by Melanie Phillips
All week, Iranians have been mounting massive and widespread street protests. Triggered by ruinous increases in the cost of living and acute water shortages, they quickly became an insurrection against the Tehran regime, with protesters chanting for the return of the Shah.
These demonstrations have been far more consequential than previous such revolts. They started among the businessmen of the bazaars — the same kind of people who had helped depose the Shah and brought the Islamic revolutionary regime to power in 1979.
Even more remarkably, a number of bases for the fearsome Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia reportedly fell into the hands of protesters, with one Basij operative killed after demonstrators threw stones in Kuhdasht, a city in western Iran.
At time of writing, this insurrection is still escalating. Although at least four protesters have been killed, the feared bloodbath by security forces hasn’t yet materialised. Instead there have been unconfirmed reports that some have refused to fire on protesters, forcing the regime to call in Arab reinforcements; that other security forces have run away; and even that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has fled Tehran.
Maybe this revolt will fizzle out under ferocious reprisals, as all previous ones have done. But maybe this time it will succeed in toppling the regime; it’s the closest the people have ever come to doing so.
If they succeed, this would have a seismic impact far beyond Iran. It would transform and reshape global politics immeasurably for the better by removing a malevolent force devoted to the annihilation of Israel, the destruction of America and the conquest of the West.