The Iranian Revolution: Weaknesses and Failures of the Establishment, Security Forces, and State-Dependent Protests

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday appealed for national unity and tried to allay anger against the country’s rulers, even as the anti-government protests that have engulfed the country for weeks continued to spread to universities and high schools.

Raisi acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had “weaknesses and shortcomings,” but repeated the official line that the unrest sparked last month by the death of a 22-year-old woman in the custody of the country’s morality police was nothing short of a plot by Iran’s enemies.

He said that the country’s determination is aimed at cooperation to reduce people’s problems. “National integrity and unity are necessities that make our enemy useless.”

His claims echoed those of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who blamed the United States and Israel, the country’s adversaries, for inciting the unrest in his first remarks on the nationwide protests on Monday. It is not a new tactic for Iran’s leaders, who have kept distrust of Western influence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution while blaming foreign enemies for their domestic problems.

The protests that broke out after the death of Amini are seen as one of the biggest challenges to the clerical rulers since they seized power in 1979. The turmoil in Iran has killed at least 300 protesters and resulted in the arrest of 15000 people, according to a Human Rights Activists in Iran.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency later reported that protesters set fire to a police stand in Khash, a city in Sistan and Baluchestan, and attacked the local governor’s office.

Universities have long been considered sanctuaries in times of turmoil, but the demonstrations spread quickly as the new academic year began. The students were showing their support for their peers who were arrested and calling for the end of the Islamic Republic. Roiled by the unrest, many universities moved classes online this week.

The prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran became a battlefield on Sunday as security forces surrounded the campus from all sides and fired tear gas at protesters who were holed up inside a parking lot, preventing them from leaving. The student union reported that police arrested hundreds of students, although many were later released.

Students marched and chanted “Jahed students must be freed” in one video. Tarbiat Modares University is in Tehran. In another, students streamed through Khayyam University in the conservative city of Mashhad, shouting, “Sharif University has become a jail! Evin Prison has become a university!” — referring to Iran’s notorious prison in Tehran.

Protests also appeared to grip gender-segregated high schools across Iran on Monday, where groups of young girls waved their state-mandated hijabs and chanted “Woman! Life! Freedom!” in the city of Karaj west of the capital and in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj, according to widely shared footage.

The Biden administration has said it condemns the brutality and repression against the citizens of Iran and that it will look for ways to impose more sanctions against the Iranian government if the violence continues.

Washington. In response to the death of a woman who was arrested in Iran, demonstrators marching in the streets of Berlin, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles on Saturday voiced their support for Iranians who are facing a violent government response.

On the U.S. National Mall, thousands of people of all ages wore green, white and red and shouted “freedom from Iran” in unison. “Be cautious.” “Be afraid.” Be scared. Protesters marching to the White House yelled “We are one in this.” Say her name! “Muhsa!”

The demonstrations, put together by grassroots organizers from around the United States, drew Iranians from across the Washington D.C. area, with some traveling down from Toronto to join the crowd.

Shooka Scharm, an attorney who was born in the U.S. after her parents fled the Iranian revolution, was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” in English and Farsi. In Iran “women are like a second-class citizen and they are sick of it,” Scharm said.

Between chants, protesters in D.C. broke into song, singing traditional Persian music about life and freedom — all written after the revolution in 1979 brought religious fundamentalists to power in Iran. They sang one in particular in unison — “Baraye,” meaning because of, which has become the unofficial anthem of the Iran protests. The artist of that song was arrested after the song was posted to his social media accounts. It had more than 40 million views.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran on Friday marked the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran as its theocracy faces nationwide protests after the September death of a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the country’s morality police.

Iranian state-run TV aired live feeds of different commemorations around the country, with some Iranians waving placards of the triangle-shaped Iranian drones that Russia uses to strike targets in its war on Ukraine. But while crowds in Tehran looked large with chador-wearing women waving the Islamic Republic’s flag, other commemorations in the country appeared smaller, with only a few dozen people taking part.

Iran’s hard-line President told people gathered in front of the old embassy building that those who were protesting the theocracy were a disgrace to the country.

He said that anyone who steps in the direction of security and riots should know that they are in front of enemies of the Islamic Revolution. Americans think that they can execute the plan they carried out in places like Syria and Libya. What a false dream!

The effigies of French and Saudi presidents were displayed at the commemoration. Signs and chants from the crowd called out: “Death to America! Death to Israel!”

Hard-liners within Iran long have bussed government workers and others into such Nov. 4 demonstrations, which have a carnival-like feel for the students and others taking part on Taleqani Street in downtown Tehran.

This year, however, it remained clear Iran’s theocracy hopes to energize its hard-line base. Some signs said “We are Obedient to the Leader” and referred to the supreme leader. The demonstrators call for the overthrow of the government and for the death of the supreme leader.

The annual commemoration marks when student demonstrators climbed over the fence at the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, angered by then-President Jimmy Carter allowing the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to receive cancer treatment in the United States.

The students soon took over the entire, leafy compound. “Argo” dramatized a story in which a group of staffers fled to Iran and hid in the home of the Canadian ambassador, who aided them in their escape.

The 444-day crisis transfixed America, as nightly images of blindfolded hostages played on television sets across the nation. Iran finally let all the captives go the day Carter left office on Ronald Reagan’s inauguration day in 1981.

The relationship between Iran and the U.S. has been bad for a long time. The US and world powers reached a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. However, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, sparking years of tensions since.

At a rally in California on Thursday night, President joe Biden was stopped by a crowd holding up cellphones for the “Free Iran” slogan.

“Maybe he said this because of a lack of concentration. … He said we aim to liberate Iran,” Raisi said. “Mr. President!” Iran was liberated 43 years ago, and it’s determined not to become your captive again. We will never become a milking cow.”

Biden had said he was willing to have the U.S. rejoin the nuclear deal, but talks have broken down. The American position has hardened since the beginning of the protests in September with officials saying restoring the deal isn’t a priority.

Iran is closer than ever to making a nuclear weapon, according to protests in the day after Tehran’s first nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip

On Friday, some protesters waved placards of atoms as a sign that Iran is closer than ever to making a nuclear weapon. Iran currently has enough enriched uranium to make at least one nuclear weapon, even though Tehran insists its program is peaceful.