Iran: A threatened theocracy

...also published in Daily Trust

Though the wave of protests that has recently hit Iran isn’t the first of its kind, the protesters’ demands this time around are unprecedented. Prompted by a sudden increase in fuel prices, the protesters have demanded not only far-reaching economic reforms to arrest the persistent economic deterioration in the country, but also the abolishment of the entire Welayatul-faqeeh theocratic dictatorship that has ruled the country since the Khomeini-led revolution in 1979.

They have also demanded the abolishment of the regime’s costly expansionist agenda that drains the country’s resources in financing militias and other subversive groups in many countries across the Middle East and beyond so that the resources could be invested within the country to create job opportunities and improve the living conditions of the ordinary Iranians.

Interestingly, though it’s a common practice among countries to, by using intelligence tactics, pursue their respective legitimate and illegitimate interests even at the expense of one another, Iran’s peculiar agenda explains the peculiarity of its strategies in this regard. Strictly guided by the dictates of the Welayatul-faqeeh theocratic ideology, Iran is arguably the only country that blatantly claims a self-accorded entitlement to bringing all Muslim countries under the sole control of its Supreme Theocrat i.e. the so-called Waliyyul-faqeeh who is currently Ali Khamenei.

This is because, according to the ideology, the Waliyyul-faqeeh is the Mahdi’s Deputy who therefore is inherently entitled to rule over the whole Muslim world in anticipation of the emergence of Mahdi who they believe had gone into hiding almost one thousand two hundred years ago; and that he would emerge from his hiding place to rule over the whole world. By the way, this Mahdi character is actually fictitious, unlike the yet-to-be-born authentic Mahdi in standard Muslims narratives.

Anyway, pursuing this agenda, Iran has been creating/financing militias and sectarian organizations in different Muslim countries that undermine the sovereignty of their respective countries with a view to growing strong enough to  dictate the policies of their respective governments according to the dictates of the turbaned Supreme Theocrat in Tehran, as in the case of Lebanon and Iraq where Iran’s sponsored armed groups and puppet political elites e.g. Hezbollah and Al-Hashdush-sha’aby militias respectively are literally holding the countries to ransom. Or, even to overthrow the government altogether, as in the case of Yemen where Houthi militia took over the government.  

To operate this scheme efficiently, Iran maintains a whole military unit, the so-called Quds Force, which creates, finances, arms, trains and coordinates the operations of such militias across Muslim countries and Muslim communities around the world. The unit is currently under the command of Qasem Soleimani, a notorious Iranian army general.

According to Fereydoun Khavand, and Iranian economic analyst, though it’s difficult to know for sure the amount of money Iran spends on such militias and groups, some analysts and experts believe that it ranges between 16 to 18 billion USD annually; and could even be more than that.  

Besides, for propaganda and public relations purposes, Iran maintains a network of international media organizations, paid and unsolicited apologists (some of whom are otherwise credible public affairs analysts), purported humanitarian bodies and civil society groups e.g. the London-based so-called Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC).

Now, as such wave of protests would apparently keep breaking out from time to time in the face of the worsening sense of despair among the ordinary Iranians, the regime will certainly always stop at nothing to suppress it with disproportionate force; after all, there are reports of more than a hundred fatalities in the recent wave of protests.

Also, as they have done during the recent wave, the authorities will always resort to other desperate measures like blocking internet access to cut off social media communications, which are vital to the protesters. Equally, they would always stage-manage counter-rallies in support of the regime.

Yet, at the moment, the authorities are particularly worried about the implications of the recurrent breakout of such protests on the regime’s cohesion. After all, under the prevailing circumstances in the country, no wave of protests can, on its own, pose an existential threat to the theocracy. Instead, therefore, the deep state within the regime is particularly worried that the secretive disillusioned and potentially rebellious elements within its political, military and intelligence elites, and also among other turbaned clerics who, albeit equally Shiites, don’t believe in the ideology of Welayatul-faqeeh may one day get tempted to ride on the wave of such protests to overthrow the theocracy.

In other words, the regime’s vulnerability lies within, hence regardless of how far a wave of protests in the country goes, its prospect of bringing about any fundamental political change in the country e.g. the abolishment of theocracy depends on the strength of the momentum it gathers, which, depending on the circumstances, may trigger a wave of defections within the regime’s military, intelligence and other security agencies.

In any case, the eventual collapse of the theocracy sooner or later is quite foreseeable, for it is inherently unsustainable in the first place having been built on superstitious beliefs that make it too vulnerable to stand the test of time.