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Source: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/is-iran-on-the-brink-of-another-revolution-463f7be3
"Revolutions Are Impossible Before They Happen and Inevitable After They Happen"
(Wall Street Journal) Prof. Ali M. Ansari interviewed by Elliot Kaufman - Prof. Ali M. Ansari, 58, is a historian at Scotland's University of St. Andrews, where he directs the Institute for Iranian Studies. He says, "I'm a firm believer in what Hannah Arendt says: Revolutions are impossible before they happen and inevitable after they happen." Inside Iran, "the vast majority of people are struggling. The political system is hated. The economic system isn't delivering." Salaries "no longer meet the basic needs of life. There's an environmental crisis - they've drained the water table. And now, they have an international crisis." "People tell me, 'Oh, but it's strong and stable.' Well, it can't be that strong and stable because people are rebelling every few years, and on a scale the regime deems existential." Regime supporters, whom Ansari pegs at 10-20% of the population, "are convinced they are going to defeat the U.S. in this war. They are not going to do it." In January, "the regime carried out such a mass slaughter that it actually proved counterproductive. If they had suppressed it with, say, 'only' the 3,117 dead that they claim, it might have succeeded." But having killed "10,000, 15,000, 20,000 of your own in the random manner that they did, and shooting people in hospital beds, it creates an anger that is difficult to suppress." Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13), auditing bodies were dismantled and many state assets transferred to the IRGC. By one assessment, $800 billion in revenue went missing. "A lot of them in the IRGC made a lot of money and they don't want to lose it all." That's now a stronger motivation to fight than old revolutionary fervor. When Iran's economy is in shambles, the reflex is to blame U.S. sanctions. "That doesn't explain why the Iranians have mismanaged their water. It doesn't tell you why, well before the real sanctions arrived in 2011-12, they were never able to get any foreign direct investment into the country....It's the corruption, the kleptocracy, the short-termism, the opaqueness, the lack of accountability, the uncertainty." Sanctions didn't befall Iran. They were a consequence of the regime's behavior.