Protests in Iran
This is well outside anything I can claim to know much about, so I can’t vouch for it other than that it sounds right to me. From an Al Arabiya article entitled All you need to know about the Iran protests in 20 points:
1 On Tuesday, December 19, the Iranian government announced a new austerity plan.
2 The plan imposed a 50% increase in the price of fuel.
3 The government decided to cancel the monetary support of more than 34 million people.
6 In this same austerity plan, the government decided to increase the budget for military armament.
7 Most of the military armament budget goes to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
8 The IRGC operates on foreign lands, supporting the Houthi militia in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilization Unit in Iraq and supporting the Assad regime in Syria.
9 The number of poverty-stricken individuals under the lifting of subsidies rose from 20 million to 54 million.
10 On Wednesday, December 27, citizens went out on a limited demonstration to demand that the government backtrack on the austerity plans.
And… its grown from there.
My limited understanding of Iran is that the religious authorities have kept a grip on power -despite being disliked by the urban intelligentsia – by maintaining support among the poor. That makes choosing guns over butter particularly stupid.
Update 12/31/2017, 9:43 AM PST: Here is another piece on the protests in Iran from the same website.
Between the sanctions and the drought, things have been rough in Iran. It sounds like the leadership decided to make them worse. This doesn’t mean they can’t ride it out. Look at Syria. It doesn’t mean that the new government won’t be just as bad. Look at Egypt.
It helps to remember that the religious leaders in power are not just in it for spiritual reasons. They run businesses and operate farms and make good money doing so. They have good worldly reasons to stay in power.
In a way, it’s like Egypt. The military isn’t just about being military. The military in Egypt runs factories and operates farms and makes good money doing so.
It will be interesting to see how political events shape up and how the far the protests manage to go. A lot depends on the police and the military.
BTW I had a CIA friend who was posted in Mashhad back in the 50s. That’s border country. It was quite an adventure what with the USSR hard by.
Total population of Iran is 80.3 million (YE 2016)
“9 The number of poverty-stricken individuals under the lifting of subsidies rose from 20 million to 54 million.”
54 million / 81 million = 67% of the population will now be “poverty stricken” , up from 25% (20 million / 81 million).
Somehow this doesn’t make rational sense to say 2/3s of the population will now become “poverty stricken”.. up from 1/4th. .
i would caution that Al Arabiya is a Saudi mouthpiece, and the Saudis are fighting proxy wars against Iran on several fronts, so what they report needs to be taken with an appropriate grain of salt..
and that the US, Israel and Saudis are plotting to destablize Iran, ie: https://www.axios.com/scoop-u-s-and-israel-reach-joint-plan-to-counter-iran-2520518565.html
Mike Kimel,
I had the same concerns expressed by Rjs above. So I did a little searching.
Nothing will bring people out to vote in larger numbers than those which affect their incomes. Those same motivations apply to demonstrations in poorer countries.
In 2010 Iran cut subsidies on goods and began an cash subsidy. Apparently these cash subsidies have been cut before.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_subsidy_reform_plan
And here is an extract from a news piece from Turkey dated 31 December 2017:
———————————— Start ————————————
“Slogans at demonstrations
Among the slogans used by protesters are: “Do not spend our money in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon”, “People have been broken down to the level of begging” and “those who see Reza Shah Pahlavi as a symbol of modernization of the country are praying to him”.
Other slogans include: “Leave Syria and look at our conditions”, “Neither Gaza, Nor Lebanon, my life is for Iran”, “Damn Hezbollah”, “We don’t want Islamic republic”, “Independence, freedom, Republic of Iran” and “People have begun to beg”.
Undoubtedly, authorities of the two political wings in Iran were expecting an incident to erupt, by means of the intelligence and security institutions they had. However, they chose the path of not obstructing the people and allowed them to express their dissatisfaction with the economy.”
———————————— End————————————
See: http://aa.com.tr/en/analysis-news/analysis-size-and-cause-of-public-demonstrations-in-iran/1019528
I am embarrassed that I did not check on who owns Al Arabiyah. That said, entering “what percentage of Iranians are poor” in google proves instructive.
Unbiased sources are hard to come by, but the IMF is probably the closest thing to one on this topic. The graph at the bottom right of page 21 of (https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/CR/2017/cr1762.ashx) indicates that in 2014, 40% of the population was living on less than $10 (2011 PPP) a day. Table 1 of the same doc says, however, that the official poverty rate is 9% – and that’s people living on $5.50 a day (2011 PPP). At the time the document was written, it was said that poverty was on the rise.
Whatever one considers poverty, a huge part of the population of Iran was already living on a small amount of money. Cut off part of that money to help finance revolution abroad and you end up with a situation like Iran today.
Mike Kimel,
The article in my last comment also mentioned that bankruptcies had drawn smaller demonstrations before these larger ones.
———————————— Start ————————————
“Victims of bankrupt companies
In fact, these protests did not suddenly appear. In the past year, the victims who have lost their investments in bankrupt financial companies — reaching some 6,000 — especially in Tehran and some other cities, have organized small-scale demonstrations and have raised their voices using harsh slogans.
It is estimated that there are several million people who have been suffering in Iran in this way. State and government agencies intervened only when the demonstrations got bigger.”
———————————— End ————————————
See: http://aa.com.tr/en/analysis-news/analysis-size-and-cause-of-public-demonstrations-in-iran/1019528
–
But of course everyone knows that business problems are always caused by over regulation.
From the Financial Tribune in Iran dated 6 April 2017:
———————————— Start ————————————
Contrary to recent reports, Iranian banks have not gone bust but are in fact mired in faulty regulations, the secretary-general of the Private Banks and Credit Institutions Association said.”The banks are not bankrupt, but the imposition of obligations and formulation of thorny regulations have harmed the activities of these monetary entities,” Mohammad Reza Jamshidi said in a talk with IRNA. Referring to the portrayal of the banking system as being in crisis by some sections of the media, the official called it “an immoral tool” used by some in light of the fact that the Iranian presidential election on May 19 is approaching. Jamshidi noted that speculations that the banks are on the brink of bankruptcy have resulted from a misunderstanding of the difficult conditions they are in.
———————————— End ————————————
https://financialtribune.com/articles/economy-business-and-markets/61906/rumors-of-banks-bankruptcy-rejected
But here is better information from the Bagdad Post dated 20 June 2017
———————————— Start ————————————
The Iranian police have recently attacked dozens of people who demand recovering their funds from Samen Alhojaj financial institution in Tehran after it was reported that the institution, which has many branched across Iran, has gone bankrupt.
Although the financial institution has issued a statement denying going bankrupt, many Iranian news agencies exposed its lies, particularly after it had closed many of its branches in the country for not being able to meet auditors demands.
Caspian financials and Arman financial institutions have made headlines in Iran after they failed to return investors’ funds.
This comes as Iranian financial institutions have failed to pay back deposits of investors. In a move that is considered an evidence these institutions have gone bankrupt.
———————————— End ————————————
http://www.thebaghdadpost.com/en/story/13318/Financial-institutions-bankruptcy-threatens-Iran-s-banking-sector
So there has been some sort of financial crisis in Iran which has bankrupted financial institutions and severely impacted their investors.
This could mean that the current large demonstrations might be inspired by financial investors so angry that they began to recruit other Iranians who felt abused by their government.
While China and Russia are investing in OBOR in Iran…….
If anyone like Trump cared for conditions in Iran they would not do sanctions which are far more damaging than sneaking a very few missiles through the US blockade into Yemen where the US aids the Saudis in genocide. Syria, Lebanon etc. are very low budget!.
This is al Qaeda run blither.
Trump’s tweets and the reports coming from Wahabbist media are propaganda from the Sunni side of the Muslim rift.
What is good for ARAMCO is to smash Iran? Remove 5 million bbl/day…….competition.
Mike,
You only posted 10 of the supposed 20 points in the article.
Given the source that article may still miss a salient point, that the US has not cut all the economic sanctions it was supposed to for th JCPOA nuclear deal, and Trump is doing his darnedest to come up with an excuse just to totally cancel the deal and reimpose max sanctions.
Of course, with exception of Israel, KSA, and a fe Gulf states (and I think Egypt), nobody else in the world suppoets this, including reportedly a lot of retired Israeli mil/intel officials who realize that the JCPOA keeps the Iranian nuclear genie in a box, although Netanyahu’s whole career has been built on frightening Israelis with the Iranian boogey man.
ah Austerity for Iranians. Now Iran is joining the Rightwing Economic belief system that screws the working class, spends the money (unlimited for defense, but none for the poor); aka Trickle down Reaganomics/lies, deceit and war settings for all but the Rich
and the Iranians protest? wow, that is odd. Americans have been afforded the same “opportunity/austerity” for almost 40 years. yet no protests that are encouraged against neoliberal austerity and War for all.
the US had beter not encourage such “behavior” lest it come how to roost here. then i remember they did away with protests like Occupy Wall St.after some Americans did protest.
who would have thought the Evil Iranians weren’t just religious nutcakes.
to actually protest austerity and pro war policies. Definitely not Western behavior, yet the newspaper spend so much press on it.
Stranger than fiction
BR,
I didn’t want to simply copy the whole piece.
Bernard,
I think there are a few different groups of protesters. My recollection is that in 2009 it was mostly city folk and the intelligentsia. That wasn’t about austerity, it was about being free from the religious crowd. This protest seemed to have stared over austerity and was driven by the poor, at least in the beginning. Now there are photos of the woman waving her headscarf, etc.
I think the western press is having trouble with this one. “Women’s issues” in this country have become “pro-wearing of the hijab” sometime in the last four years or so which means women wanting to burn their hijab doesn’t fit the narrative. There are a lot more strange bedfellows. Much of the press covering the Middle East often shares an anti-Israeli bias with the Iranian regime. (E.g., there’s a photo circulating of the BBC’s writer about Iran happily waving a Hezbullah flag). And of course, if the Iranians regime is doing bad things, it contradicts the point of an agreement with them, which means being on Trump’s side rather than Obama’s side of the issue. I cannot imagine many people in the press want to do that. The lean in coverage – looking at, say, NY Times headlines – seems to at least have started largely pro-Iranian regime this time around.
I have post on this on Econospeak that has not yet been put up here. I see it as complicated and will not say more here now as I suspect it will be put up here fairly soon.
I guess I would say trying to pose this as being either pro-Obama or pro-Trump is misleading. Aside from the JCPOA, which the protests do not seem to be about, although reportedly Trump’s opposition to it is undermining his credibility with the protestors he claims to be supporting as they are pretty much universally for it.
A major part of the complication is that there is major division within the regime between moderates like Rouhani, who is more in charge of economic policy, but not totally, and hardliners such as Khameini, who is in charge of military and foreign policy. The protests have targeted both, but a bit like the Occupy movement, these protests do not seem to have a clear focus or set of demands, although they started over economic issues.
Thanks BR. Looking forward to reading your post.
All pix of the “crowds” are narrow angle.
While the conservative talk radio are spreading the Israeli lies about state terror……… and the faux suppression!
The Iran protests are relatively small unlike the Shiite rebellion forcibly put down in Bahrain in 2011 to 2014. There is no religious schism, just agnostics against the hard line Shiites. Meanwhile in the liberal kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) they will allow women licenses to drive in June 2018. While the royals perpetrate genocide in Yemen.
The economic issues are less real than the foreign (Israel and Saudis the target of “state sponsored terror”) induced claims of too much military spending.
There is a sprinkling of CIA, Mossad and Saudi money in the mix.
And the repressive regime is so illiberal compared to Saudi royals and a couple hundred Saudi princes couped in the past year.