I was composing a longer post on the situation in Iran but I just wanted to quickly make a few points.
There is a growing tendency to claim that “Iranians are not Muslims.” That strikes me as analytically sloppy. Opposition to the clerical regime is not the same thing as abandonment of Islam. One can plausibly argue that most Iranians are not Khomeinists; it is far less plausible that they are not Muslims. A few online polls don’t tell us much. Those notoriously oversample people who are young, educated, urban, and tech-savvy. That does not describe anything like the majority of Iranians.
Second, I don’t think we really know what’s going on in Iran right now. If the violent protests are large enough, they’re probably visible from orbit. Western human intelligence in Iran has been degraded over the period of years and much of what we know is inference layered on social media noise.
Third and this didn’t occur to me until recently, one factor that may matter more than is being discussed is the effect of Israel’s war with Hamas and Hezbollah on the Basij militia. The regime’s internal security apparatus does not exist in a vacuum; it draws legitimacy, manpower, and ideological energy from the same ecosystem that has been mobilized externally. Whether that has strengthened the Basij through mobilization or weakened it through distraction and attrition is an open question but it is unlikely to be neutral.
I do wonder if the Iranian made a mistake going for the bomb instead of focusing on domestic/economic stability (as implied by the WSJ).
In truth, neither the West nor Israel can overthrow Iran’s government; but hyperinflation can. I am fairly confident even if Iran’s government stays — major reforms would be needed to stay in power in the medium term. Hyperinflation is usually fatal to most governments (see KMT in China 1947, Yugoslavia 1989, Brazil 1985); even when its not immediately fatal, it corrodes trust in the government that makes it easy pickings a few years later (Venezuela 2016, Germany 1922).
I think the claim “Iranians are not Muslims” is supposed to say “Iranians are not Arabs.” Their Persian heritage is different. Most are still Muslims (primarily Shiites). Even before this uprising, I had seen a lot of videos about Christianity spreading in Iran. Hopefully, during the turmoil, they do not become the target of a government seeking to lay blame similar to how Nero had done when things were bad in Rome.
I think curiousonlooker makes a good point about the power of hyperinflation to damage a regime.
See my latest post.
No, it is being claimed they are not Muslims but are mostly non-religious.
And, yes, Arabs are different from Iranians. For Arabs Islam is a tribal religion, a mechanism for spreading Arab power, language, and culture. For them Islam and those are inseparable. That’s something I’ve posted on before. That is not the case for Iranians.