Quds Day in Iran: Velvet Revolution Trumps Nuclear Negotiations

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PolicyWatch #1580

Quds Day in Iran: Velvet Revolution Trumps Nuclear Negotiations

By Mehdi Khalaji and Patrick Clawson
September 17, 2009

While the United States is concentrating on the G-20 summit and the October 1 meeting with the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Iranian attention has been focused on the potentially destabilizing protests planned for September 18, Quds Day. This critical difference of agenda — with Iran focused more on its domestic turmoil than on simmering international issues — will be a major complicating factor in negotiations between the international community and Iran in the coming weeks.

Background

Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has promoted the last Friday of Ramadan as “Quds Day” (Jerusalem Day), a celebration of solidarity with Palestinian rejectionism and of protest against the United States and Israel. Quds Day has become symbolic of the Islamic Republic’s effort to present itself as the leader of the world Muslim community in rejecting what it perceives as Western and Israeli plots against Islam.

This year, Quds Day presents the Iranian government with a serious dilemma: allowing hundreds of thousands of Iranians to protest on the street offers the opposition an opportunity to air its slogans. As Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s grandson Hassan Khomeini said on September 16, “Quds Day is international; it is not exclusive to Quds. It is a day for the oppressed to resist against the oppressors.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has issued statements blaming “the Zionist regime” for plotting to bring people to the streets on Quds Day to “deviate people’s move against” Israel. For the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been prevented from leading prayers in Tehran on Quds Day. The earlier hope, perhaps, was that Rafsanjani would only discuss foreign affairs, showing the unity among Iran’s leaders on these issues, but that seems to have become too risky for the regime. Already, Iran’s conservatives have calculated that the people might protest against them rather than against Israel and the West — a development that would expose the hardliners’ empty claims of popular support.

How delicate is Iran’s domestic political situation? Will the regime’s stability be threatened by popular demonstrations on “Quds Day”?

This analysis from the Washington Institute unpacks some of the complexities of Iran’s domestic politics and its relationship with the West.

Worth reading the rest of the article.

Technorati Tags: Iran, politics