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Protests in Iran



The current round of protests in Iran now seem to have gone far beyond anyone's original intent, and the demands of the leaders emerging from the movement are inflated compared to the more modest demands that were being put forward in the final days of the old year. 

 I believe this is typical of the dynamics of a revolution. 

 Let's look back on those days for a moment. The sequence of events I have in mind began on December 28 among people angry that factory workers were owed a lot of back pay, and that prices of important commodities were heading up. 

 Within just a day or so, videos available on social media showed protesters chanting "Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life for Iran." That may sound more like a chant in Farsi than it does in English. It was symptomatic of the way an agenda increases. The focus was still on jobs and prices, BUT the idea was that the country's leaders weren't focusing on jobs or prices because they were focusing instead on supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon, and choosing factions within the politics of Gaza. 

 Intriguing, too, in those early days was the coverage by the official and semi-official media. The mullahs were using those media in those days to pat themselves on the back for their tolerance. They were saying to the world in effect "Look how we act even in the fact of blatant trouble-makers! We let them have their stay. How nice of us."  


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