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WASHINGTON DC: The Margh Bar Dictator or Dictator’s Death has become the rallying cry for a massive wave of protests that has consumed nearly the entire Islamic Republic of Iran.

Though the media remains under the tight control of the state’s internal security apparatus, grainy cellphone videos showing protests in schools, strikes at energy facilities and rallies along Tehran’s main roads in Ahvaz are shaking the rule of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as never before.

The last big challenge to the status quo in Tehran came in 2009 during the Green Revolution, which captured the world’s imagination at a time when social media provided real-time access and a much-needed voice to disgruntled Iranian youth calling to reform.

Tehran’s response to the 2009 protests, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was brutal and swift.

But as the world was captivated by what appeared to be a breaking point for the Islamic Revolution, calls for reform were met with exceptional brutality and massacres by the Basij, the civilian paramilitary arm of the government, and special units of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) known as Pasadran.

Protesters inside Iran are more determined than ever. According to Atefeh, 32, a member of the People’s Mojahedin Resistance Units from the Iranian city of Rasht, poverty, destruction and the embezzlement of regime funds against the (Iranian) people are driving forces that have fueled the speed and progression of uprisings and protests… Iran has completely changed in these three months.

This time around, observers and experts believe Khameneis’ forces may not be able to use the same playbook to quell what is becoming a sustained nationwide uprising. Saeed Ghasseminejad, an Iran analyst with the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Arab News he believed the Khameneis regime was living on borrowed time.

There is a sea of ​​blood between the regime and the majority of Iranians. After three decades of failed experience with the reform project, Iranians no longer buy into the myth of reform, be it political, economic or social. And the regime has put itself in a position where making concessions to protesters will likely only hasten its downfall, he said.

Physical and sexual violence, as well as mass executions and arrests of those calling for change in Iran in previous years have coincided with promises of impending improvements in the economic and social environment. However, this tactic may also have run its course and the prospects for compromise have diminished.

Ghasseminejad said: The use of brute force has become the regime’s only option. So far, that hasn’t worked, and even if it works temporarily, as we’ve seen over the past five years, each round of protests is followed by an even bigger one.

So will 2023 bring about the collapse of what began in 1979?

This is a result that no longer seems too far-fetched. While the IRGC may have a monopoly on the violence it uses to try to quell popular unrest, other factors come into play that could catalyze the downfall of Iranian regimes.

Saeed predicts that various factors will decide the fate of the Islamic Republic in 2023.

For example, the death of the Supreme Leader or a military attack on nuclear facilities are two events that may occur within the next year and will have significant consequences for the revolution in Iran, he told Arab News. .

Sudden system shock may occur. Khamenei can no longer rely on the former head of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Al-Quds force, Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.

With Soleimanis dead, Khamenei is unable to use him as a master strategist exporting Iran’s ideological influence to the region. Soleimani also played a lesser but equally notable role in organizing the Revolutionary Guards’ crackdown on protesters in the past.

While Tehran was able to weather these storms thanks to a mixture of bloodshed and political agility at home, the dire economic situation facing Iranians from all walks of life and from all ideological backgrounds is perhaps the main existential threat faced by the ruling elite.

A recent report by the Washington DC-based Institute for the Study of War said: Iran’s economy appears to be entering a period of potentially significant disruption. Protest coordinators and other social media users have called on Iranians to urgently withdraw savings from their bank accounts and buy gold in recent days.

Fred Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, says the sharp drop in the Iranian currency is causing unprecedented inflation and straining the banking system.

Macroeconomic trends associated with the protests are forcing Khamenei and the IRGC, which have taken control of large parts of key sectors of the economy, to rethink how they have traditionally managed affairs.

We think it’s too early to say where this is going or how bad it will be, but if serious economic instability were to be added to the crimes the regime is already committing against its people and the brutality and sheer nastiness with which he oppresses it could add energy to a protest movement, Kagan told Arab News.

He thinks the current protests are better organized with a longer lifespan than before. The regime is particularly aware of the importance of maintaining the solvency of a banking sector strongly linked to the IRGC and the charitable trusts known as bonyads, which have enriched the main families of the ruling elite on which Khamenei relies.

According to Kagan, Tehran could face the prospect of having to use its own hard currency reserves to bail out the banks… Protesters have already experimented with using coordinated strikes and boycotts to cause limited economic disruption.

The regime’s reaction to the protests could also potentially extend to freezing bank accounts and withdrawals, as part of a more targeted approach. However, Kagan says such efforts could potentially start to unleash in ways that would be highly problematic for the regime.

The economic engine that keeps the regime afloat is intertwined with Iran’s broader geopolitical aspirations: the sale and export of its Shahed drones to aid the Russian war machine in Ukraine has brought it cash that it sorely needed need. Its energy exports continue to bring in enough hard currency to allow the regimes to survive amid exceptional domestic turmoil, according to Ghasseminejad.

Tehran still exports more than 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, and its non-oil exports remain strong. Imposing symbolic and targeted sanctions on perpetrators of human rights violations is a good thing, but depriving the regime of the revenue needed to fund its machinery of oppression should be a top priority, Ghasseminejad said.

Khamenei and his successor may be able to weather the storm. Past experience has shown that the international community, Western Europe in particular, has rushed to do business with Tehran after condemning its actions both inside and outside its borders.

However, with the economy plummeting and more Iranians saying they have little left to lose, 2023 could bring the chance for transformational change that was so abruptly undone in 2009.

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