Can Iran move from rallies to regime change? Only with a clear plan, says renowned dissident

It is rare to hear from dissenting voices from inside Iran, especially now in the midst of another crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

But in April, to the surprise of many, renowned thought leader Majid Tavakoli held a lecture and Q&A session Twitter Spaces from within the Islamic Republic. Topic: Why have national protests not led to political change?

With just a few hours’ notice, nearly 200,000 listeners listened to political activists’ criticism of diaspora opposition that could not transcend the common slogan of the Women, Life, Freedom movement – a rallying call for protests in and around Iran. world.

Tavakoli, who first rose to fame after delivering a powerful speech on the steps of Tehran’s Amirkabir University, forever etching people in the hearts of Iranians as at the heart of the 2009 student protests, arguing that political change has not happened because of the presence of detailed and transparent “plans for victory.”

“No one has any kind of vision or conceptualization… If I want to say it clearly: without creating a picture, the future is not clear,” said Tavakoli.

Tavakoli also questions the anatomy of street protests, concluding that public gatherings, without a clear objective, cannot lead to regime change.

“What does it mean to come to the streets? Break some windows and doors? Take buildings? Take Tehran? Should everyone advance to Tehran? Or capture some cities? We’ve never talked about that.”

The emergence of revolutionaries anti-regime movement has been brewing beer for many years in Iran. As national protests continue into 2022 in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini, after she was arrested by the regime’s morality police, many are wondering whether this time could end the rule of the Islamic Republic.

Asef Bayat, a scholar and professor of sociology and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, agrees that the key ingredients for a revolution have yet to materialize.

“There is a need for a continuous collective campaign that can put pressure on the incumbent state so that the elite segment, including the repressive forces, defect or sympathize with the people,” CBC News said.

“Such a movement also requires some organization, some kind of leadership, a vision of the future, and above all the trust of the people.”

Change is impossible without the military, IRGC defections

Tavakoli, 37, who has been arrested several times since 2006, previously said on Twitter that he had served a cumulative seven years in prison for his writing and activism. He was most recently arrested amid the Mahsa Amini protests, and was released on bail earlier this year.

Tavakoli and other analysts suggest that even if Iranians want regime change, it cannot happen without a focused and transparent plan by opposition forces outside of Iran.

Partly because of the regime’s ability to keep its military forces loyal – which analysts point to as a key factor for the result of any rebellion.

“What is your plan for the military? Do you have a guarantee that the military will remain in the barracks? They have no answer about this… Who will think about this? Who will issue a plan about this?” Tavakoli said.

However, during the existence of the Islamic Republic, there was no conventional military or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). has never taken a step to side with him by going against the state. As it is done in 2009 and 2019The IRGC is cracking down on its own people in this latest protest, killing hundreds and tens of thousands of prisons – fulfill the duty to maintaining the Islamic regime.

Journalist and former political prisoner Nejat Bahrami, who was previously a deputy minister at the Ministry of Education, said he often heard from high-level officials and senior authorities who said they had no hope for reform from the system.

“They will signal that if there is a credible alternative outside the country, they will be more willing to help those forces to collapse the Islamic Republic – to save Iran,” Bahrami said.

“Like the average person in Iran, many people are under enormous economic pressure and lead incredibly difficult lives. And they have long distanced themselves from the ideology of the Islamic Republic.”

But Bahrami insists he needs assurances about Iran’s future security. He said over the years, the regime had created doubts in the hearts of many that radical political change would lead to chaos, uncertainty and civil war.

It’s a common tactic, says Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.

“One of the most important parts of the playbook of authoritarian regimes from China to Iran … is to ensure that a viable alternative does not arise. The argument that is always made is: Us or chaos; no one else,” he said.

A way forward

Milani said regimes like Iran’s seem invincible when they are in power, but they can fall quickly.

“That’s how authoritarianism falls, first gradually and then suddenly. ‘That’s why’ it started a long time ago – ‘suddenly’, I don’t know when,” Milani said.

But when there is a novel and unprecedented diaspora efforts to unite against the regime under the umbrella of Women, Life, Freedom, also exists crack.

Bayat said people and groups now seem to want to be clear about what they are doing, given Iran’s experience during the Islamic Revolution. The exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, reneging on everything commitment – and created an authoritarian theocracy instead of the freedom and prosperity promised to the Iranian people.

“I think that we can agree on basic minimum principles and can use them as a basis for unity, even by acknowledging differences. The rest is honest and patient negotiations with the goal of cooperation,” said Bayat.

Ali Fathollah-Nejad, director of the Berlin-based Center for the Middle East and Global Order, said that for the revolutionary process to move forward, there must be an acceptable political alternative vision – especially designed by domestic opposition forces.

“A credible political vision is not only about political issues, but also about economic issues about how the future system will be organized,” Fathollah-Nejad said.

Tavakoli stressed that serious opposition forces, who want to bring about political change, must be accountable to the Iranian people – by giving details of their plans for Iran in the future.

“Although there is nothing worse than the current situation, the political forces are responsible. You cannot say because there is nothing worse than the status quo that continues, that whatever happens, happens,” said Tavakoli.

“We who stand between the past and the future, we who do not want the past, but have not got the future. What should we do?” Tavakoli continues.

Paying attention to the voices of the opposition in Iran is crucial for understanding the diaspora, Milani said.

“I read Mr. Tavakoli’s tweet regularly. When I read it Toomaj Salehihis poetry, Narges Mohammadiwriting, Nasrin Sotoudeh“The idea that these people have nothing to teach the opposition outside is absurd,” Milani said.

Hedie Kimiaee, a journalist who was forced to leave Iran just over a year ago, said Tavakoli’s new Twitter Talk is obviously a brutal wake-up call for diaspora opposition activists in the reality of the protest movement on the ground in Iran.

“It’s like a ray of light covering the atmosphere on Twitter and social media,” he said.

But now, experts have noted that Iran seems to be stuck between a revolutionary moment and a full revolution.