As much of the world has wavered in its
response to what is now increasingly becoming a
fully-fledged revolution in Egypt, Iran's rulers
have proved an exception.
From the outset,
the Islamic Republic and its vast network of
organized supporters across the region have hailed
the Egyptian uprising as a belated aftershock of
the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Only a week ago,
Iran's Supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Seyed Ali
Khamenei branded the revolt against President
Hosni Mubarak's regime as an intrinsic part of an
Islamic liberation movement sweeping the region.
The prospect of radical change in Egypt is
intoxicating to Iran's leaders and their
supporters across the region. This is a moment
they have been awaiting for more than three
decades. The
Iranians' hopes rest on
profound geopolitical insight as well as a blind
faith in the corrective power of revolutionary
movements.
Any major political change in
Egypt is likely to spread to the rest of the Arab
world. More importantly, political change in Egypt
will almost certainly complicate Egyptian-American
relations, likely to the point of generating
substantial geopolitical benefits for Iran and her
allies.
States of revolution It
wasn't that long ago that Iran's rulers were
facing what appeared to be a revolution on their
home soil. Following the disputed presidential
elections of June 2009, hundreds of thousands -
perhaps millions - of Iranians took to the streets
to register their protest at what they believed
was a rigged ballot. Almost immediately, the
street protesters widened their demands with the
more radical elements calling for the overthrow of
the Islamic Republic.
But there are
fundamental differences between the revolutions in
Tunisia and Egypt and the so-called Green uprising
in Iran in 2009.
In Tunisia and Egypt, the
uprisings appeared to be spontaneous and not tied
to political infighting within the establishment.
In Iran on the other hand, the street protests
were the most visible sign of deep fractures
within the ruling elites. As the Islamic Republic
moved away from a factional political model to a
more conventionally authoritarian one, the street
protests lost momentum and fizzled out.
There is also a striking contrast in the
response to the protests. In Tunisia and now
Egypt, the security establishment showed
prevarication, divisions and hesitation in the
face of mass protests, thus conceding the
psychological advantage to the revolutionaries.
In Iran, the ideologically motivated
security establishment swung firmly behind the
Islamic Republic and set about managing the
protests with a smart combination of hard and soft
power.
At the street level, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) tasked its Basij
paramilitary wing to crack down harshly on the
protesters. While the Basij - alongside other
security forces - was willing to use lethal force,
this drastic option was used sparingly. This is
reflected in the casualty figures where only a few
dozen protesters were killed in six months of
intermittent protests.
In Egypt by
contrast, even though the security response has
been convoluted and half-hearted, hundreds of
protesters have been killed in only two weeks of
demonstrations.
Meanwhile, at the
political level the Ministry of Intelligence and
Security intervened to ease the breach between the
competing factions at a grassroots level. Faced
with an increasingly radical hardcore of street
protesters (especially in the latter parts of 2009
culminating with the bloody protests on Ashura Day
in late December) the grassroots of the reformist
factions decided to prioritize their ultimate
loyalty to the Islamic Republic over factional
political advantage.
In effect they
sacrificed their leadership and organizations -
and to some extent their political identity, at
least in the short term - to save the legacy of
the Islamic Revolution.
From the point of
view of stability and security, the overall
outcome has been highly favorable to the Islamic
Republic, in so far as it has empowered the state
at the expense of civil society. More broadly, the
collapse of the so-called "Green" movement has
reaped significant strategic dividends for the
Islamic Republic. At the most critical level,
the failure of mass street protests in the face of
the iron will of the establishment and its
ideologically motivated security apparatus has
finally put the myth of "regime change" to bed.
From their statements in the past 12
months, it is clear that Iran's rulers and their
IRGC enforcers feel that the Islamic Revolution
has become resilient to so-called "soft" threats,
to the point of guaranteeing the continuation of
the revolution for another generation. This point
was made forcefully on Wednesday by Major General
Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former IRGC commander and
currently a senior military advisor to Supreme
Leader Khamenei.
Sweeping uprisings in the
Arab world have been a key aspiration of Iranian
leaders since the heady days of the Islamic
Revolution in 1979. In the early years this was
primarily a reflection of the revolutionary nature
and ethos of Iranian rulers and their quest to
enlist allies and supporters in the struggle
against the prevailing international system.
But with the passage of time and the
consolidation of the Islamic Republic,
revolutionary fervor has merged with a new set of
national interests. This has increased Iran's
desire for change, for not only does it allow the
example and ideas of the 1979 revolution to
penetrate deeper in the region but it also serves
real Iranian national interests by making the
region more resilient to Western political and
cultural influence.
While it is foolish to
compare the current diffuse and leaderless
Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings to the epic events
of the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, Iran's
leaders are correct to some extent by claiming
that the conceptual framework of these mass
demonstrations - and presumably the outcomes they
yield in due course - is at least partly inspired
by the Iranian revolutionary model.
Iran versus Egypt
Iranian-Egyptian relations have been
severely strained since the Iranian Revolution,
after the late Anwar Sadat granted the late Shah
of Iran residency in Egypt. But even if the
Egyptians hadn't indulged in that provocative
gesture, relations are likely to have hit rock
bottom anyway.
From the very outset the
Islamic Republic singled out the Egyptian regime
as one of its greatest ideological adversaries,
chiefly because of Egypt's peace treaty with
Israel. Official Iranian media have for over three
decades vilified Egypt's ruling elites as the
"Camp David" regime. The extent of this enmity was
revealed after Sadat's assassination in October
1981, following which one of the main avenues in
central Tehran was named after his assassin.
From an Iranian point of view, any regime
in Egypt is preferable to the current
establishment. But Iran is hoping for truly
revolutionary change in Egypt and this can only
come about if the street protests don't climax too
soon (as they did in Tunisia) and thus leave the
pillars of the regime intact.
With the
model of the Iranian Revolution firmly in mind,
Iranian leaders are hoping for a drawn-out
confrontation between the people and the
establishment, one that will gradually erode the
political and security infrastructure of the
Egyptian regime. By refusing to depart the arena
Mubarak has played into Iran's hands. Many
analysts and commentators have waxed lyrical about
Iran's desire to see the Muslim Brotherhood play a
leading role in the unfolding Egyptian revolution.
The truth is that the Iranian establishment is not
convinced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's
purported revolutionary credentials.
Whereas the leadership of the Iranian
Revolution had a distinct and realistic plan to
completely remake the state and create a new
political society, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
is far too conservative and risk-averse to
undertake such a Herculean task.
For its
part, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is too old
and ideologically confident to seek inspiration
from the Islamic Republic. Moreover, the bulk of
the Muslim Brotherhood is determined to keep a
safe political distance from Iran, despite sharing
strategic objectives with the Islamic Republic,
including the desire to check American influence
in the region. The pro-Iranian faction in the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is marginalized and
resides outside of Egypt.
Strategic
ramifications Only the complete overthrow
of the military-backed regime (with its roots
stretching back to 1952) holds any realistic
prospect of radically altering Egypt's strategic
profile. But even a partial change in Egyptian
foreign policy suits Iran, inasmuch as that change
is almost guaranteed to be a step away from the
American-Israeli security system in the Middle
East.
A more independent Egypt is likely
to be friendly towards Iran, thus enabling the
latter to pursue its foreign policy in the region
even more effectively. The unleashing of new
political and strategic dynamics in the region
will create spaces and opportunities which Iran
can exploit to gradually accumulate hard power
with a view to reaching a position where American
aggression becomes prohibitively costly.
A
so-called democratic Egypt of any shade or
complexion is bound to consume American energies.
This doesn't necessarily mean that Egypt will
become overtly anti-American but that the United
States needs to try far harder - and spend a lot
more money - to keep Egypt on side.
The
political and strategic outcome of the unfolding
Egyptian revolution is far from pre-determined.
But among the key international stakeholders it is
only Iran's rulers who are confident about the
outcome.
Mahan Abedin is an
analyst of Middle East politics.
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