The Second Iranian Revolution?

What a difference a day makes! The massive Moussavi protest in Tehran (and much smaller ones in provincial cities) resulted in the deaths of seven Iranians, though not as a deliberate act on the part of the authorities.

The demonstrators appeared to have tried to enter the compound of the Revolutionary Guards and to have been fired on ‘in defence’. But this was undoubtedly the biggest protest since the revolution of 1979 although the precise number of those involved is uncertain.

Splits In The Ruling Order

The point is that these people have defied an official ban and the clerical authorities are now faced with a potentially revolutionary situation. The key issue – at least in classic revolutionary theory – is whether there will be a ‘split in the ruling order’.

There are certainly some signs of this: the Supreme Leader has ordered an inquiry into vote-rigging; the Guardian Council has called the results of the election ‘provisional’; and the ‘secret reformist’ Speaker Larijani has condemned the Interior Ministry for its conduct.

What is interesting is that there are elements in the Iranian establishment – Rafsanjani and Khatami – who are mobilizing against Ahmedinejad within the elite.

It is getting quite possible that Ahmedinejad might well have won a majority of the vote (as pre-election American polling suggested was possible, according to the BBC) and yet fall to what amounts to a ‘right-wing’ coup masquerading as a liberation.

Business definitely does not like Ahmedinejad and business has influence. The Tehran Stock Exchange fell sharply on his re-election and on the debate over vote-rigging even before matters escalated yesterday. Many significant Tehran traders are throwing their weight behind Moussavi.

This alone may affect opinion if there are any re-runs of the vote – after all, as elsewhere, most people vote on economic more than ideological grounds so serious economic difficulties linked to Ahmedinejad’s policies may undercut him in any case.

On The Edge Of Revolution?

Moussavi, an unlikely 68-year old champion of what is largely a youth movement, plans more demonstrations and he is clearly rising to the challenge of opposition after some initial hesitation. He has, however, already fallen into the trap of all moderates trying to manage a revolution.

Moussavi is simultaneously calling for calm and trying to lead protest from the front to stop it going too far too fast. He is seated on a tiger that is driven by the positive feedback between Western media, the blogging community and events on the ground.

Ahmedinejad is in Russia on official business but his ‘team’ were planning a counter-demonstration today. So, the entire situation could get out of hand, especially as there are many questions about the balance of forces as yet unanswered.

The material fact remains whether the ballot was rigged. If so, and provenly so to a degree that makes the difference between win or loss for Ahmedinejad (or he is directly implicated in the attempt), it will be impossible for him to hold on to power. He will be removed.

However, if it was not rigged (or if voting irregularities are very marginal), conspiracy theory and resentment could keep the matter open, much like the ‘hanging chads’ in the 2000 US Election, as a running sore. The conduct of Moussavi then becomes a serious matter indeed in the eyes of the clerics.

Seizures of government property or attacks on the security forces on the one side and further deaths on the other create possibilities of an escalation in violence that could cause clerical crackdown or even martial law …

... and where does the military and air force, long resentful of the Guards in some quarters, stand in all this?

Parameters For Settlement

The good and breaking news is that the Guardian Council has ordered a recount in the areas most pinpointed as possibly subject to rigging. This needed doing.

In this context, the Ahmedinejad Presidency is provisional but it raises the issue of what will happen if the protests don’t stop despite this concession – and the ‘tiger’ decides that it will accept no result that does not endorse its ‘rider’.

The clerical leadership is in particular difficulty here because the reformists’ attempted coup through soft power is very much directed ultimately at their power, yet they have committed to uphold a revolutionary settlement that includes a voice for the people.

Their immediate acceptance of the result might imply complicity in vote-rigging if vote-rigging is demonstrable and yet, whether there is vote-rigging or not, any acceptance of the coup attempt is the beginning of the end for the original Islamic Revolution.

What is clear is that modern technologies of street organisation and propaganda have transformed the situation in the street since the last student riots in 1999. These latter were quickly suppressed but the different course of events cannot be put solely down to technology.

In 2009, the students are led by a respectable establishment figure who has emerged out of retirement. It is as if Lord Howe suddenly re-emerged to lead a libertarian street revolt against an alleged New Labour attempt to rig the polls to protect Parliament. It is that strange.

The West

Meanwhile, Western leaders are finding it difficult to respond. The UK and US have said that the elections are an internal matter for Iran (in part because they do not want to inflame nationalist sentiment against the reformists) yet they also want to uphold certain ‘universal’ values.

Commitment to these ‘universal’ values has inevitably led to some slippage in this neutral stance, with Obama saying he was ‘inspired’ by the demonstrators.

The US appears to be playing a waiting game, ensuring that nothing is said that will cause difficulties for it in any future negotiations on the nuclear issue regardless of who comes out on top.

The obvious point here is that the White House is looking over its shoulder at Congress and Israel – a brutal suppression of the reformists would make it difficult to sell a deal with Iran domestically even if it was presented to be in the American national interest

It is the Europeans who are currently being more condemnatory of the Iranian Government than the Anglo-Saxons. The European Union has already attacked the use of force against demonstrators and it has been less shy than the Anglo-Saxons in questioning the polling, referring to ‘signs of irregularities’.

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