The last two weeks have been tense ones for Iran's Islamic leadership, writes Negar Azimi Popular protests questioning the legitimacy of the Iranian regime have spread to at least eight cities throughout the country, while a heightening of international scrutiny surrounding Iran's nuclear programme has left the ruling clerics' grip on power increasingly precarious. Doubtless, the Islamic Republic has known finer moments. A small-scale student march protesting a proposal to privatise the country's universities on 10 June quickly grew out of control, developing into the largest series of demonstrations the country has witnessed in at least four years. The initial movement was reportedly encouraged by calls from a Los Angeles, California-based Iranian satellite television station calling upon protesters to pour into the streets. The demonstrations quickly spread to neighbouring campuses and several middle-class neighbourhoods surrounding the city, with protesters boldly demanding significant reforms -- from a liberalisation of the state-run press to the resignation of President Mohamed Khatami. By the middle of last week, riot police and the quasi-governmental paramilitary group Ansar Hizbullah set up checkpoints around the city, controlling key intersections, going as far as to attack private homes and dragging persons from their cars. Ominously black-clad vigilantes beat demonstrators with wooden batons, sticks and chains -- wreaking such havoc that the government had to forcefully curb them in the end. The vigilantes' face-off with students was eerily reminiscent of July 1999, when in the largest student protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, heavily armed vigilante groups attacked dormitories at Tehran University. By the end of last week, the protests had stretched far beyond Tehran, to the cities of Isfahan, Kermanshah, Sabzehvar, Shiraz, Tabriz, Yazd and Zanjan. The precise number of arrests in what has been at least 10 consecutive evenings of protest remains unclear, though it is believed to be in the hundreds. In the meantime, the reformist press has announced that the whereabouts of many detained students remain unknown. Khatami, a decidedly reformist leader who came to power in a dramatic landslide victory in 1997, has come under attack for failing to deliver on promised freedoms -- particularly from the mass of Iranians, nearly 70 per cent are under the age of 30, who have been left frustrated, finding living under the rule of a conservative clique of mullahs suffocating. To many political analysts, Khatami, however reform-minded, has his hands virtually tied behind his back owing to the power of the country's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, as well as the 12-member Council of Guardians, a body composed of Muslim jurists with significant powers to scrutinise and censor legislation. According to Abbas Milani, a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, a conflict continues to exist between the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic's foundational notion of velayate faqih, rule by the jurist -- an idea, incidentally that is, by virtue of its dependence on divine legitimacy, inimical to democracy. Milani emphasised Khatami's failure to live up to reformist expectations in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. "Khatami was unwilling to stand up to the bullies of the right, and allowed them to use their dominance of the judiciary to stifle and strangle to death the reform movement," said Milani. Ali Ansari, Iranian political anlayst and Professor of Political History of the Middle East at Durham University in the UK, notes that the reformists as a whole have proven a mixed bunch. "Some have been just as corrupt as their predecessors, while Khatami has shown a lack of resolve," Ansari told the Weekly. Last week's protests have been characterised by a development that extends far beyond Iran's borders, with the Iranian diaspora playing a significant role in its initiation and, finally, its perpetuation. The city of Los Angeles, sometimes jokingly referred to as Tehrangeles, hosts the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. The potential force of that community, the vast majority of which is composed of upper- and middle-class professionals who left the country in 1979, is a significant one. As the Iranian state media has grown increasingly reactionary, with the banning of reformist newspapers and the imprisonment of their editors the norm, media based within the diaspora in cities such as Los Angeles has thrived. While satellite dishes are banned in the Islamic Republic, Iranian channels emanating from the US manage to find their way into countless homes, particularly in the posh northern sections of the capital where access is less of an obstacle. Not surprisingly, the satellite stations have the room to raise questions that the state-run media often does not. With the initial protest in its early stages, four Los Angeles-based satellite television stations -- Channel One, NITV, Azadi and Apadana -- reportedly encouraged students to join the demonstrators. The resulting chain reaction had reverberations far from any and all original ambitions, while showcasing the potential for the satellite as a vehicle for expression. At least one radio programme, Maybodi's, also has a wide listener base and may have additionally played a role in agitation. The Hoover Institution's Milani adds that the Internet has played a crucial role in freedom of expression as well. An estimated two million persons have access to the Internet, while Internet cafes are popping up throughout Tehran and further afield. "They have become the media of choice for undermining censorship. With the rise of the Internet and satellite television, traditional notions of sovereignty have been undermined. With the help of this new media, the Iranian diaspora has now become a veritable part of the civil society," Milani told the Weekly. Several interest groups in America and elsewhere have contributed to the dialogue surrounding last week's unrest in Iran. The Washington DC-based National Iranian-American Council, for example, has mapped out recommendations on its web site, under the title, "How should the US react to the student demonstrations in Iran?" Among the group's recommendation are "engagement for regime change", as well as "moral support for the protesting students". Both Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George W Bush have gone as far as to applaud the protests, the latter calling them the "beginning of people expressing themselves towards a free Iran". Iran, in response, has accused the US of lending support to the students, exploiting the movement as a pretext for regime change. The student movement in Iran arrives at a particularly sensitive time, with American troops calling the shots in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq along the country's borders. Canonically deemed part of the "axis of evil" by Bush, Iran has long appeared a promising candidate for a US-initiated regime change. While encouraging the protests, the international community has simultaneously raised questions as to Iran's stature as a potential nuclear threat in the region. Last week, Iran's nuclear programme came under pressure as a group including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and European Union ministers urged the country to be transparent about its nuclear objectives. The announcements came one day after US President Bush urged the world to warn Tehran against the development of nuclear weapons at large. Iran, in the meantime, maintains that its nuclear programme aims to produce electricity, rather than weaponry. Last Saturday, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy organisation, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, announced that his country would increase its cooperation with UN inspectors, expressing optimism that Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency could ultimately reach agreement on more intrusive inspections demanded by UN officials. Back in Tehran, at last week's Friday prayers, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani blamed the US for exploiting the state of domestic unrest for its own ends, warning young Iranians "not to be trapped by the evil television networks that Americans have established". Whatever comes of them, last week's demonstrations have managed to prove that a critical point has been reached; disillusionment with the country's clerical rule is widespread, while the momentum born of the protests may prove significant. It remains to be seen, nevertheless, whether what has been a hitherto scattered movement will develop into a viable vehicle for change.
