How the Iranian Regime Survived: Examining Internal and External Strategies.

• Author: Zweiri, Mahjoob
• Position: ARTICLE

Introduction

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been exposed to U.S. sanctions since its establishment in 1979, with nuclear-related sanctions being the most effective. Those unprecedented sanctions have isolated Iran, harmed its financial system, and severely constrained its overall economy. Economic activity and government revenues in Iran rely to a large extent on oil revenues, which lead to constant volatility.

With the 2015 signing of the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, also called the Nuclear Deal), (1) international sanctions on Iran were lifted, and billions of dollars of assets were unfrozen, which permitted the selling of Iranian oil. (2) However, economic sanctions were reimposed in 2018, following the Trump Administration's withdrawal from the deal. Iran's overall economic atmosphere suffered due to these sanctions, especially amid the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Iranian Rial had fallen to 193,400 against the U.S. dollar by June 20, 2020, (3) while the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) suffered a 4.7 percent contraction in 2018-2019 and further declined by 7.6 percent during 2019-2020. The oil sector contracted by 14.1 percent, contributing to an overall negative growth, and the non-oil sector also declined by 2.1 percent in 2018-2019. (4)

A series of public protests erupted in various Iranian cities throughout 20172018 and 2019-2020, due to economic hardships. These riots indicated that the regime was struggling to meet its ends. The protestors drew a direct link between their demands and the involvement of Iran in foreign conflicts. During the protests, they shouted slogans such as, "Leave Syria alone, deal with us!" (5)

Protestors believed that Iran's spending in Syria should be brought instead into the domestic arena to fulfill the population's needs. Iran has largely been nurturing parties and conflicts outside the republic, so much so that in a speech in 2015, Hassan Nasrallah declared: "We are open about the fact that Hezbollah's budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, come from the Islamic Republic of Iran." (6) Also, unprecedentedly, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, the conservative lawmaker and the former chairman of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, declared in May 2020 that Iran had spent $20-30 billion in Syria that must be reimbursed. (7)

The latest 2019 events were not the only protests that the regime has witnessed since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Iran has indeed witnessed multiple protests throughout its republican history. Moreover, the regional arena has also been perplexing to the Iranian regime and its existence. In its turn, the regime has sought to employ various strategies that aim in the first place to secure its survival in an unstable domestic and regional atmosphere. This paper seeks to review the various crises through which the regime has, as a response, followed a certain path to confront. It hopes to address how the regime strengthens and promotes itself internally and externally by answering the question: How was the Iranian regime able to survive, despite the various crises it has faced since its establishment?

Since Iran is largely driven by security and stability impulses, this paper argues that the regime's behaviors depart from its efforts at survival, which could be better understood in the scope of regime 'resilience,' that is, "the attributes, relational qualities, and institutional arrangements that have long given regimes [...] the capacity to adapt governance strategies to changing domestic and international conditions," rather than regime 'persistence,' which refers to "anachronistic, one-person dictatorships stubbornly clinging to power while falling increasingly out of touch with their societies and rapidly changing environments." (8) Indeed, Iran lies in the Middle East, where almost all of the states seek their regime's survival and secure their status domestically and regionally against any potential threats. However, the paper does not attempt to make comparisons between regimes of the region with regard to the various strategies that they follow to survive. Rather, it tends to explore how the Iranian regime is resilient and adaptive to change in seeking its survival.

The Iranian regime has followed various internal and external strategies that aim to ensure its resilience and endurance. Those strategies represent the whole set of actions and plans that aim at achieving long-term survival. The 'internal' strategies are mainly seen in the following variables: a rising militarization trend, an increased securitization effort, seeking internal legitimacy renewal, and considering 'loyalty' as the main criterion in governmental appointments during various presidential administrations. The regime's 'external' survival strategies can be traced in the following variables: strengthening non-state actors, carrying the banner of political Islam, supporting the Palestinian cause -which may be extended to include supporting weakened peoples outside Iran that suffer under their regimes and promoting a discourse of hatred toward the U.S. and Israel- all of which have contributed to popularizing the Iranian regime among other populations and regimes, which has ensured the regime's survival.

Both internal and external strategies work at times separately, while at other times they overlap. For example, the militarization trend within Iran evidenced in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) increased involvement in politics has been clearly reflected in the IRGC's increased external endeavors. Therefore, in addition to exemplifying those separate internal and external strategies, this paper seeks to trace a link between both kinds of strategies to evaluate whether the regime will be able to survive its economic crisis and the rising discontent of a restive population.

Some of the above variables could therefore be linked to each other to represent a 'nexus' between internal and external survival strategies, as follows: (i) an increased securitization trend within Iran would lead to increased support to weakened populations outside Iran; (ii) an increased militarization trend within Iran would lead to increased support to non-state actors outside Iran; (iii) appointing loyalists to various state positions would ensure that Iran's external movements are not being criticized at home; (iv) achieving foreign gains by defending the Palestinian cause, defending the weak, attacking Israel and the U.S., is associated with internal legitimacy renewal, which in turn is linked to increasing the regional favorability of the Iranian state, thereby ensuring the regime's survival. In other words, external threats have been exploited to reinforce internal legitimacy.

The paper transitions as follows. First, it briefly discusses the scope of the Iranian regime and addresses the transformations that the regime has witnessed and that have assisted in formulating the regime's strategies. Second, it moves to tackle the external approach of the Iranian regime and examine how it has reacted to various external occurrences to consolidate itself. Third, the internal strategies are displayed. Finally, the paper addresses the mixed strategies that the Iranian regime had adopted toward the nuclear agreement.

The Iranian Modus Operandi

Regime survival long has been a motive of Iran's foreign policy, as seen in the regime's use of external crises, such as the U.S. hostage crisis, (9) the Iran-Iraq war 1980-1988, and the nuclear issue, to rally support from its domestic population. The regime had also occasionally abandoned its revolutionary ambitions; for instance, to align with Syria's secular, pan-Arab, Ba'athist regime, (10) and has exploited international crises to develop its regional tactics, strategies, and policies, in a way that serves to fulfilling its foreign interests and tapping opportunities, as when the U.S. opened up subversive opportunities for Iran through its invasion of Iraq in 2003. (11) Apart from religious explanations, the Iranian regime's survival has sometimes been associated with what may be termed 'economic and social populism,' as the regime promised to produce a welfare state that contributes to eliminating 'poverty, illiteracy, slums, and unemployment,' and offers "free education, accessible medical care, decent housing, pensions, disability pay, and unemployment insurance." (12)

Iran's military has a considerable influence on various structures in the system, which enables it to determine regime stability. (13) It promotes an 'insider-outsider divide' which delegitimizes domestic opponents and excludes movements or protests. This divide was first employed to frustrate the July 1999 university students' protests. (14) The protests were triggered by students' frustration with the narrowing of the freedom of the press. However, the students were violently attacked by ultraconservative militarily organizations such as Ansar-e Hizbullah (15) and the Basij (Organization for Mobilization of the Op-pressed), (16) and later the IRGC itself. Student casualties and thousands of arrests resulted from these clashes. The military organizations not only ransacked and assaulted students in their dormitories but also attacked the protesters with gunfire and lethal blows while ranging the streets on their motorbikes. (17)

This strategy was similarly applied to crush the Green Movement (18) and legitimate counter-mobilization efforts (19) following the fraudulent June 2009 elections where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won with a percentage of 63.3 of the votes. Security forces violently attacked the protesters, again with the support of the Basij on their motorcycles. Trials were conducted, and some accused individuals had to confess on state television that they had committed crimes against the nation; these forced confessions were accompanied by statements that...