Iran’s Green Movement still haunts the Islamic republic

The victory of Khatami was the vote of a nation in a referendum against 18 years of state violence and repression in the name of “defending Islamic values”.

CDI – Dr. Behrooz Behbudi

In his monthly meeting with president Rouhani and members of his cabinet earlier this week, Iran’s despotic supreme leader Ali Khamenei used the opportunity to once again reveal his deep fears about a possible resurgence of the Green Movement that shook the foundations of the tyrannical Islamic republic six years ago.

“The issue of sedition and those involved in it still remains important to us and is one of our redlines. The ministers, as they emphasized at the parliament to receive a vote of confidence, must always keep their distance with them and remain committed to their position”, dictated Khamenei at the meeting.

Despite the daily claims by the regime’s propaganda machines that the “sedition” – as Khamenei deceitfully refers to that powerful civil rights and democracy movement – “has died for ever”, the realities of the Iranian society and its deep economic and political divisions would not go away with the wishful thinking of its rulers.

Ostensibly born in June 2009 after mass street protests erupted in Tehran and major Iranian cities against the vote rigging of the presidential election that declared incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a winner against opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the revolt forever changed the face of politics in Iran.

However, the foundations of the Green Movement had in fact been laid in 1997, when in a “quiet revolution” more than 22 million Iranians (out of 28 million voters) elected Mohammad Khatami as president against Mohammad Nategh Nouri, a close associate of the founder of the Islamic republic and the declared choice of his successor Ali Khamenei.

The victory of Khatami on a ticket of “leading Iran to a civil society and reviving the original slogans of the [1979] revolution for democracy and the rule of law” was not a random event in Iran’s turbulent contemporary history. It was the vote of a nation in a referendum against 18 years of state violence and repression in the name of “defending Islamic values”.

Further more, it was a vote of no confidence in the absolute rule of Khamenei as the Valiyeh Faghih, a position he had constantly abused as the supreme religious leader to build up his corrupt political power base with the help of the most reactionary religious forces and the Revolutionary Guard in Iran over two decades.

The cleric Khatami’s vacillating policies between his religious obligations to save the “Islamic” regime from collapse and at the same time keep his mandate for social and political reforms alive, eventually gave way to the return of the fundamentalists to power when Ahmadinejad became president in 2005.

However, the eight years of Khatami’s presidency had led to the birth of many civil institutes that had to be crushed by the fundamentalists once they had swept into power again. It was on the back of these institutes’ social mobilizations that the 2009 revolt against the alliance of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad camps took place.

With this political alliance taking Iran to the edge for a series of devastating domestic and foreign policies, namely Iran’s nuclear program and its consequent crippling sanctions, the 2009 presidential election became a turning point whence the Iranian people had an opportunity to reject the regime’s policies.

It took the “Islamic” regime another four years of constant crackdowns on every voice of dissent to finally arrive at a complete impasse and give in to offering a more “moderate and prudent” image of itself to the Iranians and the world by allowing one of its loyal insiders, Hassan Rouhani, to become its new president.

As with Khatami’s failed promises, Rouhani has pledged to open up the Iranian society, respect civil and human rights of the nation, remove the police state and mend the country’s links with the international community, the very objectives that if ever achieved would end the political existence of the country’s fundamentalist factions. Ali Khamenei’s fears are not unfounded.