Hassan Hakimian suggests that reformers have failed to manage rising economic expectations, particularly among young people.
Iran, during late December 2017 and early January 2018, saw the first upsurge of widespread protests in civil society since 2009. However, there is little firm evidence that the Iranian governance structures around the ruling clerics are about to undergo sudden, unanticipated change in the immediate future.
But there are signs in Iranian society of profound evolutionary change; signs which could point to danger in the foreseeable future. The danger, expressed by the protests, is the result of improving economic performance in Iran, married to an even more rapid rise in societal expectations, particularly after a period of gradually worsening personal economic fortunes.
The current Government of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamene‘i and Pres. Hojjat ol-Eslam Hasan Fereidun Rouhani is facing some of the same factors faced by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1978-79: • Social and economic expectations rising more rapidly than can be delivered (today largely caused by the expectation that the signing of the so-called “nuclear deal” would lead to immediate improvements in life);
• The growing education and restlessness of young Iranians, who now dominate the demographic pattern; and
• The perception among many educated younger Iranians that they are excluded from participation in governance (today by the reality that government is the province of the Shi’a clerics).
But it should be stressed that broad, popular internal support for Iranian unity and Persian historical and civilizational values may be higher now than at any time since the fall of the Shah in 1979. So the signs may be good for the nation-state, but less positive for the governing structures. Even so, the belief in the prospect for popular revolt in Iran, expressed by Western (particularly US) media and government statements, is premature.
History has shown that, when external pressures are applied to Iran, Iranians tend to put national unity ahead of any distaste they may have for their government. That is not to say that unscheduled governmental change is currently impossible, but rather that — unlike 1978-79 — the conditions are not propitious for transformational change.
There are a significant number of challenges which face the clerical governing structures at this time:
1. The health of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamene‘i remains poor1 and it is possible that he will not be able to remain in office much longer;
2. There is infighting, or more naked competition, at many levels within the clerical power structure, including within the clerics’ own Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC: Pasdaran), not least over and flowing from the question of succession to the position of Supreme Leader, and what this could do to the shape of governance, and the holders of key posts. There is also the question, for example, of whether or not the “reformist” faction, now represented by Pres. Rouhani, will be blamed for failing to deliver what the public expected, and if this would lead to a collapse of the reformist position, giving an opening to hard-line clerics, which could in turn lead to even greater public disenchantment;
3. The fact that the economy has begun to rally — with the easing of international sanctions following the July 14, 2015, “nuclear deal”: the P5+1 (People’s Republic of China [PRC], France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the European Union (EU), and Iran accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — created a sense of “rising expectations” within the public which the Government cannot meet in terms of satisfying material and economic demands;
4. Continued international uncertainty about the future of the JCPOA.