Iran at a turning point

By Roula Khalaf, Najmeh Bozorgmehr and Anna Fifield

They are outraged and they are desperate for change. But look at the faces of many of Iran’s protesters, and they appear cheerful. Despite the deaths of the past week, the arrests and the beatings, they have kept a smile on their faces as they raise their hands in a victory sign.

As the crisis over the disputed presidential election result has unfolded – posing the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979 and taking the world by storm – hopes for a move towards a more reformist, tolerant Islamic regime have rested on the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets. Many of them are young and ambitious for their country, demanding above all that they be respected.

In a country not known for displays of happiness – it was a novelty in the late 1990s to have a president (the reformist Mohammad Khatami) who smiled – the outcome of the election eight days ago, which declared hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad the winner, is seen as one affront too many by those who voted for Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the reformist candidate. “They took us for fools,” is a common refrain.

For a youthful, educated population, it appears a wall of fear has been shattered, releasing them from years of bottled-up frustration. Mohsen Rezaei, a conservative candidate in the presidential election, has spoken of a “phenomenon” in this election. “People valued their votes so much as if it was their honour,” he says.

No one doubts the crisis is a turning point. The country, says Gary Sick, an expert on Iran from Columbia University, has entered “an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history”. The one characteristic that has always distinguished it from other authoritarian regimes of the Middle East, he says, “was its respect for the voice of the people, even when that voice was saying things that much of the leadership did not want to hear”.

But the shift will be tumultuous. The regime has no intention of giving in to demands for a new vote and no appetite for compromise. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader, made clear in an address on Friday that the election result would not be altered and protests would not be tolerated.

“Even if this fire is extinguished, the government will lack a popular base and people will obstruct its policies,” warns one political activist in the country.

The real size of Mr Moussavi’s support is impossible to gauge, and the president retains popularity – particularly among religious radicals, the poor and the rural population, whom he has assiduously courted with his populist policies. But the divisions in society so starkly illustrated this week will not go away, and they have been mirrored within the regime itself.

Mr Moussavi is no secular politician. He was an active participant in the 1979 revolution. His candidacy had attracted backing from Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the powerful former president, and other conservatives, including segments of the clerical establishment. Strongly behind him, too, was the reformist camp, which believes that in order for the revolution to survive, its system – part theocracy and part democracy – must re-engage with society, giving it wider freedom and accountability.

Some commentators have described the election as a palace coup, engineered by the hardline wing of the regime, represented by the military establishment that backs Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, and supported by the supreme leader, who is the ultimate authority in the country. The aim, say these commentators, was to destroy the reform movement and either control and manage any opening up to the US, now that President Barack Obama is seeking engagement with Iran, or thwart it altogether.

The passionate protests, and their style, have conjured up images of 1979, but their outcome need not be the same. The silent, solemn marches; the cries of Allahu Akbar (“God is Great”) from rooftops at night, used in 1979 to notify the authorities that no one is above God and symbolically reminding today’s regime of that time; and the lashing out of the authorities – all remind Iranians of the revolution. The organisation of rallies, too, has gone back to the primitive ways of the revolution, amid unprecedented restrictions on high-technology media such as Twitter, the social networking service. “We’ve been sending motorcycles to the streets to tell people about the rallies, we have to transfer information face to face,” says one person involved in the protests.

But whether the crisis will provoke a larger protest movement that shakes the power structure more deeply, or a total consolidation of power by hardliners, as Mr Khamenei hinted on Friday , is difficult to judge.

Just as there are similarities with the revolution, there are also stark differences – not least that the western world is cheering not for the shah but for the demonstrators.

As the political activist who took part in the revolution says, it was led by a charismatic religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had an extraordinary ability to mobilise segments of a fractured society while in exile. He was relentless in both method and ambition for an overthrow of the shah. “But now there is no leader,” says the activist, “and Moussavi wants to lead protests peacefully.”

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Mr Moussavi, out of the political establishment since he served as prime minister in the 1980s, has been surprisingly bold in his statements in the past week. So far he has appeared to be led by the street, which has mobilised for protests even when he issues a statement postponing a rally. At least some support, moreover, is less for him than against Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, seen by large parts of the educated middle class as having destroyed both the foundation of the economy, provoking rampant inflation, and its image abroad.

The main target of protesters this week has been Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, who has a popular support base and is not, in any case, the real decision-maker in the country. Although few doubt that the authority of the supreme leader remains solid, some analysts say that even he may not be in full control of his troops, not least the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Clearly taken by surprise by the intensity of the unrest, which spread to other parts of the country, the regime has been scrambling for ways to damp the protests, lashing out with arrests, beatings and attacks.

During much of the day Tehran has looked normal, with residents going about their daily business. But it has been gripped by rally fever in late afternoons. Most evenings, particularly in the north of the city, home to the elite who turn out in force, the tensions have been at their highest.

Plain-clothes Basiji, members of the feared Islamic militia, holding shields, and wielding batons, deploy in the streets, sometimes setting up checkpoints. Their task seems to have been to chase and punish protesters as they dispersed from rallies and return home. The government says eight people have died in the past week; Amnesty International puts the death toll at 15.

The regime has been working hard to ensure that the rallies will peter out, as fear of violence and retribution spread. Friday’s speech by the supreme leader, warning people to stop their protests and portraying any domestic unrest as playing into the hands of the enemy, was the most dramatic move to silence the streets.

Analysts and diplomats, however, say that, unlike the unrest of 1999, the last serious crisis in Iran that involved a student uprising, tougher repression today carries a much higher cost, as it would have to target so many segments of the population, all of which have relatives in the security forces.

The stance of Mr Moussavi, torn between his supporters’ demands and the consequences of widespread repression, will be crucial.

“Will Moussavi end up standing with the regime and deciding to end this, or will he follow his troops and stay with them? Will he become more radical and challenge the regime even more?” asks a western diplomat.

The fear in Tehran is that the regime’s actions will turn the peaceful demonstrators, now still focused on a demand for a rerun of the vote and reform of the system, into a more radicalised opposition that wants an end to the Islamic system itself. With society divided, part of it deeply wounded by the election, and the regime under strain, the country could face a prolonged period of unrest. The dispute over the election could bode ill for western governments hoping to curb the fast-progressing nuclear programme, and at least delay US intentions to engage.

“With his speech, the leader has put himself against the people,” says one young Iranian who has participated in daily protests. “The regime does not understand that this wave is driven by people, not by politicians.”

“The regime has taken a big hit,” notes the western diplomat. “But the hardliners also think any concession would be the beginning of their end.”