Horak: The protests in Iran echo past uprisings. But this time, they feel different, Regg Cohn, Ebadi and Akhavan

Some of the better analyses of the situation in Iran, starting with former Canadian diplomat Dennis Horak:

…Notwithstanding the challenges the regime faces, it would be foolish to underestimate the repressive abilities of the Iranian security apparatus to protect the Islamic Republic. The forces stacked up against the protesters are formidable; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in particular, is brutal and experienced, and its leadership has strong vested interests in maintaining the status quo, including vast economic holdings. They, like the protesters, have something to fight for, and they have the weapons. The regime will not be going quietly. 

The regime is also bolstered by the fact that the exiled opposition movement continues to be fractious, and thus offers little hope as a viable alternative. While the son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi, has gained more visibility this time around, he carries a difficult legacy that will make it hard to rally around him, notwithstanding the effectiveness of his communications team. 

It is difficult to predict how this will all turn out. Most revolutions fail, until they don’t. But it is likely that some measure of change is coming this time, even if the current revolt is put down. It is hard to see how the status quo in Iran is sustainable. It will take more than vague promises of economic reform of the sort uttered by President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday to placate current or future protesters. Fundamental reform will be required, beginning with policy shifts on the nuclear front and an end to regional meddling to allow for the lifting of crippling sanctions and draw the country back from the radical, revolutionary fringe. 

To achieve this, there will need to be profound changes in how the regime functions, if there is not to be regime change. The question is: can Iran have the former without the latter? 

Dennis Horak was Canada’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Yemen from 2015 to 2018 and chargé d’affaires in Iran from 2009 to 2012.

Source: The protests in Iran echo past uprisings. But this time, they feel different

Regg Cohn | As protests grow, Iran finds itself more isolated than ever

…And so revolution is in the air again, just as it was nearly five decades ago in the twilight of the shah’s despotic rule. Iran’s tortured history teaches cruel lessons of false hope and false starts.

In 1979, secular leftists and religious rightists joined forces to topple the shah of the day, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The clerics, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, hijacked the revolution and declared an Islamic Republic.

They were usurpers, not liberators.

Pahlavi, who went into exile in 1979, was the son of an army officer who had crowned himself shah in 1925. Pahlavi fled the country in 1953 in a dispute with the democratically elected parliament — only to be restored to power in a CIA-backed coup days later.

Now, all these years later, his son — declared crown prince at age seven — is claiming the mantle of leadership from exile.

As Iranians try one more time to break free of the Islamic Revolution, nearly half a century after it supposedly liberated them, the last thing they need is to be tethered to a pretender to the throne. The people of Iran will chart their own path, cheered on by supporters in the diaspora but without taking orders from them — lest another revolution face another hijacking.

Iranians are fighting for liberation, not usurpation.

Source: Opinion | As protests grow, Iran finds itself more isolated than ever

As Iran cracks down on protesters again, the world cannot be silent

…The continuing heroism of the Iranian people is a reminder of the tremendous potential for the future of a rich civilization that produced the first human-rights declaration 2,500 years ago in the cuneiform text of clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, which is now housed in the British Museum. The scenes unfolding in Iran today demonstrate that 50 years of totalitarianism has not extinguished this powerful legacy, expressed in the ancient belief that in the end, light will triumph over darkness. Now, the world community must support this awakening and stand in solidarity with those who remind us of the astonishing resilience of the human spirit.

Shirin Ebadi is the founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. Payam Akhavan is the Human Rights Chair at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, a founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, and a former UN prosecutor at The Hague.

Source: As Iran cracks down on protesters again, the world cannot be silent