How will the Mullah regime fall?
In some way that seems inconceivable in the present.
Christmas Day 2017 was the 26th Anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union.
In 2016 I wrote about that last day, 25 Years Ago – The last day of the Soviet Union (December 25, 1991):
On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachov resigned as President of the Soviet Union.
The red flag was lowered at the Kremlin, and the next day, the Soviet Union ceased to exist….
That victory, of course, was several decades in the making, at the cost of tens of thousands of American lives fighting global communist expansionism. It also was a victory born of strength, not submission.
It was a victory opposed by Western leftists who sought to undermine the will to fight at every turn and in every place they could.
Leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were denigrated and mocked as warmongers and fools. Thankfully, they and other stood strong when weakness was the politically easier position.
There’s a lesson there, as we move forward to confront and defend against new and old foes.
The end of the Soviet Union was of particular interest to me given that Russian Studies (including Soviet politics) was my college major, and I traveled extensively in the Soviet Union three times (1979, 1980, and 1984).
That 1980 stint included studying Russian language at an institute in Moscow to train foreigners to become Russian language teachers. As Americans, we were not permitted to leave the ring road without a tour guide, but on multiple occasions a Soviet refusenik friend took me out of the city on the sly.
Moscow was 20th century, the countryside, being charitable, was 19th century (I wouldn’t fight you too hard if you said it was early 19th century).
I remember commenting upon my return to the U.S. that I didn’t see how the Soviet Union could survive, that it’s first-world facade seemed like a Potemkin Village in light of what I saw in the countryside.
But I never imagined it actually could happen. It just seemed so impossible in the present I was in.
There was no singular dictator to overthrow. It was a system of repression deeply entrenched over decades, with many domestic supporters who benefitted from that system, a loyal military, and an even more loyal secret police apparatus to handle any insurrection by the population or military.
I think about the end to Soviet communist rule when I see the current and past news of Iranians rioting against the Mullah regime. That Mullah regime has become entrenched for decades, and is ruthless. When you see reports of hundreds or thousands of protesters detained, understand that many of them will never be heard from again, and those that are heard from again will have been shattered in prison.
Soviet communism was a desecration and perversion of the glorious Russian culture, much as Khomeinism is a desecration and perversion of the glorious Persian culture. There seems no way out in present time.
Is Iran ripe for the people to dispose of the Mullah regime? Yes, but that doesn’t mean it will happen.
Internally, Iran today is somewhere on the timeline between the Soviet Union under Stalin and the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. It’s not clear how far along that process is.
It would have been much farther along that timeline to collapse if not for the rescue effort of the Obama administration and its domestic and European echo chambers.
I hope the Mullah regime falls, and soon. It’s just hard for me to imagine how it will actually happen.
So how will the Mullah regime fall? In some way that seems inconceivable in the present.
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“So how will the Mullah regime fall?” – if like most, with a gunshot
“So how will the Mullah regime fall?” Head first!
Just after the Revolution in Iran I talked to an Iranian student. He told me about his sister who participated in the 1979 Protests Against the Veils. She disappeared and her family didn’t hear from her for weeks. Then one day they received a letter from her from prison. She said that the guards told her she was going to be shot in the morning so they let her write her family. She was in her early 20s.
That makes this comment by Professor Jacobson even sadder.
“…It would have been much farther along that timeline to collapse if not for the rescue effort of the Obama administration…”
Depends on the military.
I despise ZERO, a contrarian opinion about the 150B –
there is hunger in Iran the population was expecting
food and other help.
when the money is being given to the Palis and much corruption this was the last straw, having Pres TRUMP giving moral aid also gives the ordinary people encouragement.
The POTUS tweets in support as opposed to he who shall not be named leading with his ass is the single difference from the 2009 protests.
obama leads with his ass on most things – especially in his love life – but as an islamofascist, he knew exactly what he was doing in sabotaging the iranian freedom movement.
Same is true with his sabotage of our own country.
An islamofascist traitor was in the white house. Screw him and his horse moooochelle he rode in on.
Prof Jacobson, I was pondering same thing last night. It seems inconceivable that the Mullahs could be overthrown, and I did as you… I thought back to the fall of the USSR and how , even though I paid very close attention to Soviet affairs, I never, ever, thought it would just go poof, and it’s done. Here’s hope for another… and if this happens, the left will be devastated.. again
It’s really sad to hear liberal Americans giving support to the Iranian mullah’s. Liberalism really is a mental disorder.
Not so much HOW, but WHEN.
I am afraid, not yet…
If only they were not messianic. Soviets at the end were pragmatists.
They also have the Revolutionary Guard and terrorist mercenaries elsewhere, no less fanatic. With Russia, it seemed like everyone affected sighed, finally. The commitment seemed gone.
Obama gave them the store and the money to buy everything. The deal was so good he needed Rhodes. For a few years that likely won’t matter. Too smart for the rest of us.
People that pretend the best places are the worst, in terms of how the people are treated by their regimes, amaze, especially when they denigrate others that see the worst places most clearly.
Did you ever see a whiter group of people? Racist!!
Even worse: Aryans.
Hence the name Iran.
While it is technically correct that the Soviet regime end when Gorbachev stepped down, the reality is it ended when the coup atempt failed.
The main reason it failed is that large parts of the Army would not support the coup leaders, while there were large protests.
There are some reports that the RG are deserting, and other are refusing to fire on civilians. IS that a portent? Time will tell.
This is different from 2009, the groups protesting are different and the last time the trouble was confined to Tehran. Now it seems to be much more spread out. Time will tell.
There is not much that we can do. Apparently Saudi Arabia is flying planes 24/7 just outside the Iranian border providing internet and also dropping tablets for people to use. One thing we can do is make some noise just outside tIran, force them to tie some military up against US threats.
Well with the future President of the United States of America letting the world know that Trump was cutting aid off to the Palestinians then it seems the world is actually becoming a much safer place now we have adults in charge of the White House!
And how delicious will it be IF the mullahs are toppled! That will just be the icing on the cake for this month! 🙂
A note on the Iran Protests
I am not the expert on Iran, but I did live there upon a time and have remained interested. At the very least I know many of the cities being mentioned on the news without looking at a map. (Right wing and foreign news, at least. The American MSM is studiously searching for a white truck. One very good source is Alarabiya English version.)
Herewith some thoughts.
Mashad is an interesting place for the protests to break out to the point of being Bizarre.
How to describe Mashad? Basically, it’s the Pittsburgh (or what Pittsburgh once was) of Iran. Something of a trade nexus, (it was part of the Silk Road but so were most of the cities in the region) it is the bluest of blue collar Iranian cities.
Which gets to why it’s so bizarre.
The mullahs came to power on the backs of the ‘blue collar’ of Iran. This is generally defined as the ‘rural poor’ and, yes, that’s true. But it’s more along the lines of ‘the deplorables.’ Any group which was generally lower economic and educational class as well as generally socially conservative. (The two tend to combine virtually everywhere and in all times.)
…
The Mullahs forgot who their base was (shades of the Mainstream Republican Party and the Never Trumpers) and decided they were going to create a regional hegemony with all the money we flew to them in the middle of the night. (They’ve also disdained Khomeini’s Spartan lifestyle for a very lavish one. And people have noticed.)
…
And that’s why it starting in Mashad is important. There were always ‘malcontents’ in Tehran and Isfahan. Again, they’re the Washington, DC and Berkeley of Iran.
But now they’re rioting, full out, in the ‘flyover states’, burning pictures of Billy Graham in Oklahoma City and calling for a new Reagan. (Metaphorically.)
…
https://www.facebook.com/notes/john-ringo/a-note-on-the-iran-protests/10155334568097055/
An interesting Facebook post. The comments are also worth a look.
Thank you for sharing your notes.
It has been a very short time since the last uprising.
Few have forgotten.
To see them doubling down and taking to the streets, knowing well they are risking their lives each time they do so demonstrates the gravity of the situation.
It also lends insight to the mettle of these People.
Israel providing internet is a huge asset to them as well, as it is nearly impossible to maintain a communications blackout amongst the People. That of course is of paramont importance when trying to quell a revolution.
The People are taking this fight directly to the door-step of the Mullahs. The only weapon they posess is their very lives, and they are choosing to proceed.
Taking all you have shared into account, I see a rapid escalation in the making. This could explode in days or weeks.
The outcomes I see is Iran clamps down, and thousands are killed, or the Revolution begins in earnest and a street war breaks out lasting for who could guess how long.
These are some very tough People on both sides of this.
And this time, it is difficult for me to imagine either side backing down.
“One thing we can do is make some noise just outside Iran,”
Oh, let’s not. That tactic would be counterproductive. The Mullahs have been successful in the past by using outside threats as a distraction.
I was thinking more along the lines of a few Commando Solo birds taking over their television stations and broadcasting some material to keep the protesters going and to dishearten the regime supporters.
A modern version of the Radio Free Europe of my younger days. Can’t hurt and likely will help to some degree. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn has stated that the US broadcast/printed and moral support for Soviet dissidents helped “keep us going” during the worst of the Soviet crackdowns on the dissidents. He believes the same will be true in Iran. Works for me.
Slowly at first, then all of a sudden.
Previously, Iran would pull in Hamas and Hezbollah fighters to put down these revolutions the same way that China uses soldiers from other provinces to put down uprisings so no one is shooting on their own family.
But Hamas and Hezbollah are busy with other things right now. What a convenient time.
May be time for international no fly zone.