An Iranian protestor holds up a photo of Reza Pahlavi. Public domain image via BBC.
Are the Iranian Protests any Different this Time Around, and Should the U.S. Help?
Another year, another protest in Iran—this time sparked by a collapse of Iran’s currency under various pressures. Yet is this round of Iranian protests any different than the last one that failed just a few years ago? At this point no one can tell if the result will be different, but what we are seeing is a notably more brutal effort by the Iranian government to stamp it out quickly, with likely thousands dead. While the 2022 movement lasted months, the current protest has thus far lasted a matter of weeks, and noting that the 1979 Islamic Revolution lasted over a year, its future is far from certain.
The playbook for Iran’s government has been typical. Beat and abduct protestors, cut off electronic communications including the internet, and start shooting people. As the Iranian regime calculates the intensity at which it applies horrific oppression, it’s likely trying to strike the right balance between killing enough people to disorganize and scare the population, and going too far so that it accidentally instigates an outright rebellion.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has promised that “help is on its way” and encouraged the Iranian people to “keep protesting.” In what form that help will come is unclear, but it could come in the form of military action. Certainly, U.S. military action does have the potential to change the course of a movement, but should that occur, we will likely see the outbreak of full civil war—a scenario that some U.S. officials might desire so long as it weakens Iran. Overt U.S. action could also completely delegitimize the movement given the overall population’s sensitivities about a history of American interference, and ultimately result in its collapse. Even if help doesn’t come, the promise of that help can spur action that the Iranian people are likely not prepared to fully undertake. Consider that when the U.S. encouraged the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf War, and then did nothing to support that rebellion, the Iraqi dictator brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people and stamped it out permanently. The Iraqis would never forget that betrayal.
So long as the Iranian military and security forces remain loyal to the Ayatollah, an unarmed rebellion is doomed to failure. A peaceful protest movement’s survival inevitably relies on armed forces in support of the regime refusing to act on orders, or even switching sides. Even then, this typically requires at least 3.5% of the population to be reliably out in the streets and for human sympathies to prevail. Masses of unarmed or lightly armed people ultimately do not stand a chance against machine guns, tanks, and aircraft employed by trained soldiers willing to use them—1991 Iraq proved that. However, once military arms caches are broken into or opened, or external powers begin smuggling in heavy weapons, that calculus begins to shift, and a disaster like Syria or Libya begins to unfold. Chaos will ensue even after a dictator is deposed, especially as people are hesitant to give up their new weapons.
With this in mind, support for the Iranian people does not have to come in the form of military action or arms. There is a key tool that the Iranian government particularly fears: communication. Whether via the internet broadly, via specific apps, or by more traditional methods like phones, the Iranian government always seeks to prevent protestors from communicating and organizing, and reduce the amount of information getting in and out of the country. The U.S. knows this is a weakness. In the midst of a previous Iranian protest in 2009, the U.S. government asked Twitter to delay planned maintenance that would have temporarily shut down its service in Iran because protestors were using it to organize. At the time, this was highly controversial and a huge news story as it could be seen as interfering. Interference is still a concern today, but if the U.S. wants to help in a way that doesn’t actively taint the legitimacy of an anti-regime protest movement, it can only do so in ways that allow the movement to stand up for itself organically. Communication tools are absolutely necessary for that.
There is historical precedent for how powerful these tools can be. During the 1980s, the Solidarity labor movement in Poland was enabled by technology such as fax machines smuggled in by Americans. Any tools that allow mass communication by the public are typically tightly controlled by authoritarian regimes. To his credit, Elon Musk has reportedly made access to his Starlink satellite internet service in Iran free, but efforts are already underway to jam this connectivity. If America wants to give this movement the ability to grow, it must find resilient and diverse ways to enable and amplify its voice—and step back so that voice develops its own narrative and following within Iran.
Unfortunately, that voice isn’t yet clear. Thus far, the protest movement appears diffuse. It does not have identifiable organization or leadership. There is no viable proposed alternative to the so-called Islamic Republic behind which the majority of the movement can unite. There is no individual seen to lead the movement—and if there were, they would likely be murdered by the regime. Reza Pahlavi, the Crown Prince and son of the deposed Shah, tried to position himself as an exiled opposition leader, but the very concept of returning in any way to leadership connected with the former Shah is extremely divisive amongst Iranians, and not a viable path to an alternative to the Islamic government. This division affects the Iranian diaspora in multiple countries, and paints a picture of conflict that could likely fracture the country into warring factions much as Iraq did in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.
What we have in Iran now is a lot of justifiably angry people out in the streets, and a government determined to terrorize and murder them into submission before they reach a critical mass. It’s not clear that there are enough angry people to overcome that. Unless the Iranian people as a whole are motivated and brave enough to come out in truly massive numbers, likely well-exceeding three million, there’s little hope for success—especially without a united vision for the future of the country. America shouldn’t try to create that mass motivation for them, as our history in the region shows it doesn’t go well.
Despite the historical likelihood that the regime will succeed yet again at putting this protest down in murderous fashion, the one current factor it has never contended with is its own relative weakness. With its foreign proxies like Hezbollah decimated, allies like Syria no longer on the board, a military humiliated by Israeli and American strikes against its nuclear infrastructure, and its currency comparatively worthless, we are likely to see acts of desperation and brutality out of the regime that will test the resilience of the Iranian people and tempt foreign intervention. But while that question is currently focused on the U.S., it’s worth considering whether that action might come from Russia, a country that may be desperate to preserve one of its last remaining foreign allies after losing both Syria and Maduro in Venezuela.
