Iran has a long history, more than a century, of democratic movements. Iran won't take cues from Egypt

There has been a temptation in the West to tie the convulsions in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world to Iran’s 2009 green movement protests. Those large demonstrations are being cited as the sparks that ignited the imagination of all who live under repressive regimes in the Middle East.

In Tehran, meanwhile, the government has not shied away from gleefully reporting the Arab uprisings. But analogies are made not with the fetneh, or sedition, as the 2009 post-election crisis is described. Rather, they are made with the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which swept the shah off the Peacock Throne and into ignominious exile. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, much like Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, was a lifetime dictator closely allied with Washington.


This Iranian narrative, however, is far closer to the truth. If there is any secret desire among U.S. officials that Iran’s opposition green movement will now be motivated by what it inspired and rise up again to overthrow the Islamic system, those hopes will most likely be dashed.

Facile comparisons aside, Persians are not Arabs and have little in common with them culturally, politically or even religiously. Unlike Arabs, Iranians have a long history, more than a century, of democratic movements. Their struggle since the fall of the shah for representative government has not depended on the removal of one man or one family.

The West’s view that Iran has an overwhelmingly unpopular dictatorship and that the green movement sought to overthrow the political system is fundamentally wrong.

Both before and after the contested 2009 election, Iran has been more politically analogous to the red state, blue state dynamic in the United States than to the one-man rule of many Arab states. The media, indeed, had focused on protesters and demonstrators in 2009 and on the government’s heavy crackdown. It largely ignored, however, the extent of support that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did have — which even green movement leaders estimated to be in the millions. Support for the supreme leader and the Islamic system was, and is, far greater.

In the almost two years since, Iranian exiles and many Western analysts have declared the country an unredeemable dictatorship. But within Iran, citizens see politics as usual: continuing disputes, challenges and debate among the three branches of government — with Ahmadinejad not always coming out on top.

That is not to say that there is no discontent or that the green movement — more a civil rights movement than the revolution that many in the West had hoped for — is completely irrelevant. But, until now, Arab protesters could have only dreamed about what Iran has achieved politically in the past 30-plus years.

Arab countries have also had dictators who were supported, coddled and encouraged by Washington and who acted against the wishes of their citizens. But Iran has been free of foreign influence — even if its citizens haven’t always agreed with the government’s policies.

Iran has been subjected to U.S. sanctions, which affect ordinary citizens’ quality of life, while Arab countries are key strategic allies and their governments receive billions of dollars in U.S. support — little of which trickles down to their citizens.

It may be a stretch for the Iranian government to proclaim that Arab protesters are revolting against U.S. hegemony as much as they are against dictatorship. But it is indisputable that the popular opinion of Arab states runs contrary to what we ordinarily call “U.S. interests.”

It is not so different in Iran — except that popular opinion on U.S. interests, at least among the majority of Iranians, is in line with the government’s. That’s not to say that the anti-Americanism displayed by Iranians is anything but anti-imperialism, and Iran’s youth are, famously, the most pro-American — but not pro-U.S. foreign policy — in the region.

One reason the green movement lost steam in Iran, however, and is unlikely to reappear anytime soon, apart from the severity of the government’s crackdown, is that the government has been successful in portraying itself — at least to moderate supporters — as being aligned with Western interests.

I was in Tehran when the Tunisian president fled his country and after the Hezbollah-engineered collapse of the Lebanese government. The Iranian media covered both extensively. But there was little indication that Iran’s youth were readying themselves for another challenge to authority.

In the West, Iranian supporters of the green movement were quick to disseminate catchy slogans: “Tunes tunest, Iran natunest,” meaning Tunisia could, Iran couldn’t or, better yet, “Tunis envy.” Certainly there may be Iranians who are envious of the ease with which the Arabs dispatched their leader. But Iran’s green movement had more in common with the Lebanese Cedar Revolution of 2005 than with the 2011 uprising in North Africa.

As with the Lebanese protests, the green movement’s large number of demonstrators gave the impression that the entire country was unified behind one goal. But again, much like the Cedar Revolution, that turned out to be an illusion.

Many of the green movement’s demands still resonate with Iranians — some even, evidently, with Ahmadinejad and his government. But major change in Iran is unlikely to come about through street protests — which is why no one calls for them anymore. Not while the whole country, unlike in the Arab states, isn’t united in hatred of its leaders.

Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American writer, is the author of “The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge.”