The Iranian Regime's Days In Power Are Numbered. Just Don't Expect Them to Leave Tomorrow. (Joe Rothstein's Commentary)

June 23, 2009

By Joe Rothstein
Editor, EINNEWS.COM

Back in the 1970s I had an office in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. About once a month or so, hundreds of Iranians---mostly young people studying at local universities---would march past my office shouting “Death to the Shah!” Most marchers had bags cut with eye holes over their heads to keep from being recognized by the Shah's secret police.

This went on for years. Until the revolution finally came.

It takes a long time to uproot entrenched power. That's to be remembered during the current Iranian crisis.

We live in an age when problems are identified, come to a crisis point and are resolved in 30 or 60 minutes of TV or 2 hours or less at the movies. Good sense may tell us this can't happen in real life, but we can't help but be conditioned by the go-go world that immerses us. 24 hour cable TV. 144 characters on Twitter. And so on.

We are not seeing regime change today in Iran. That doesn't mean there won't be one. It could happen later this year, or next year, or the year after that. Students began taking to Teheran's streets in earnest in 1977. The Shah was chased from power two years later ----not two weeks or two months'.

The most recent Iranian election took place over a period of 30 days or so. As the campaign got under way, the Washington-based public opinion survey group, Terror Free Tomorrow, managed to telephone sample (in Farsi) about 1,000 Iranians living in all that nation's provinces.

Those who responded live in a police state where people go to jail for being too outspoken. So you have to assume that respondents were being very cautious about what they said to telephone interviewers they didn't know.

Nevertheless, some of their answers are stunning. Examples:

--Only 32% believe Iran's economy is headed in the right direction.
--Only 26% consider Iran's economy good
--70% want more investment in Iran from western countries to create jobs
--87% consider it important to insure free elections (67% consider it very important)
--84% consider it important to insure a free press (62% consider it very important)
--76% favor the popular election of the “supreme leader” (66% strongly support it)

The picture that emerges from this survey is one of a people anxious to improve the Iranian economy by normalizing relations with western nations, and a people anxious to have real democratic institutions.

Against this backdrop, the events of the last two weeks must seem even more disastrous to those living in Iran than they look to those of us viewing them through iphone images.

The Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council may say the election was fair. But the people of Iran know that they got too quick a count of the ballots, that opposition communications were disrupted at critical times just before and after the voting, that the state-controlled press is airing things most people knew to be untrue, and that people in their own families and among their circle of friends are aware of unwarranted beatings and arrests. Those in many provinces know that more votes were recorded locally than people who live there.

The Iranian people are among the most educated and outspoken in the Middle East. About 100 years ago they had a democratic revolution that they still celebrate. After World War II, Iran freely elected a prime minister who was one of the first leaders in the region to demand a fair share of oil revenue for his people. Unfortunately the CIA helped depose him and installed the Shah. And even though the Shah ran an oppressive and corrupt regime, it was a time of close relations with the West, with education for women, students traveling abroad, and western influences making an indelible mark on Iranian culture.

These are smart, tough people who know how to create and manage a revolution. Many of the architects of the 1979 revolution are still around and very much in the picture----and a number of them apparently are on the side of those who want to make serious cracks in the current regime.

Prior to the recent election, more than 400 individuals expressed interest in running for President. Only four got through the gauntlet of the ayatollahs. Based upon their past histories, none of the four could be considered a real reformer, secular or otherwise.

The Terror Free Tomorrow poll indicated that only 58% of those who responded were satisfied with their choices. A remarkable admission, given that those respondents live in an oppressive police state and were talking to strangers on the telephone.

The streets of Teheran may be quiet today. But the current regime now knows that the only way it can keep them that way is with armed toughs. They may draw a lesson from all the chaos and loosen the reins, respond to the popular will, become more open and democratic. But it's more likely they will pull the ropes harder, arrest more people, become even more repressive.

That was the Shah's formula for staying power. Until those unarmed kids who used to march by my office with bags over their heads (and hundreds of thousands of others like them) became an irresistible force.

(Joe Rothstein can be contacted at joe@einnews.com)