourth year in a row.Many of Iran’s economic travails stem from years of mismanagement and corruption. U.S. sanctions also have curbed crucial exports, including oil.

The recent currency slide started after international negotiations to revive a nuclear deal that would have lifted sanctions stalled over the summer. It accelerated when the government-imposed internet restrictions during the protests. The effort to stifle dissent hurt private businesses and the services industry, which account for more than half of Iran’s national output.

Iran’s clerical leadership came to power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At the time, the economy was growing. An oil embargo by the Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that targeted supporters of Israel during the Yom Kippur War drove crude prices sky high. Bolstered by a feeling of economic power, shopkeepers and unions in Iran joined with protesters in a yearlong uprising that ended the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

In 2009, hundreds of thousands of Iranians demonstrated against alleged election fraud, in what became known as the Green Movement. The movement, largely made up of the urban middle-class Iranians and students, eventually fell to government forces. It didn’t attract support from lower-income and working-class Iranians, who became the driving force in short-lived protests over economic hardships in 2017 and 2019. Those protests, in turn, failed to attract much support among urban middle-class Iranians.

During the current demonstrations, oil workers have gone on strike for better wages and working conditions, but they haven’t joined forces with those seeking a regime change.

The 1979 revolution largely succeeded because millions of Iranians of different political persuasions coalesced around one leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was in exile in France at the time. There is no similar leader now, complicating any effort at building a political group to rival the current government.

Meanwhile, the brain drain from Iran continues, much to the benefit of Europe, United States, and Canada.