aawsat.com, Amir Taheri :

For more than a week now, Iran has been in something of turmoil with crowds of various sizes holding protests in more than 30 cities including the capital Tehran. Thanks to scenes not seen in Iran since 2009 when the regime managed to put down a popular uprising in Tehran, many questions have been raised about what is euphemistically referred to as “the events”.

The first question is: Who are the protesters?

As always, the regime’s analysis is that the protests are the result of conspiracies by the United States which, with the departure of President Barack Obama who sought accommodation with the present leadership in Tehran, is now committed to regime change under President Donald Trump.

The regime’s analysis is too childish to merit detailed rebuttal. Suffice it to say that while the Trump administration may like regime change in Iran it has, so far at least, done absolutely nothing to move in that direction. In any case, if regime change were as easy as merely desiring it the US would have achieved changes of regime in Cuba and North Korea long ago.

The US and, in different contexts, other major powers can help prolong the life of a regime by bestowing on it the legitimacy it does not deserve and providing it with the economic and political sustenance it needs to survive.

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