Lifting the veil on real Iran

What began as Iranian youths protesting their hijab, now in its fourth week, has morphed into a nationwide movement for regime change. Mahsa Amini died in the hands of the morality police for not observing the Islamic Republic’s dress code properly. She was not a political activist but did embody everything marginalized in Iran: She was a young woman, aged 22, a Kurdish ethnic with a Sunni faith, a middle-class girl from a small town. Her innocence has captured the world and turned her into an iconic symbol of Iranians’ suffering as well as the face of women and youth’s struggle for social freedom. The regime has a bloody history of suppressing dissent and has begun to unleash its brute force. But the defiant protesters claim this time there will be no turning back.

Iran is too often characterized as the country of the ayatollahs, but in fact, it is a complex society, torn between tradition and modernity with a troubled recent history. Within a year of the 1979 revolution that saw the Ayatollah Khomeini overthrow the Shah’s government, Iran was converted from the region’s most westernized society into a restrictive Islamic republic where Sharia law ruled. The result was increasing tension between the government and a large secular segment of the population. 

Women were stripped of all their equal rights. Their popular protest against compulsory hijab shortly after the revolution forced the government to back down, but three years later the government reimposed the hijab as the most visible display of its rule, power, and control. Today, there are 42.1 million women in Iran, and they outnumber men in universities. Over 60 percent of the country’s 80 million population is under 30 years old. Despite the government’s indoctrination, many young Iranians have rejected traditional beliefs. They are fed up with social restrictions and bear the brunt of the country’s chronic unemployment. They believe the government has broken its social contract and is ideologically bankrupt and are angry. 

On Oct. 3 Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei broke his silence in a talk that struck many Iranians as old and out of touch. He described Mahsa’s death as a “bitter incident,” blamed the uprising on the United States and Israel and gave his full support to the security forces. A day before, those forces had reportedly opened fire on students at the University of Tehran and Sharif University. It is no surprise that people have lost hope not only in the political establishment but also in reformist movements, legal platforms, and opposition groups. The organic and decentralized movement led by the youth aimed at regime change now seems the only way forward. 

The voices of Iranian women and youth are magnified by support from celebrities, sports personalities, and even reformist authorities inside and outside by Iranian expatriates who have organized large demonstrations in major cities. Across the globe, women are cutting their hair in front of the cameras, just as Iranian women are doing in Iran, and chanting the same slogans as on the streets of Iran: “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (Women, Life, Freedom).

The uprising is unfolding against a backdrop of troubles, both internal and external, for the Islamic Republic. Inside the country, it is grappling with a battle to revive its heavily sanctioned economy, decaying infrastructure, climate change, rising poverty, corruption, and incompetence. Add to this ongoing tension with large ethnic populations, religious minorities, political oppositions, and popular discontent. Globally, Iran is facing a united west in nuclear talks; regionally, its Arab enemies and Israel are uniting in the Abraham Accords engineered by the United States. 

Given its history, Iran is wary of the interference by foreign powers, but the West could support the Iranian people’s cry for freedom by ensuring Iranians have access to the internet and offering visibility to their cause. 

Western scientific organizations, universities, and high schools could issue statements in solidarity. Governments could condemn the Iranian government officially, target relatives of those in power with sanctions, and cancel their children’s student visas.  The Biden administration may want to consider temporarily withdrawing from the nuclear negotiations as yet another way to increase Iran’s isolation from the global community. 

In the end, though, this Iranian drama requires Iranian agency. Mass strikes would put more pressure on an already savaged economy. So far, university and high school students have joined, and it seems that Iranian National Oil workers may follow. Supreme Leader Khamenei suffers from ailing health. Currently, his son Mojtaba has been groomed to replace him. But that raises the question of legitimacy by some factions of the clergy. If Khamenei dies now, that faction, combined with the current uprising, could be existential. Finally, there are rumors of division between security and police forces, and that the latter might join the people. But that is unlikely, considering they are closely supervised by the security forces who were created and trained from the inception of the Islamic Republic to defend it mercilessly. Still, shooting one’s unarmed fellow citizens is a mission no militia enjoys.

For now, Iranian youths have done all they possibly could. It is hard to ignore the images of teen-age girls as they shout for freedom. But how resilient will the youth be under the government’s heavy hand? After 43 years, the regime has developed expertise on how to manage unrest brutally and successfully. Currently, it is implementing its old playbook. But there is no denying that an impressively fearless civil society is being born. It may not succeed immediately, but it will evolve, bond, and learn to define its objectives. It will find leaders. It’s no longer a question of if, but when the veil will be lifted on the real Iran. Meanwhile, we may be pleasantly surprised; all revolutions are unique and unpredictable. They seem impossible until they happen.

Pari Esfandiari is the co-founder and president at the Global TechnoPolitics Forum. She is a member of the advisory board at APCO Worldwide and served on the at-large advisory committee (ALAC) at ICANN. She is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center. She is a serial entrepreneur, internet pioneer, and an avid environmentalist.

Gregory F. Treverton is co-founder and chairman at the Global TechnoPolitics Forum. He stepped down as chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council in January 2017. He is a senior adviser with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and is a professor of the practice of international relations and spatial sciences at the University of Southern California.