The mullahs scarcely imagined that the protests would appear on their doorstep, too.
All of a sudden, the leaders of the Middle East’s rogue
states appear to have lost their appetite for upholding the protests that have
already accounted for the governments of Tunisia and Egypt.
In Iran, the government has ordered its supporters to
stage nationwide demonstrations today to express their hatred for the
opposition Green Movement, which earlier this week made a dramatic reappearance
on the streets of Tehran to demand the overthrow of President Ahmadinejad’s
regime.
That was hardly the response the clerics were hoping for
when they extolled the protests in Egypt, comparing events with their own
Islamic revolution in 1979. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, claimed
earlier this month that the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak was part of the same
“Islamic awakening” as the events of 32 years ago in Iran.
Once the crowds of demonstrators and chants of “Death to
the Dictator” appeared on his own doorstep, he rapidly backtracked. Within a
few hours, the order had gone out to the broadcast media to halt all coverage
of unrest elsewhere in the Middle East. The next day, in a rowdy session of parliament,
government MPs called for the execution of the Green Movement’s leaders,
including Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister, and Mehdi Karroubi, the
parliament’s former speaker. So much for free speech.
The re-emergence of the Green Movement is certainly a
major embarrassment for the government. The mullahs no doubt assumed that their
uncompromising response had silenced the protests that erupted in the wake of
the disputed presidential election in 2009. Indeed, over the past few months,
their executioners have been fully occupied with those accused of organising
the protests, many of whom were sentenced to death on trumped-up charges such
as drug-smuggling.
Iranian opposition groups estimate that the majority of
the 89 people executed in January – the highest rate of any country in the
world – were anti-government activists. They included Sahra Bahrami, a
46-year-old Dutch-Iranian woman, detained during the 2009 protests. She was
hanged on bogus drug-smuggling charges, causing the Dutch government to freeze
all ties with Iran.
The opposition has shown this week that it refuses to be
cowed by the brutality of the regime’s response. But of more concern for Iran’s
ruling elite will be fresh signs of a split within the ranks of the Republican
Guards, the organisation formed specifically to protect the revolution.
In a letter to Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Guards’ hardline
commander, a copy of which has been seen by The Daily Telegraph, senior
officers seek reassurance that “we will not [have to] shoot nor beat our
brothers seeking to express legitimate protest against the policies and conduct
of their leaders”.
To date, the officers, who are based in Tehran, Isfahan,
Qom and Tabriz, have received no official response from Mr Jafari, who has
passed the letter to the Supreme Leader’s office. But any suggestion that the
guardians of the Islamic Revolution might be unwilling to fight their own
countrymen raises serious questions about the ability of both Mr Khamenei and
Mr Ahmadinejad to survive a renewed bout of protests.
What ultimately sealed Mr Mubarak’s fate was the refusal
of his military to fire on the protesters in Tahrir Square. It is not beyond
the bounds of possibility that the same could happen in Iran.
Another rogue state reeling from the wave of protest is
Libya, where Colonel Gaddafi has dominated the country for 41 years. This
week’s demonstrations, in the eastern cities of al-Bayda and Benghazi, were
sparked by the arrest of a human rights lawyer who was campaigning for the
families of more than 1,000 prisoners killed by the security forces 15 years
ago.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the dictator’s second son and heir
apparent, is said to have confided to his advisers that he is sympathetic to
the protesters’ demands for wholesale reform of what he calls the “false
politics” of the Arab world. But that is unlikely to be much help to those
participating in today’s “Day of Anger” against the regime. Libya’s security
forces are notorious for their brutality: when students at Benghazi University
protested against Gaddafi’s rule in the 1980s, the revolt was ruthlessly
crushed, and the ringleaders hanged from lamp-posts on the campus.
The challenge for Western governments now is to decide
how best to encourage regime change in rogue states such as Iran and Libya while
trying to contain it in pro-Western states like Bahrain. The inherent problem
has been evident in President Obama’s conflicting responses to the protests in
Bahrain and Tehran. In the latter case, Mr Obama has actively encouraged
protesters to take to the streets; when it came to Bahrain, a long-standing
ally which plays host to the US Fifth Fleet, Mr Obama was more circumspect,
merely encouraging the King to address the grievances of his people. As
protests continue to sweep across the region, it is not just the governments of
the Middle East that are struggling to respond.