Iran on Fire

[CountArach]

As always there is some amazing analysis at opendemocracy.net - a site that anyone who is interested in international affairs and security should read. The whole thing is worth a read, but here are the key parts (I feel):

Participants have shown less concern about their stolen votes or the illegitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s government. They no longer see the possibility of reform through a less manipulated electoral politics. They clearly see the roots of problem in the structure of power, their contradictory constitution, the powerful anti-democratic institutions, and in the development of a militant-monetary mafia reinforced through the so-called privatization of public assets. However, the Iranian movement for democracy suffers from some significant shortages. Inconsistency in actions and the lack of effective leadership are among the underdeveloped aspects of the movement.

[...]

Today, almost six months after the election, the movement and the regime are both at the crossroads. On the one hand, isolated, violent street clashes are not going to change the regime even if they repeat over and over again. On the other hand, continuing the current extremely exclusionist policies towards the reformist opposition is becoming markedly unendurable. The post-election tensions have led to a chaotic and complex state where disloyalty, disunity, and disobedience are becoming norms. This will paralyse the state in implementing any effective economic policy to deal with growing economic challenges. While affecting foreign investment in Iran’s energy sectors (even by its close allies such as China and Russia), this will also make it dreadfully difficult for the government to execute effective economic reforms such as the removal of subsidies and raising taxes as these policies require significant public consent.

Whereas the protest movement was initially limited to metropolitan middle class, it has now expanded into lower classes, thanks to the government’s failure in tackling backbreaking economic challenges such as high inflation, stagnation, and unemployment. The vertical links across social classes have also been reinforced through the growing participation of religious figures. The Iranian traditional market (bazaar) which used to be the major source of income for many religious institutions has experienced a tremendous decline due to the growing monopolies shaped around the importation of less expensive goods and commodities in massive scales, particularly from China.

[...]

Not many choices are left for the opposition leaders to take as the movement has started to transform into more antagonistic, more autonomous, and less organized urban riots. In this situation the reformist opposition can retain its leading role if it either strongly pursues a win-win referendum solution through pragmatist fractions of the regime or calls for a national strike and gatherings in the public spaces once and for all. While the former option is more plausible and less feasible, the latter is less plausible and more feasible. Mousavi’s latest statement (No. 17) proves that he is not willing to pursue any of these options. Instead, he has stopped questioning the legitimacy of the government or election and demanded a higher level of responsibility as well as transparency in elections. His solutions to the crisis are once again very general in objective and vague in terms of strategy. His statement is understood by both the regime’s hardliners and the green movement activists as a retreat from his earlier position.

[...]

The system has lost its equilibrium and has become fragile to external pressures. However, as the nonlinearity of changes have become more and more prominent, it is not only the case that small changes in key issues can create immense transformations, but also that greater changes (like tightening sanctions) may not end up with significant effects in favour of democracy. The wisest policy for the West is an ‘active non-intervention’, one that credibly conditions economic and diplomatic relationships (and even nuclear negotiations) on the regime’s human rights and democratic records.

I'm not sure that I completely agree with this anslysis as what he is suggesting (a top-down organisation of the protest movement) is unlikely to lead to much substantive change, and I think that the protest movement will naturally develop these leaders themselves anyway in a far more organic fashion. However, parts of the analysis are undeniable and it is interesting to think about what the present regime's options are - they are few and far between.