Iran’s clerics had learned by late November that they could—absent any international scrutiny—suppress opposition protests comprehensively, harshly, and without repercussions.
But is it a long-term solution for the Islamic Republic?
The most comprehensive national protests since 2019–20—when there were more than 1,500 known civilian deaths—were growing weaker by late November, but only because the clerical government used major military formations, including artillery, against civilian groups. There was no way of measuring how extensive the death toll and damage to property were from the government’s actions. Still, the death toll likely exceeded the 2019 levels, despite human rights organizations reporting only 378 deaths by Nov. 19.
The Iranian government has been using the opportunity of the civil unrest to escalate major attacks on anti-government groups, particularly in Kurdistan, Khuzestan, and Sistan–Baluchestan.
In all this, there has been little or no pushback against the Iranian clerical leaders from the international community. In fact, the U.S. government continued to attempt a rapprochement with the clerics, even though the government of President Ebrahim Raisi signed up on Sept. 15 for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The SCO and the derivative Eurasian strategic bloc of Russia and China offered major strategic cover for clerical Iran.
The SCO membership and the new bloc with Moscow and Beijing effectively shielded the clerics from any major pressure from the Western powers. That meant that the only effective check on the clerics in their control of Iran came from the unarmed domestic population.
The protests and civil unrest began in Tehran on Sept. 16 as a reaction to the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who the Guidance Patrol had arrested for wearing what was alleged as an “improper” hijab while visiting Tehran from Saqqez in Iranian Kurdistan. Amini reportedly was severely beaten by Guidance Patrol officers and died while in custody.
The protests spread rapidly to almost every Iranian city and major town but were particularly virulent in Iranian Kurdistan and among the Iranian Kurdish population in Iraqi Kurdistan. There, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps used conventional and rocket artillery against civilian Kurdish targets.
Some of these have been launched across the border into Iraqi Kurdistan against the exile offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI). This group, which split from Iran’s old communist party (Tudeh) in 1945, is allied with Kurds operating in Iraq. Artillery attacks have also been mounted against the ultra-left Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, which operates from exile in Iraqi Kurdistan. Komala merged into the Communist Party of Iran in 1984.
By late November, visible protests were diminishing in most Iranian towns and cities but not in the Kurdistan province, which abuts Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Neither were protests diminished in Iran’s Sistan–Baluchestan province, which abuts Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s Baluch regions in the southeast. Sistan–Baluchestan also has an extensive—and very strategically important—coastline on the Arabian Sea. It has always been resistant to control from Iran and the Persian central government.
The Baluch area is predominantly Sunni and therefore feels penalized by the ruling Shi’a Iranian government. A variety of Sunni militant groups in Sistan–Baluchestan have been heavily engaged against the central government since 2003, starting with Jundallah (“Soldiers of God”—supported by the United States since 2005) and including several other militant groups, including Jaish ul Adl (JUA, founded in 2012), Ansar al Furqan, and Harakat Ansar Iran. JUA, which is based largely in Pakistan, could be the most active of the anti-Tehran groups and is Salafist in orientation. JUA was declared a terrorist organization by the United States in July 2019.
It’s significant that the Iranian Marxist groups have been persistent since the time of the Shah and continue to protest against the Iranian central government today, whether clerical or monarchical. The clerics have retaken the opportunity, however, to strike at the armed revolutionary groups at the same time as the aggrieved farmers and city protestors who have spearheaded the 2019 and 2022 protests.
The main protests in 2022 have been by civilians rather than by militant groups. There were three days of strikes throughout Iran on Nov. 15, 16, and 17, this time marking the anniversary of the November 2019 protests. The “anniversary protests” were met with draconian suppression, including considerable loss of life and injuries in Izeh in Khuzestan province, Bukan in West Azerbaijan province, and Isfahan.
One Iranian opposition website noted that “clashes erupted early in the morning [of Nov. 16] in the Kurdish-majority city of Kamyaran after the bereaved family of a protester killed by security forces gathered outside the hospital to get his body, but government agents opened fire at them.”
The website went on to say that “protesters in the cities of Tabriz, in East Azerbaijan province; Boukan (Bukan), in West Azerbaijan; Hafshejan, in Chaharmahal; and Bakhtiari, Doroud in Lorestan (Luristan); Mashhad, in Khorasan Razavi; Qaem Shahr and Behshahr, in Mazandaran; Bandar-e Lengeh, in Hormozgan; and Kerman, Ilam, and Hamedan as well as many others also held rallies, chanting slogans against the regime and its crackdown on protesters.”
Relations between Iran and Russia (and, for 70 years, the Soviet Union) have always been cautious. The Russian Empire, and later the Soviets, took away much of Iran’s sphere of influence in Central Asia. Moscow worked throughout the Cold War to undermine Persian/Iranian influence and cohesion, particularly its relations with the West.
It isn’t insignificant that the Tudeh Party and other Iranian communist movements that worked to undermine the late Shah, such as the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) and the two major Kurdish militant groups, all had links back to the Soviet Union but are today opposed to the clerics and the clerics’ ties with Moscow.
Today, the clerics are increasingly dependent on defense supplies from Russia and on the Russia–China alliance as trading and security partners. Iran finally joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Sept. 14, giving it a legal framework of protection against possible Western or Israeli military attacks.
That certainly emboldened the clerical government to be able to suppress internal dissent in Iran without fear of foreign pressure. It may also have emboldened Tehran to flex its muscles in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea environments.
On Nov. 14, an Iranian loitering munition—a HESA Shahed-136 drone—attacked an Israeli-affiliated, Liberian-flagged tanker, the MV Pacific Zircon, in the Arabian Sea, just east of the Strait of Hormuz, for example, but didn’t cause significant damage.
The fact that Russia—like Yemen, Ethiopia, and others—has begun to acquire Iranian weapons has also given some strength to Iranian beliefs that the Islamic Republic can be a valued strategic partner of Russia and China, despite the fact that the Iranian unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) and ballistic missiles are less than state-of-the-art. Iran had, by late November, exported at least 500 short-range drones (mostly loitering munitions) to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine and was reportedly committed to sending short-range ballistic missiles and many more Shahed-136 loitering drones.
The Iranian exports, even low-quality drone and ballistic systems, allow Russia to engage in saturation attacks on Ukrainian targets, causing the Ukrainian air defense forces to expend high-value defensive weapons against low-cost attacks. The Ukrainian government has already admitted that, while it has destroyed many Shahed-136 drones, it lacks capable anti-missile defenses against low-cost battlefield ballistic missiles, even the Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar types suggested for export to Russia.
The single-stage, solid-fueled Fateh-110 was deployed in 2002, has an operational range of 186 miles, and can carry a 500-kilogram (kg) high explosive warhead. The Zolfaghar surface-to-surface missile is an advance on the Fateh-110, with a range of up to 621 miles (depending on the model) and with a warhead of up to 579 kg, making it a medium-range ballistic missile. The Zolfaghar was battle-proven against targets in Saudi Arabia in 2021.
So the clerical government can show some military credibility, even if it can’t tackle a sophisticated threat. Indeed, it has vindicated persistent Russian attempts to create a viable alliance that gives Moscow—and Beijing—entry into the heart of the Middle East.
None of that is in dispute.
What’s problematic is the cleric’s ability to retain control of Iran and preserve the country’s unity.
Supreme Leader Ali Hoseini-Khamenei is 83 and in poor health. His son, Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, 53, de facto commander of the Basij militia, was being positioned to succeed him, but that prospect has been increasingly seen as unrealistic. But if the supreme leader departs the scene in the coming year or so, then Raisi, a proven purge master, can be expected to mount a strong defense of clerical governance.
What’s clear is that the Iranian opposition has failed to deploy a credible and charismatic leader since the deaths of the shah’s former strongman, Gen. Bahram Aryana, in Paris in 1985, or Aryana’s successor in the Azadegan (Free Man) Foundation, Dr. Assad Homayoun, in Washington on April 11, 2020.
So the Iranian opposition movements are fractured and lack leadership sufficient to unify them to a cause. When Iran was in chaos with the collapse of the Qajar Dynasty in the early 1920s, Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi helped put fellow general and politician Reza Khan onto the throne as Reza Shah the Great (as he became known). But that was through a series of hard-won military battles against Iranian warlords, culminating in the creation of the Pahlavi Dynasty in 1925.
Today, the “man on horseback” will need to emerge fairly full-blown as the crisis nears its zenith. Otherwise, the opposition factions will tear him apart; such is the passionate divide between Iranian groups. The clerics have learned this and know that their continued rule won’t be by consensus but by force.
None of this helps the clerics decide where to go. In many respects, the clerics are running out of steam and have shown no inclination to build Iran’s food security or prosperity, even though food shortages and prices have constantly caused protests. The energy sector remains a declining resource, especially as the population grows (now more than 86 million) and needs a more stable and diverse economic base.
It’s possible that the clerical rule of Iran could implode on itself. The question is whether there are civil or military groups prepared to step in with a ready government. This is the time when Iran could finally be ready for a government-in-exile.
