Iran And The 'Arab Spring'

When, across the Arab world, social unrest, anti-government rallies and unprecedented signs of public defiance erupted first in Tunisia and Egypt then in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Oman, Jordan, Mauritania, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, many politicians and political observers, including American president Barak Obama, called for a continuation of pro-democracy movement and demonstrations and riots that followed the June 2009 disputed presidential election in Iran.

 
Worshippers hold portraits of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a demonstration in support of the people in Bahrain after Friday prayers in Tehran September 9, 2011.
Salah Bayaziddi

Iran's efforts to sway regional politics may fail

Therefore, it came as no surprise when at the early stages of these political upheavals, Iran?s supreme leader warned ?there will be major problems in the Muslim world if Western powers are allowed to exploit the so-called Arab Spring.? Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, warned Muslim nations they had a "very important and sensitive responsibility" to prevent Western nations from hijacking the revolutions in those countries.

He said if "arrogant powers," a reference to the West, "take the lead" in the Arab Spring, the Muslim world will "definitely" face "big problems" for several decades, state-funded broadcaster Press TV reported. However, the so called ?Arab Spring,? growing day by day since a protest suicide sparked the Jasmine Revolution in December that ended Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's tenure after more than 23 years in power.

That revolution spilled over to Egypt, ending President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade grip on power, a bombing campaign by NATO ended 42 years of Col. Moammar Gadhafi?s regime in Libya and threatens similar regimes in Yemen and Syria. On many occasions, U.S. officials have expressed concern that Iran is helping the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad with his brutal crackdown tactics against protesters. The Iranian regime is also accused of aiding Shiite militias in Iraq and serving as a close ally to Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Nearly 28 months after the demonstrations and riots that followed June's disputed presidential election, Iran's pro-democracy movement is seemingly under control but the public defiance is building up and it is still questioning the legality of the government of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Rallies took place in Tehran and other major Iranian cities, such as Tabriz and Esfahan, on Dec. 27, 2009, but they had been in the works for months through modern communication tools such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs and word of mouth. Iran, it seems, was on the verge of having a new, unified, anti- government opposition movement that could undermine the power of the central authority if it continues to grow.

While this pro-democracy movement did not achieve its immediate goals in Iran, its methods of using new communication tools such as Twitter and Facebook, has been copied since the early days of Arab Spring across the Arab world. However, it should be acknowledged there are some major differences between these two historical cases, which are only two years apart. While the emergence of the reform movement in Iran had aimed to create an image that restoring democratic and political rights of Iran's people can be achieved through ballot boxes, social unrest and anti-government rallies in North Africa and Middle Eastern countries are pushing for no less than regime change.

In fact, unlike the Arab countries' pro-democracy movements, Iran's opposition leaders are limited in their ambitions and political plans, did not follow public demands and it seems they have remained committed to the Islamic Revolution and the principles of its leader, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but they want to reform the establishment within that framework.

While the Iranian government seem happy with regime changes in Tunisia and Egypt, there are many signs of concern and worry in Tehran. It was seemingly, in Iran's view, the collapse of pro-U.S. governments in Egypt and Tunisia that were strong blows to U.S. influence in the region and a new "Islamic awakening," but there are some other troubling factors. Iranian officials have frequently argued the U.S. and its allies seek to take advantage of the situation and the Arab nations must be vigilant and watchful, while they have made no mention of Syria, where Assad's regime is struggling to contain opposition forces. It is obvious; Arab Spring may be a victory for Sunni Muslim groups and for that reason it should be viewed as a major concern for the Iranian regime.

Indeed, following these new developments, Tehran?s ambition of becoming a hegemonic power in West Asia has been blocked because it has no longer hopes to become leader over the majority Sunni Muslims. Its rival Muslim Brotherhood has become the single most powerful force in Egypt and has ?stolen? Hamas from Iran, and may do the same with Syria in coming months.

The outburst of protest that occurred in mid-February 2011 in Bahrain, another small Persian Gulf country, has given another major reason for Tehran?s government to continue its support for regime change in that small Arab kingdom and the whole process of the Arab Spring, except in Syria. Iranian officials are pointing to Western hypocrisy in dealing with Bahrain?s uprising while they are supporting regime changes across the Arab world, especially in Libya and Syria. However, other factors make the situation more complex and it has twisted within the process of pro-democracy movement of the region already.

In the regional picture, it should also be stressed that Iran has already identified a situation of American weakness in protecting its allies in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Iran, therefore, is increasing its support of subversive elements throughout the Persian Gulf and especially in Bahrain. Indeed, the protests in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy?s Fifth Fleet, have created a serious situation for the U.S. national security and for its economic interests.

According to a late 2009 WikiLeaks document, U.S. companies have won major contracts between 2007 and 2009 that include Gulf Air?s purchase of 24 Boeing 787 Dreamliners, a $5 billion joint venture with Occidental Petroleum to revitalize the Awali field, and well more than $300 million in foreign military sales. The U.S. has every reason to be worried if Bahrain tumbles under Iranian hegemony. Indeed, all the ingredients are present for a potential change in Bahrain.

Since the beginning of the protest wave against Assad's regime in Syria, Iran has backed Damascus and assisted it in both the security and propaganda aspects of its violent repression of the protests. Tehran charges that Syria is the victim of an attempt by the West, led by the U.S., to overthrow the Assad regime, under cover of the Arab Spring. At the same time, Iran sees the Arab Spring or, as it calls it, the "Islamic awakening" as a golden opportunity to export Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution to the changing Arab world.

Yet with the turmoil in Syria, Iran now finds itself confronting a real possibility of losing one of its most important allies. The fall of the Assad regime would likely undermine the resistance camp and break the continuity of the "Shiite crescent" stretching from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Reports have emerged about elements of the Iranian IRGC's Al-Quds Force (responsible for subversion and special operations outside of Iran), advisers from Iran's domestic law enforcement services, as well as Hezbollah people working throughout Syria to help Assad repress the popular protests.

Iran also apparently provided Syria with advanced eavesdropping equipment that enables the identification of activists who converse by phone or use social networks online.
While the Arab Spring is building its momentum and stretching its wings across the Arab world, Iran?s reform movement and so-called ?Green Movement? are lagging behind. It seems there is no need to be a rocket scientist to understand the main reason behind the weakness of pro-democracy movement in Iran. While Iran's Green Movement grew as a major popular opposition movement, which was a new phenomenon since the Iranian Revolution that took place nearly 30 years ago, it is suffering from a major weakness that limited the populist base of this movement since the early stages. This major weakness was almost no widespread support of Iran's ethnic minorities (such as Kurds, Azeri, Baloches, Turkmen and Arabs) by the Green Movement, and this reduced its power base and paints it as mostly an internal struggle or factional divisions of the Persian elites.

Indeed, while many politicians and political observers including Obama called social unrest and anti-government rallies of the Arab counties as a continuation of pro-democracy movement and demonstrations and riots that followed June 2009 disputed presidential election in Iran, this movement failed to grasp the roots of its survival.

In short, Iranian hypocrisy is so evident and clear in its dealing with different cases of the Arab Spring. In regard to Bahrain, Iran has rightly accused the U.S. of supporting King Hamad, the despotic leader of a strategically important country that hosts the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, and has attacked it for staying silent towards Bahrain's brutal suppression of its popular uprising and the Saudi military intervention there. On the other hand, Iran has portrayed the Syrian pro-democracy demonstrators ? unlike others in the Arab world ? as "agitators" and "terrorists" hired by Israel to create disturbance and insecurity.

As a final word, Iranian policymakers know better than anyone that this massive political drama and the process of the Arab Spring is still unfolding and should be considered a political earthquake for the region and, most importantly, it holds an immediate danger of spreading and possible short-term promise for Tehran's policies in the region. In the end, one might argue that Iran's reaction to the recent events in the Middle East, more than anything, exposes the hypocrisy of an opportunistic regime that respects the human rights neither of its own people nor of those in its neighborhood.