How Do You Say "Tiananmen Square" In Farsi?
For about seven years, whenever anybody brought up the possibility of a popular revolution in Iran, pointing out how unpopular the regime is among most Iranians, I would point out that the Iranian leadership had the benefit of hindsight to look back at how the Chinese regime handled the mass protests of 1989 versus how the Soviet regime handled the series of popular challenges to their authority beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall that same year. And what conclusions were they likely to draw, do you think?
Right now, Khamenei and the rest of the unelected leadership of the regime is in a very delicate position. I don’t know why they decided to permit the theft of the election by Ahmadinejad, nor does anyone know, but permit it they did. Ahmadinejad is genuinely popular in many ethnically Persian areas outside of the big cities; moreover, he has the strong support of the security services and the various organs devoted to the enforcement of “virtue.” If the regime were to turn on him out of fear of popular protest, not only would it risk the ire of the groups that are its most natural supporters, but it would reveal itself to be afraid of the public. Which is usually the beginning of the end. On the other hand, the opposition hardly lacks for establishment support as well as popular support. It’s really quite surprising to me that the establishment put itself in this position, given that Mousavi was hardly outside of the mainstream of acceptable thinking in Iran.
What will happen next? I would assume that much depends, as it did in China in 1989, on what the military is willing to do. In the Chinese case, early on in the crackdown, there were reports of armed clashes between the 27th Army and other units of the PLA; it was not clear to outside observers that there was unity either in the Central Committee or the upper ranks of the PLA, and the possibility of civil war with different parts of the PLA fighting on each side seemed real, if still unlikely. In retrospect, there probably was a reasonably high degree of unity at the highest levels of the PLA, and the PLA used its role in putting down the protests to dramatically increase its power and influence within the Chinese state.
That’s one possible outcome in Iran: that the military sides with the regime and puts down the protests, and thereby strengthens its hand within the regime (as against the security services and other rivals). That’s a lousy outcome for the Iranian people, not necessarily the worst outcome by any means for American interests.
Another way the military could get involved is that it could protect the regime from the consequences of abandoning Ahmadinejad. This would again strengthen the military’s hand within the regime vis-a-vis its institutional rivals – assuming, of course, that it is able to prevail without significant armed conflict with said rivals.
And, of course, it may not come to that. The regime may hang on successfully without any major resort to violence simply by ignoring the protests; alternatively, counter-protests may materialize, either in the major cities or in the countryside, nullifying the effect of the mass protests we’ve seen so far.
I’m not going to pretend I have any idea how this is going to play out. Honestly, I’m highly skeptical of everyone commenting on the events in Iran, inasmuch as we have fairly poor information on the inner workings of the regime and much of our juiciest information comes from sources who are far from disinterested. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Georgia, etc., it’s that we know much, much less than we would like to think we do.
What does all this portend for American policy? That all depends on what you think that policy is. I would contend that American policy for many years now has been one of managed nuclearization. That is to say: we’ve decided that going to war to stop Iran from getting the bomb is not a serious proposition (and I would concur with that conclusion), realize that across the spectrum all the major Iranian figures support the nuclear program and are unlikely to be persuaded to drop it, and therefore concluded that what’s left is to try to forestall the inevitable, using what levers we have, in terms of pressure or bribes of one sort or another, to slow the progress of the nuclear program for as long as possible. Whether we like to admit it or not, that’s basically what our policy has been, because the alternative policies are either mad (unprovoked attack on Iran) or naive (somehow convincing them to abandon their nuclear program in exchange for . . . friendship with the Great Satan?).
If I’m right about what our policy is, then the current situation, while touchy, is not an obvious setback for it. It may or may not be a setback for the idea of a Grand Bargain that leads to normalization with Iran, but I never believed that this was very likely in the first place; it’s not in the Iranian regime’s interest to normalize relations with America, and it would be very hard for America to normalize relations with Iran without freaking out our various allies in the region (preeminently the Saudis and Egyptians, but obviously the Israelis as well). If the regime survives by brute force, it will be revealed to be relatively weak in terms of popular support and will be less credible globally than it was before. If the regime simply waits the protests out, then very little will have changed at all. If the regime survives by abandoning Ahmadinejad, then it will be focused on maintaining its credibility internally, and Mousavi will not be in a position to go off the reservation much if at all – so negotiations with America, if they happen will not really go anywhere. If the regime does not survive, it will be because the military turns on it decisively (which I would be really surprised by), and whatever regime emerges to replace it will have to establish its own credibility as a patriotic guardian of the Iranian people. That means no dramatic rapprochement with America, whatever happens behind the scenes.
All of which means that America should be playing it pretty cool right now. There are states that could plausibly bring pressure to bear in support of proper democratic procedures and against stealing elections or shooting protestors, but they would have to be states with real credibility both as democracies and as friends of Iran – i.e., places like Germany or India, not us. But it’s not obvious to me why Germans or Indians would want to interfere like that. We, unfortunately, can’t do much more than watch.
“All of which means that America should be playing it pretty cool right now.”
Yeah, tell that to Eric Cantor (R-Crazytown) http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_06/018630.php
— Library Grape · Jun 15, 10:23 PM · #
Well apparently our vociferous Vice President and a few other administration folks need to have their mouths sewn shut, too: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/world/middleeast/15diplo.html?_r=1.
— John Schwenkler · Jun 15, 10:53 PM · #
I’ve hit a wall on my thoughts on Iran. If it was an erection, it’d be time to call the doctor.
It worries me that Totten sounds compromised by…whatever it is that’s compromised him. It also worries me that he’s over there and I’m over here. What if I am the one who’s compromised?
Mostly I don’t think anything good is going to happen. And that is something you can blame on Bush.
— Sargent · Jun 16, 05:10 AM · #
For about seven years, whenever anybody brought up the possibility of a popular revolution in Iran, pointing out how unpopular the regime is among most Iranians, I would point out that the Iranian leadership had the benefit of hindsight to look back at how the Chinese regime handled the mass protests of 1989 versus how the Soviet regime handled the series of popular challenges to their authority beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall that same year. And what conclusions were they likely to draw, do you think?
I don’t see that this makes sense. Firstly, Tiananmen was not some new lesson on how to suppress protests. That lesson goes back at least to the June Days in Paris in 1848, when the government of the 2nd Republic used the army to crush a major workers’ uprising. With the army behind you and a firm will, you can crush a rebellion – this has been known for 150 years.
And yet, revolutions still succeed. Erich Honecker and Nicolae Ceausescu were operating with the benefit of knowing about Tiananmen Square (and the June Days, and the crushing of the other 1848 revolutions, and the Paris Commune, and a variety of other suppressed revolutions) just as much as the current Iranian regime – Honecker, I know, talked about a “Chinese solution” to his regime’s problems, and I think Ceausescu alluded to the same things. In the first case, the regime blinked and decided to give in rather than try it; in the second case, the high command of the military basically abandoned Ceausescu.
The question of whether a revolution will succeed is <i>always</i> whether the regime is firm and united enough to be willing to use force to crush them, and whether the military is willing to obey orders to crush them. If you’re willing to shoot the people, and your troops are willing to shoot the people, you win. If you’re not or they’re not, you lose.
We’ll have to see how it plays out, but there’s nothing new about the “lessons” of Tiananmen, and that the Iranian regime is familiar with those “lessons” says nothing about whether they’ll survive this or not.
— John · Jun 16, 12:27 PM · #
I don’t know who you are, I’ve never visited your blog before, but thank you. This is the first overview of the situation I’ve been able to find that helped me wrap my head around what’s going on over there.
— Matt · Jun 16, 12:44 PM · #
I think it is important to understand the different military/paramilitary forces in Iran.
Pasdaran = Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp. Exists as a separate entity to the rest of the military.
Iranian Military = distinct military, more secular than Pasdaran, has had it’s prestige diminished by the creation of the Pasdaran.
Baseej = Volunteer militia (these are the plainclothes guys beating people up on the streets and trashing student dorms/attacking universities).
Iranian military are HIGHLY unlikely to get involved. Baseej are already involved attacking people, etc. Whether the Pasdaran gets involved, that’s anyone’s guess.
— John · Jun 16, 01:33 PM · #
John #1: I guess my only point with that intro was that there was a lot of loose talk earlier in the decade about the “inevitability” of the fall of the Iranian regime because of popular unhappiness with it, and how America could help simply by “showing support.” A lot of bad analogizing to Central European regimes that were never viewed as entirely legitimate by the population as a whole because they were sustained by foreign (Soviet) support, and a lack of recognition that the key element in the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Empire was Gorbachev’s unwillingness to respond brutally to the first revolts in Central Europe (or, for that matter, Lithuania).
Obviously, since I go on to talk about the possible role of the military, I agree with you that the question is whether the regime is willing to risk using the military, and whether the military obeys orders. It’s worth recalling in that regard that the end-game of the Soviet Union involved a short-lived military coup, when hard-line elements rebelled against the liberalizing regime; it failed in large part because the bulk of the Soviet military wasn’t willing to risk civil war. So “the military” is itself sometimes not a monolithic entity once we get to end-game scenarios. This also looked like it might be the case in China in 1989, but turned out not to be.
Which brings me to John #2: that sounds about right to me. As I understand, the regular military couldn’t do much even if it wanted to because it’s mostly stationed far from the capital. I do wonder whether the regular military would stand idly by if the Pasdaran were used in large scale against the civilian population. but I don’t know that there’s anything they could do.
A lot of people are reading the fact that the police and the Pasdaran have so far not gotten involved in a big way as a sign that they are tacitly supporting the protesters, but it’s at least as plausible that it’s a sign of the confidence of the regime – that the regime thinks it can just wait this out.
Matt: thanks, but don’t rely on me for that. I’m hardly an expert on the region. This is armchair stuff. But thanks.
— Noah Millman · Jun 16, 03:43 PM · #
I’d like to apologize for my comment above, which I left late last night after I’d been out and about. Noah wrote a very thoughtful post which deserved a thoughtful response. Mi dispiace.
— Sargent · Jun 16, 04:20 PM · #
I think the regime, if it survives, will have to come to grips with the fact that demagoguery against the west is no longer enough to keep the confidence of their people. They will have to find a way to improve the economy and reduce unemployment and inflation, which are two big reasons people are angry. The only way to do that is to reach out to the west, perhaps even by yielding on the quest for nuclear technology. Obama’s policy goals will benefit from this.
— matt · Jun 16, 07:07 PM · #
John #2 is absolutely correct and makes an excellent point. It’s critical to make a distinction between the regular Iranian forces and the IRGC. They are seperate entities with very different cultures and motivations.
If the regime was to use “the military” to supress the protests they would use the IRGC not the regular military, which is a much more secular, nationalist institution. It’s also worth noting that the Basij reports to the IRGC.
— Peter · Jun 16, 07:50 PM · #
Why do you assume it’s mad to bomb the nuclear sites or strangle the regime by seizing the oil facilities in the Gulf? Why is it any madder than sitting back and letting Iran go nuclear or normalizing relations. Why are you so blase and realpolitik about anything the bad guys do but cautious as all hell about whatever we might do?
— steve · Jun 17, 01:27 PM · #