Iran Makes History Again

Tehran Bureau by Rami Khouri | Jun. 19, 2007 (Opinion)

This is uncharted territory to a great extent in the context of contemporary Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah. It is perfectly routine behavior, though, in the wider context of human beings who do not like being treated like idiots by their own government, and resist the process when it takes place. Over and over, in lands around the world, human beings who are grossly mistreated by their own government eventually stand up and ... Full Story »

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 by Derek Hawkins - Jun. 19, 2009

Khouri explains that the protests in Iran are part generational -- that a large population of young people born after 1979 don't have the same reverence for the Guardian Council and are likely to keep demonstrating despite warnings of a crackdown. Excellent piece

Indeed, it's impossible to call "legitimate" or "democratic" anything in Iran overseen by the Guardian Council. Why aren't more observers taking this view?

The latest manifestation of this in Iran today is linked to the widely contested results of the presidential election. But that is incidental — just the trigger that shoots us into a wider world of political action. Everyone knows that the Iranian president is not the seat of power, and who wins the election for president is of little real consequence in Iran‘s controlled system.

If this turns out to be a serious challenge to the very legitimacy of the Islamic Republic’s system of government, rather than a narrow protest about the presidential election, we should not be surprised to see the Iranian precedent spilling over into other, Arab, parts of the Middle East, in a way that the 1979 Islamic revolution did not.

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