A video that was posted on social media Saturday show two young men who had been killed by security forces in the Iranian western town of Dorud. Protesters in the same video are heard chanting, “I will kill whoever killed my brother!” Other videos show protesters setting fire to a regime building in Khorramabad, and tearing down a poster of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran.
Protestor in is carried away after being shot by Islamic Revolutionary Guard pic.twitter.com/Opz3qiagMT
— Armin Navabi (@ArminNavabi)
The peaceful protests that began on Thursday, against the regime’s corruption, against a 12.4% unemployment, and against rampant poverty two years after the removal of Western economic sanctions with the signing of the nuclear deal, are peaceful no more.
The question on everyone’s mind at this point should be: will the West, especially the US, be able to help these protests become a wave that would finally topple the Ayatollah’s corrupt regime of repression and terrorism. Eight years ago, the Obama administration failed miserably at a time when brave Iranians risked—and lost—their lives taking to the street in massive demonstrations.
Protestors in attack an Islamic Revolutionary Guard base.
They chant: “Don’t be afraid. We are all together.”
City: BandarAbbas pic.twitter.com/o1mO6lK6fo— Armin Navabi (@ArminNavabi)
President Trump is showing, at least at this stage of the protest, a great deal more gumption than his predecessor. He has been locked in a war of words with the Iranian regime, using his Twitter account to speak directly to the Iranian people – and driving the regime bonkers.
“The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and, other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most,” Trump tweeted Saturday night, adding, “Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice. The world is watching!”
Trump used that last phrase, “The world is watching,” in an earlier tweet, entering an ominous note that must be grating on the Ayatollahs’ nerves.
According to Iran Wire, Rouhani’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, posted evidence that people with Twitter accounts linked to Saudi Arabia and Israel were supporting the protests. And Iran’s Foreign Ministry denounced the US’ “duplicitous and opportunist” support for the protests.
But some newspapers over the weekend supported the protests, with Qanoon, a pro-President Rouhani newspaper, running the headline “People enforce Article 27,” the article in Iran’s constitution allowing unarmed protests that don’t “disrupt the foundations of Islam.” Qanoon also ran a piece which argued that the “inefficiency of government authorities in solving people’s economic problems has led to protests by a section of society.”
Protestors in tearing down a Basij (Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Morality Police) banner.
Chanting: “Don’t be afraid, we are all together” and “Dictator” and “Death to Khamenei.” pic.twitter.com/ztybGACdxz— Armin Navabi (@ArminNavabi)
Philip Gordon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, on Saturday urged President Trump to keep quiet, if he really wants to help the Iranian people. Writing in the NY Times op-ed section, Gordon suggested that “high-profile public support from the United States government will do more harm than good.” He added that if “Iranians do choose to rise up and push aside their government, it will not be the result of support from Washington.”
But J.E. Dyer on Sunday morning cited tweets from Iran about government curbs on Internet access in several cities, and suggested that “this is something the US can help protesters with. There is no need to go into detail on that; I hope the Trump administration is moving on it with alacrity.”
Gordon noted that “one reason to worry that Mr. Trump may try to seize the moment by championing the protesters is that it has become an article of faith among President Barack Obama’s critics than in 2009 he missed a golden opportunity to do just that, when many Iranians took to the streets after a disputed election result,” then observed that “even if Mr. Obama’s support might have somehow been helpful to the Iranian opposition, Mr. Trump’s almost certainly will not be. Whatever Iranians think of their own government, they are unlikely to want as a voice for their grievances an American president who has relentlessly opposed economic relief for their country and banned them from traveling to the United States.”
Dyer, for her part, challenged the liberal media’s stance on events in Iran—represented so poignantly by Gordon, and argued that “the major media in the US (and the larger West) have finally started covering it […] But instead of conveying accurately the picture emerging from the sources we all have access to, they are silent about it, declining to acknowledge what the picture actually looks like.”
She also pointed out that “astonishingly, major outlets CNN and the New York Times on Saturday went further, not only declining to report the information coming over social media, but actually using images and information themes from the Iranian regime – as the basis of their own coverage. In other words, they repeated the Iranian regime propaganda as if it were news they were certifying.”
As to the dimension of the Obama administration’s failure to seize the opportunity of anti-regime protests in Iran in 2009, here is a brief recount:
On June 13m 2009, after the announcement that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won almost 63% of the vote, which most Iranians believed was a stolen election, supporters of his major opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, took to the streets to protest. The next day, the protests grew and became violent. On the night of June 14, the Basij, a pro-Ahmadinejad militia, raided Tehran University, injuring many students. In response, on June 15, millions marched in protest. Massive protests continued each of the following days, until, on June 18, more than 100,000 protesters held a candlelight vigil in Tehran mourning for those killed in the protests.
On Friday, June 19, the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini announced the election results were legitimate and warned that future protests would no longer be tolerated. On June 20, a young woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, was shot and died in front of cameras on Kargar Avenue in Tehran. Videos of the killing went viral, resulting in a huge rally in Tehran on June 22, which was broken up by riot police using tear gas and live shots in the air.
On Friday, June 26, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami called for the execution of leading demonstrators whom he called “people who wage war against God.”
Another wave of protests erupted on June 29, when forged election results were certified, at which point Iran’s chief of intelligence chief blamed Zionist forces for inciting the protests. Nine British embassy staffers were arrested on charges of fueling the protests – four of them are still under arrest to this day.
The regime has learned its lesson from the 2009 events and picked a more photogenic candidate for president next time around. They also increased the power and sophistication of their campaign of deception and repression, both internally and externally. At the moment, it appears that only President Trump, because of his unconventional tendencies, is pointing to the possibility that Iranians could get their second chance to unseat their oppressors, if they are helped.
Will the world merely keep watching, or do more than that?