Demonstrators push Iranian mullah regime on the brink

While Western nations are not extending any real support to the pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran, most of Iranian 36 provinces saw mass demonstrations in September 2022 against the clerical Government of the Islamic Republic, and, as with earlier periodic waves of demonstrations, each occurrence prompts the question: Is this the outburst which topples the clerics?

According to experts, at the very least, Iran has turned its back completely on the West, and any thoughts the US Biden Administration might have entertained about a revival of the “nuclear accord” — the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — must be considered, comprehensively, dead and buried. This alone opens the debate as to whether Israel, concerned about Iranian nuclear weapons capabilities, will see this as an opportunity to initiate new strikes at Iran’s nuclear and command and control facilities.

But there are no indications as yet that the September 2022 protests spell an imminent threat to the clerics’ control of Iran. No amount of economic hardship, and even starvation at times, has caused the clerics to loosen their controls.

The Shah of Iran abdicated in 1979 with far fewer protests, and with far less suppression of free speech. But that difference tells the story: the Shah was not prepared to use massive force to oppose public demonstrations, far less engage in indiscriminate killing of Iranians. His successor, Ruhollah Khomeini, had no such scruples, and violently beat, arrested, imprisoned, and killed as many as a million Iranians when they protested the clerical take-over of Iran.

The Western media, which led the assault on the Shah for “suppressing” the Iranian people, have said little or nothing about the regime of suppression and deaths which have characterized the 43 years of clerical rule thus far.

Khomeini’s clerical successor, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and successive presidents under him, followed Khomeini’s example, and have not hesitated to ensure the rapid application of overwhelming force against demonstrators, regardless of the cause or peacefulness of the protests. Nothing changed with the September 2022 protests, particularly under the extreme hardline new Presidency of Ebrahim Raisi.

Cruelty of mullah regime’s militias

September’s protests began when Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish female was detained by the religious or morality police for “failing to properly wear” hijab as per decree of the mullah regime. In custody, Mahsa Amini was severely beaten, raped, and was forced to lay on a piece of large-sized ice for hours. Such brutality resulted in Mehsa Amini falling into coma and her subsequent death.

The protests began when the religious police insisted that they had done nothing wrong, and, with the Basij militia, began beating and arresting protestors who accused them of violence, rather than admitting that they had made mistakes in the handling of Ms Amini’s situation.

The protests began after her funeral in Saqez, in Iranian Kurdistan province.

The violent response by the police and the Basij seemed only to outrage Iranians further. And by September 25, 2022, there had been a reported 41 deaths, including children, as a result of the wave of protests. Security forces had been filmed firing, with live rounds, directly into protest crowds.

The 2019 protests had caused at least 1,500 deaths, and President Raisi — who was, in his younger days, one of Ayatollah Khomeini’s most important enforcers during the early days of the clerical rule1 — has no intention of allowing protests to spread again.

Iranian state media accused exiled Iranian Kurds, living in Iraqi Kurdistan, of fomenting the latest protests, although the protests were clearly well beyond the scope of Iran’s Kurdish minority. The casual disregard over the death of Amini had touched a much wider audience, and particularly among Iranian women who have often been a cornerstone of protests. This time, Tehran ordered the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC: Pasdaran) artillery to shell Kurdish refugee camps across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Meaning, Iranian regime is showing extended hostility most possibly out of nervousness. Meanwhile, there is internal feud within influential figures in the regime, as Ebrahim Raisi is looking for being replaced by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following his death, although Khamenei wants his son to become his successor.

According to experts on Iran issues, death or Ali Khamenei will widen the scope of collapse of mullah regime in Iran. Growing protests against the regime may also result in a mass-upsurge and fall of the regime.