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The Fabric of Iranian Repression Has Begun to Unravel

(Washington Post) David Ignatius - The basic demand of the Iranian uprising, now in its seventh week, that women no longer be forced to wear headscarves, challenges the primacy of the old men who run Iran's theocracy. "The world is seeing crowds successfully taking on small groups of security personnel....The regime's tactics to neutralize unrest have proven unsuccessful," said Norman T. Roule, a 34-year CIA veteran who managed the intelligence community's Iran activities from 2008 to 2017. Hayder al-Khoei, a member of one of Iraq's most prominent Shiite clerical families, tweeted Monday: "Just landed in Tehran. It doesn't feel or look like a revolution is underway but there has clearly been massive sociopolitical changes: women now casually walking in public with no headscarves." But reform on the headscarf issue won't be an easy option. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei believes that once he starts making concessions on something as seemingly small as women covering their hair, the broader authority of the regime will begin to erode. Cracking down on this movement will be difficult, in part because the protests are led by women and girls. "Few ordinary security forces will be comfortable attacking women," Roule argued.
2022-11-03 00:00:00
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