What is the issue?
- Iran is witnessing large scale anti-government protests.
- Being a significant regional power, the unrest is making vibes in larger international relations.
What are the recent developments?
- The protests began in Mashhad, Iranian city.
- They were initially focussed on deteriorating economic situation, official corruption and lack of social freedoms.
- However, it gradually turned into political rallies and expanded to several cities.
- Notably many were killed and hundreds of people have been arrested.
- On the other hand, tens of thousands of people took part in counter-demonstrations backing the clerically overseen government.
- Notably, President Hassan Rouhani acknowledged the public’s anger over the deteriorating economy.
- However, he strongly condemned the resort to violence and showed tough resistance through the security forces.
What was the US role in Iran?
- Then US President Obama, to counter the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, encouraged Gulf rulers to fund the Sunni groups in Syria.
- This had only worsened the chaos and ultimately led to the emergence of the more dangerous ISIS.
- Subsequently, the US believed in Iran as a force with the will and ability to counter this radical Islamist force, though Iran was not its traditional ally.
- It thus committed air assets and some military advisers to Iran.
- The 2015 Iran-P5 nuclear deal was also an attempt to empower Iran.
- The deal eventually emboldened Iran to gather Shia allies extending west from Iran to the Mediterranean.
- Eventually, Russia joined as well, to grab an opportunity to regain influence in West Asia.
What did these lead to?
- The US backing of Iran, certainly strained the relations with its traditional allies Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
- Iranian ascendancy has also made Israel nervous, as it perceives an existential threat from Iranian ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
- Obama was thus keeping many banking sanctions operational to balance these concerns.
- This was on the pretext that they are related to Iran's support to terrorist groups like Hezbollah.
- President Rouhani managed the internal consensus for the nuclear deal by convincing that foreign investment and technology would flow.
- Unfortunately, that never happened, as the residual US sanctions still scared investors and the cash-rich GCC members.
What are the international implications of the recent protest?
- US - Since becoming the US President, Trump had been critical of the Iran nuclear deal.
- He had recently declined to certify that Iran was complying with the nuclear deal. Click here to know more.
- The President and Vice-President of the United States, in their tweets, have recently incited Iranians to engage in disruptive acts.
- Iran has thus charged US of crossing limits in international relations by supporting anti-government protesters.
- Top officials within Iran are also attributing the protests to foreign money, intelligence and foreign forces.
- Russia - Russia has urged the United States to not interfere in what it calls Iran's “domestic affairs”.
- Russia also firmly expressed that the Iran nuclear deal was not to be corrected and be continued.
- The recent protest, in all, is reflective of the earlier Arab Spring for rooting out the governments in many West Asian countries.
- It is also brewing as a potential focal point for world countries for alliances and counter-alliances.
Sources: The Hindu, Indian Express
