The Rage in Iran

Ever since the Iranian Revolution more than 40 years ago, almost every American president has faced a crisis in their efforts to confront the aggression, intolerance and oppression of that country’s leadership. We will soon see if Joe Biden handles this challenge any better than his predecessors.

No U.S. president of the modern era has effectively dealt with this menace. In fact, their efforts to confront the ongoing challenges presented by two successive ayatollahs have tended to reveal the worst qualities in each of them.

Jimmy Carter’s incompetence, Ronald Reagan’s lack of attentiveness, George H.W. Bush’s caution, Bill Clinton’s earnest unctuousness, George W. Bush’s tunnel vision, Barack Obama’s emotional distance and Donald Trump’s empty bluster have all contributed at various times to American missed opportunities, miscalculations or tragic blunders. While each of these men did accomplish admirable successes in the complicated geopolitics of the Middle East, none of them ever came close to solving the vexing challenge that Iran’s rulers continually present to the world.

Now it’s Biden’s turn. In the days since the death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested for allegedly breaking Iran’s unforgiving rules requiring the wearing of a hijab, protests have spread throughout the country, prompting violent state police crackdowns that have already led to dozens of deaths and countless injuries. Amini, who died under disputed circumstances after being taken into custody at a “re-education center” by Iranian Morality Police, has quickly become a symbol not just of the regime’s misogyny and religious fanaticism, but of the Iranian people’s broader dissatisfaction of the stifling political, economic, and cultural restraints that have been imposed on them.

Originally, the protestors called for an end to violence and discrimination against women and an end to compulsory wearing of the hijab. But fueled by a younger generation of Iranians who are especially dissatisfied with the strict limits and harsh security measures under which they live, there are now widespread demands for broader rights and freedoms – and even for regime change. Crowds are chanting “death to the dictator” at levels and volume not heard since the Green Movement of 2009, when massive crowds of Iranians objected to the outcome of a presidential election that they believed had been stolen.

At that time, President Obama gravely disappointed not just the protestors themselves, but millions of Iranians and their descendants living throughout the world by not doing more to support the nascent insurgency. His reticence to engage at such a pivotal time in Iran’s history – and at a time of great vulnerability to the ruling mullahs – has been attributed to a variety of factors. We’ll never know if Obama’s lack of engagement was a result of his concern that American support would stigmatize the resistance within Iran, his investment in the nuclear agreement between the two countries, or his broader wariness of involving the U.S. in another Middle East conflict after having been elected a year earlier promising to end the Iraq war. But regardless of his motivations, the moment passed and a similar prospect for change has not risen again. Until now.

Roham Alvandi, an Iran historian at the London School of Economics, frames the current situation in the context of generational change: “What this uprising has revealed is the complete illegitimacy of not only the Islamic Republic, but indeed of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, in the eyes of this new generation.”

If that assessment is correct, the current protests represent a potential hinge point in Iranian and world history. Biden has already taken a more aggressive approach than Obama ever did, emphasizing his support for the protestors and imposing sanctions on senior Iranian officials. His Administration is also facilitating the efforts of U.S. technology companies to help Iranians circumvent their government’s lockdown and surveillance.

If the Iranian protests continue to spread and as global support grows, Biden will have a rare opportunity to help correct a horrific historical error. 

Biden’s advisors are mindful of the limited appetite for most American voters to overseas military engagement, especially as the conflict in Ukraine shows no sign of ending. But if the Iranian protests continue to spread and as global support grows, Biden will have a rare opportunity to help correct a horrific historical error. 

Dan Schnur is a Professor at the University of California – Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. Join Dan for his weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” (www/lawac.org) on Tuesdays at 5 PM.