After the Iran

Protests by Kevin L. Schwartz 

Many questions still remain unanswered about

the nature of the protests in Iran that began in

December 2017. However, events seem to point to a

watershed moment and not because protesters at

times appeared more fearless in attacking symbols of

Islamic Republic power, attempted to overtake

government buildings, leveled slogans against

leaders across the political spectrum, or at times

offered chants in support of Iran’s last shah. Rather

the fury of the protests this time appears to have first

been kindled by economic displeasure and point to a

more general epistemic questioning of the Islamic

Republic’s ability to deliver on life as promised. 

How the protests are reported to have started

remains unclear. Hardline opponents of President

Hasan Rouhani are presumed to have organized

protests in opposition to his economic policies to

discredit him. Rumors have also swirled that it was

former populist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

(2005-2013), now a curious thorn in the regime’s side

and advocate of everything from judicial transparency

to immediate and free elections, who helped instigate

the initial protests. Either way, any hope that such

efforts would remain confined to expressing

displeasure at President Rouhani’s policies or

otherwise narrowly confined proved misguided: a

wave of protests was sparked instead, testifying to

how quickly a general rage over economic conditions

could be set ablaze and morph into a systemic

mistrust of the state. 

Gray Research Center, 2040 Broadway Street, Quantico, VA 22134 • 703.432.5260 • www.usmcu.edu/mes

Middle East Studies

at the Marine Corps University

MES Insights • Volume 9, Issue 2 April 2018

MES Notes

On Thursday, 3 May 2018, Middle

East Studies (MES) at the Marine

Corps University (MCU) will host a

panel entiled “Turkey: Between

Competition and Cooperation” as part

of the Marine Corps War College

(MCWAR) “Diplomacy and Statecraft”

instructional block and the AY18 MES

Lecture Series “Navigating

Geopolitical Competition and Internal

Wars in the Middle East and North

Africa”. Guest speakers include:

Ambassador Ross Wilson, Atlantic

Council; Dr. Sinan Ciddi, Institute of

Turkish Studies; and Dr. Soner

Cagaptay, The Washington Institute. 

Information about MES events and

publications is available on the MES

website at: www.usmcu.edu/mes, or

you can contact Adam Seitz at (703)

432-5260 or adam.seitz@usmcu.edu.

MES at MCU Disclaimer

The opinions and conclusions

expressed herein are those of the

individual author and do not

necessarily represent the views of

either the Marine Corps University

or any other governmental agency.

Any references to this newsletter

should include the foregoing

statement.
The protests of late may have been smaller than

those of the Green Movement in 2009, but these ones

have struck a chord in multiple towns and small cities

across Iran’s provincial landscape, enlivening the

working class and down-on-their-luck job-seekers

among the youth far beyond Iran’s capital. More

importantly, whereas the Green Movement protests

grew out of the specific event of a contested

presidential election, the recent protests relate to a

myriad of concerns over job prospects, inflation,

government subsidies, disbursement to religious

foundations, and payments to foreign entities. The

difference is crucial in how the government is able to

shape its version of events and manage any fallout

from the protests moving forward.

Nearly a decade ago, when the Iranian

government stamped out the post-election protests

part of their success was controlling the narrative of

events. When the protesters refused to recognize a

verified election result, the government had little

trouble in claiming their disobedience to the Islamic

Republic and quickly moved to marginalize, repress,

and arrest them and their leaders. These

“seditionists”, as the government called them, were

operating outside the body politic and wanted to put

an end to the Islamic Republic by taking actions in

clear defiance of a political edict. The protesters

needed to be crushed; their leaders, like Mir Hossein

Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, placed under house

arrest.

The government today cannot reliably make such

a neat, collective claim about the protesters’

dissatisfaction or maintain strict control over the

narrative of events, nor are there any leaders to

arrest. These protests were not instigated by a single

political event like an election result but rather by

general fatigue of economic life. The data points

under discussion are not the disputed votes in a

limited number of ballot boxes but rather the price of

eggs, the value of Iran’s currency, and limitless

perceptions of government responsibility. The

government may be able to control the counting of

votes but controlling citizens’ perceptions over the

state of the economy and one’s own job prospects is

invariably more difficult. 

Gray Research Center, 2040 Broadway Street, Quantico, VA 22134 • 703.432.5260 • www.usmcu.edu/mes

MES Notes (Cont.)

14 March 2018

Amin Tarzi presented a lecture on

Iran’s armed forces for the National

Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC),

Charlottesville, VA.

14 March 2018

Adam Seitz presented a lecture entitled

“Contextualizing Yemen's Internal War”

as part of the MCU Faculty Sharing

Series.

23 March 2018

Adam Seitz taught classes on Gulf

States’ Security Issues and Yemen for

the US Air Force Special Operations

School (USAFSOS) CENTCOM

Theater for Special Operations Forces

(CTSOF) Course at Cannon AFB, NM.

28 March 2018 

Amin Tarzi presented a lecture on

Afghanistan and Pakistan to the NATO

Regional Cooperation Course 19

(NRCC19) at the NATO Defense

College (NDC), Rome, Italy.

3 April 2018

MES hosted Dr. Karen Young, Arab

Gulf States Instiute in Washington

(AGSIW), for a lecture entitled “The

Political Imperative of Economic

Reform in the Gulf States,” as part of

the MES AY18 Lecture Series.

10-21 April 2018 

Amin Tarzi provided lectures and

seminars on the Middle East and North

Africa for US Navy personnel serving

onboard the USS Harry S. Truman. (See page 4)

11 April 2018

MES hosted the National Defense

University (NDU) Near East South Asia

(NESA) Center course for a group of 26

Lebanese Armed Forces officers visitng

from the Fouad Shehab Command and

Staff College.

26 April 2018

Adam Seitz spoke on regional security

issues as part of the panel discussion

"The Geopolitics of Energy: The Saudi

Aramco IPO, Implications and

Considerations" at the Daniel Morgan

Graduate School in Washington DC.
Gray Research Center, 2040 Broadway Street, Quantico, VA 22134 • 703.432.5260 • www.usmcu.edu/mes

None of these differences, of course, prevented the government from initially

following the same playbook to quell the protests as in 2009 by claiming the protesters

are sponsored by foreign enemies, threatening them with charges such as waging war

against God, and deploying the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) to neutralize them.

But such actions are only short term fixes meant to prevent and clear bodies from the

street. Moving forward, the government will have to contend with a potentially direr and

destabilizing challenge: a wave of workers, the unemployed, and lower classes viewing

clerical elites―regardless of political affiliation―as a ruling class who enrich themselves

at the expense of everyday citizens.

If the ruling clerics are unable to address the growing perception that state power is

used to amass wealth for themselves while remaining indifferent to the economic woes of

the many, then the Islamic Republic may find itself outflanked by the very same people

who it long supposed to be among its most important base. This time there will be no easy

claim that the protesters fall outside the body politic and wish to subvert the Islamic

Republic, for it is in their name and the pursuit of social justice more generally that the

Revolution is often claimed to have been made in the first place. 

Such a fact, along with the speed with which the protests rippled through the country

and took the government by surprise, has already led to a range of responses across

political factions. Infighting and blaming amongst government factions has now reached

a fever pitch with the Rouhani administration and its conservative detractors trying to pass

the blame to the other and compete over a demographic the state had long taken for

granted. It is unsurprising, then, that the government thus far has been unable to offer a

unified response. 

Even attempts by different factions to offer solutions have remained incoherent and

contradictory. Conservatives have recognized the protesters’ economic grievances and

separated the protestors from the “seditionists” who questioned the Islamic Republic

system and caused property damage. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has

indicated that military organizations should divest from “irrelevant economic activities”, an

ongoing source of frustration for many of the citizenry who see organizations like the IRGC

unfairly benefiting from government largesse and preferential economic treatment. But it

is unclear how such a policy directive would actually unfold in practice, if at all. Besides,

such recommendations remain continually undercut by brushing off the protests as part of

a larger foreign plot and by the Supreme Leader’s claims that workers―whose economic

plight played no small role in the events―have long been a bastion of counter-revolution

sentiment. 

President Rouhani, for his part, had initially contextualized the protests more

generally in the restrictive control the government places upon its citizens and has noted

that the government cannot continue to dictate the lifestyle of the country’s youth. For

example, his administration, along with reformist parliamentarians has expressed dismay

that the Iranian government will be moving to block the messaging app Telegram, whose

users in Iran number about 40 million. Nonetheless, even while recognizing the larger

political grievances structuring recent economic angst, when faced with the opportunity to

show solidarity, for example, with those rallying against the compulsory headscarf, his
Middle East Studies at Marine Corps University

Dr. Amin Tarzi • Director, MES • amin.tarzi@usmcu.edu

Mr. Adam C. Seitz • Senior Research Associate, MES • adam.seitz@usmcu.edu

response has been more lukewarm than supportive. This approach is much in line with

Rouhani’s pragmatist pedigree, especially around sensitive topics in times of turmoil:

display an awareness of a cultural issue vexing many Iranians but do not offer enough

support as to alienate the more conservative voices of the government by wasting limited

political capital available to confront issues of presumed greater import, like the economy.

Since the original protests erupted over economic displeasure in December 2017, a

spate of other protests has unfolded, ranging from those by a marginalized Sufi order to

the economically and ethnically disenfranchised Arab citizens of the Khuzestan Province. The most publicly prominent of these protests continues to be carried out by those

individuals challenging the compulsory headscarf, inspired of late by the “Girls of

Revolution Street” movement. Most recently, a video of a woman being accosted by the

police for improper dress has gone viral and sparked widespread outrage. The government

has vowed to investigate. As the government continues to search for its footing in a

newfound, protest-filled environment where a constellation of voices is emerging to more

readily and publicly challenge long-standing norms and practices, the outcome of any

potential investigation is anyone’s guess. 

Kevin L. Schwartz is a Research Fellow at the Oriental Institute of the Czech

Academy of Sciences in Prague where he focuses on Iran and the Persianate world. His

website is www.kevinschwartz.org.

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MES PME Support for US Navy RSEP

MES Director Amin Tarzi participated in the US Navy’s Regional Security Education

Program (RSEP) with the Carrier Strike Group 8 on board USS Harry S. Truman

in April. Tarzi provided graduate-level lectures and seminars for senior leaders and

regional introductions and topical overviews to all hands over the course of 10 days.

This was MES’s second assignment with RSEP, enhancing MCU's PME reach to

the operating forces and providing time with the operating forces to deepen MCU

faculty's understanding of the current requirements placed on the operating forces

and enhance MES's curricular offerings. Additionally, the partnership between MES

and RSEP allows for PME to be used as a strategic assist in furthering the goal of

interoperability across the naval services of the United States.