What progressives should know about what's going on in Iran

As an Iranian-Canadian, please allow me to offer my two cents here:

1. Let's start with some facts: The current Iranian regime, which I grew up under its rule,  is a brutal  dictatorship that is run by a religious mafia very much aligned with capitalist powers and multinational corporates, and suppresses any opposition to its rule by violence. Any pretence to progress and justice died out in the first years after the revolution in Iran. So the answer to "who benefits from a regime change in Iran?" is "the Iranian people". However the question of how that can be achieved is an entirely different story.

2. Given the absolute failure of the international community and foreign powers in their previous adventures in Iraq, Syria, Lybia and elsewhere, a military intervention to remove the Iranian regime by force or war will lead to nothing but disaster for Iran. This fact is recognized by most Iranians inside and outside Iran, and very few Iranians  advocate war against the regime (even among the opposition). That option should be taken off the table. The only possible option is to find ways to force the Iranian regime to change its behaviour, so that at the right time the Iranian people could take care of  regime change on their own if they choose to do so.

3. The views expressed in the article are naive at best.  Suggesting that the economic hardships in Iran is due to not fulfilling the nuclear deal (read: not letting multinational corporations to enter Iranian market) is incorrect. The authors of the article are probably too young to remember that in early 90s there were no US or international sanctions against Iran. Multinational corporations were roaming Iran's economy and Mullahs were filling their pockets. Inflation was nearly 50% and people were greatly suffering under economic hardship. A complete elimination of sanctions on its own will not bring prosperity or well-being to a country where every aspect of the economy is in the hand of one faction of the religious mafia or another.

4. The solution the authors propose is to "Call on the Iranian government to allow and encourage the natural and constitutionally protected expression of protest and take meaningful steps toward mitigating the protesters’ rightful grievances." Sure. I suppose the Iranian government is shaking in its boots because you called on them. This is a regime that has ignored every plea for almost 40 years. If you don't add any leverage, your pleas would not get anywhere.

5. Many Iranian human right advocates have  campaigned for a number of legal approaches to put pressure on the Iranian regime: Putting Iranian leadership under pressure by charging them with crimes against humanity in International courts, and using targeted sanctions against specific organizations such as Iran's judiciary and revolutionary guard, who also control vast parts of Iran's international business. Such targetted sanctions would loosen their control, forcing them to hand those businesses to other players in Iran and provides some levarage against the regime.

6. Bill S-219 prvides targetted sanctions against some of these entities. As a result, the reaction in Iranian community in Canada toward this bill has been mixed. Some (such as the authors of this article) oppose the bill on principle, while some believe it will put pressure on Iranian regime with minimal effect on ordinary Iranians. You will hear both sides of these arguments in Iranian discussion forums.

7. With regard to re-establishing ties with Iran, the main obstacle has not been Canada which has been eagerly sending delegates to Tehran to reopen embassies, but Iran, which is refusing to allow this until Canada formally removes Iran from the list of states that sponsor terrorism. Again, the opinion in the Iranian community is mixed. Everybody supports opening consular service, but many are not in favour of removing Iran from the list.

8. and finally, the so-called "Iranian Canadian Congress (ICC)" mentioned in the article is an organization with about 300 registered members in a community of over 200,000 Iranian-Canadians. The ICC has never been a representative of the whole community. Its leadership regularly changes hand in each election between those who support full sanctions against Iran and those who supports full relationship wth Iran. The current leadership that took over in 2015 is among the latter group, while the leadership before that were the former group. Who knows which side takes over in the next election!

Mobo2000 wrote:

Thanks very much Sanizadeh for your comments and informative post.

What is your opinion of this approach, mentioned above --

"Putting Iranian leadership under pressure by charging them with crimes against humanity in International courts."

It seems to me this would aid efforts at foreign intervention, but I guess I don't understand what other sort of pressure the ICC could put on Iran that would be helpful at this time.

The two issues are not necessarily linked. Military intervention can be opposed while the indictments are pursued. One exmaple is the president of Sudan who has been under indictment by ICC for ten years. This would put some pressure on those who have been involved in atrocities (e.g. limiting their travel and such) without affecting ordinary people.

Unionist wrote:

MegB wrote:

We all know the US with its bloated multi-trillion dollar imperialist military is the most serious threat to international peace. What's your position on the protests in Iran? Who benefits from a regime change? The monarchy? Those who do business with the monarchy (the West)? Discuss.

Excellent article - thanks for drawing our attention to it, Meg! I fully agree with the analysis and the demands that it puts forward.

As for the protests in Iran, that is the business of the Iranian people and no one else. Likewise for regime change. If and when Iran violates international law (you know, the way the U.S. and Canada and Israel and others do every day), we can raise our voices and demand action. Until then, we know the tragic consequences of hypocritical white westerners shedding crocodile tears over alleged human rights violations and then sending in the bombers and the troops. Never again (he said, naively optimistic)!

I mostly agree with you. The push for bringing charges against Iranian leaders should (and has) come from Iranian communities inside and outside Iran.