For days, Iran has been struggling with a profound and complex crisis, unlike any that has affected the country in the past. To understand the complexity of what is happening, it is necessary to take into account many factors and develop a comprehensive analysis of the country's ethnic and social makeup, profoundly affected by the Khomeini revolution that has shaped it over the past 46 years. ---- The Complex Composition of Iran ---- It is impossible to understand what is happening in Iran without starting from the fact that the country is an empire and knows it. Its state structure brings together a diverse group of peoples with deep cultural roots: the country is inhabited by Persians, Azeris, and Kurds, who represent approximately 70% of the population, and by minorities such as the Baluchis, Arabs, Gilakis, Mazandarani, Luri, Yasiris, and others. Despite this ethnic diversity, Iran has a common national identity, founded on the Persian language and culture, forming a people that has remained united despite the cultural, religious, and customary differences that characterize it. Over the centuries, these communities have maintained peaceful relations, contributing to the unity of Iran. The country covers an area of 1,648,000 square kilometers and has a population of approximately 93 million, almost equally distributed between males and females, with an average age of 32.
The country's economic interests are based on the presence of large oil deposits, 208.6 billion barrels, of which it extracts 3.2 to 4.7 million, representing 11.82% of global reserves; natural gas deposits (second in the world after Russia), from which it extracts only 250 billion cubic meters annually due to sanctions; and its possession of numerous mineral deposits (copper, iron, lead, chronite, zinc, lithium, and rare earths).Its strategic position between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf gives it a prominent role in the military control of the area and its possession of the Strait of Hormuz, which allows it to influence maritime traffic from the Emirates. For this combination of reasons, Iran has in the past been targeted by Britain, which, in addition to controlling oil and gas production, seizing its revenues, and exploiting its mineral resources, used the country as a regional police force, supporting the Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled the country for 54 years, thanks to the support of a criminal political police force, the SAVAK, which was on a par with the Gestapo.
Social interests have always had a place in Iran, as demonstrated by the fact that in June 1920, activists from the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Iran, "Edalat" (Justice), founded the Communist Party of Iran, the first in the Arab-Islamic world. Mohammad Mosaddeq, leader of the National Front of Iran, attempted to free the country from British exploitation from 1951 to 1953. He became Prime Minister after a democratic election, but was deposed in a coup d'état supported by British and American intelligence agencies, backed by the Pahalavi ruling house. These forces opposed his decision to nationalize the Anglo-Persian OIL Company, the timid agrarian reform that had allowed farmers to receive at least part of their harvest, and a tax reform that for the first time required the wealthy classes to pay income and property taxes.
These decisions caused the country's economic crisis, fueling opposition to his modernization reforms. Mosaddeq was abandoned by the militant Shiite clergy who refused to give up the landed properties managed by the habous, the landowners, the tax-ridden bazaar merchants, and the national bourgeoisie, vassals of the colonial powers.
Thus, while Shah Mohammad Reza was in exile in Rome, the government led by Mossaddeq was overthrown by a military coup aided by US and British intelligence. These forces launched Operation Ajax, which led to Mohammad Mosaddeq's replacement by Mossadeq Zahedi, a British favorite. The deposed leader was tried and imprisoned for three years, before spending the rest of his life under house arrest.
The Iranian people know their history well, are deeply and widely educated, and have not forgotten. For this reason, the advances made by the Shah's son during this crisis to propose himself as an alternative leader of the country are regarded with contempt and disgust, and they do not even enjoy the support of the millions of Iranians in the diaspora who left the country after the Khomeini revolution or who oppose the Islamic Republic but have remained in the country. Even Trump and the US administration seem to have understood this, apparently having abandoned this shady character who never misses an opportunity to run for the post of Ayatollah.
The Islamic Republic
During the reign of Reza Pahalavi, the Iranian people were oppressed by 26 years of dictatorship and terrible persecution, while the Shah's romantic adventures flooded tabloids around the world. Then, a series of political and social upheavals led to the Islamic Revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, who soon installed a theocratic government inspired by the political thought of Shiite Islam. At the time, it was supported by bazaar traders, who had suffered from predatory colonialism, and by the oppressed peasant masses.
Gradually, power transformed into a regime, imposing its own ethics and morality on the country, derived from a reading of the Quran according to which the Prophet and the experience of governing the Shiite lineage had designed the structures and institutions of an Islamic society, both politically and socially and ethically. In this new theocratically managed society, public morality, in the literal Shiite interpretation of the Quran and the history of Islam, constituted and constitutes a fundamental element of the clergy's controlling role, both in social and economic life. Hence the introduction of a public moral law, characterized by the principles of Sharia derived from the Quran and the Sunnah, which guides the various aspects of life-spiritual, ethical, and legal. This law is seen as deriving from women's dress, with the requirement to wear the chador, interpreted as a formal act of submission. This status, however, corresponds in Iranian society to women's great freedom of access to cultural and professional education at university, and to their being granted a recognized role in social organization and the world of work based on their acquired skills (70% of graduates are women). However, the interconnection of this vision with the creation of clientelistic structures such as the hobus has ended up giving rise to distorting phenomena, characterized by clientelism and corruption, which create skills and merit for women as well as for men.
This led to a demand for the liberalization of customs and the abolition of the wearing of the chador, as well as the morality police established to repress and enforce "Islamic morality." This led to the birth of the "Women, Justice and Freedom" movement, which was repressed with prisons, hangings, and the most violent repression, ultimately resulting in the suspension of the law requiring the strict wearing of this garment.
The Deep Reasons for the Crisis
After 46 years of existence, the Islamic Republic of Iran has built its social structures while taking into account the role played by the social, cultural, and economic components that supported the revolutionary movement. The revolt against the monarchical despot originated in the bazaar and saw a prominent role played by the Iranian national bourgeoisie, previously based on the bazaar economy, oppressed and blackmailed in its trade by the British and the Americans. To win, the revolution allied itself with and engaged the peasants, who at the time constituted the absolute majority of the country's population (the rural population still remains the majority today). The regime was strengthened by the army, which over the years has constituted one of the pillars of the Iranian state, with an increasing role as the armed forces grew in an effort to give the country the capacity to fulfill its
strategic political role in the region.
Over time, the Shiite clergy proceeded to build a theocratic state, erecting institutions that adhere to the principles of Shiite Islamic law. This law is primarily based on the role played by the clergy in the political sphere and by the hubus in the economic sphere, both in the management of land ownership and in the conduct of economic activities of all kinds. Each of these "pious foundations," controlled by the clergy, effectively constituted a productive and/or financial compound to which clients were connected. Collectively, the Hobus now control the country's main production sectors and maintain a network of power and clienteles that serves as a distributor of work activities, obtaining in exchange from its members obedience to the instructions of the Shiite clergy and support for its battles.
In this general context, a significant opposition role has recently been played by university students, numerous in the country, and by their movement, composed primarily of female students who participate in productive life with leading roles in economic, financial, and professional activities, unlike any other Muslim country. Indeed, it must be said that the very contrast between this perfectly autonomous role and the social, cultural, and economic valorization of women creates a stark contrast with the restrictions on dress and the social role of women, which the Shiite clergy relegates to a subordinate level and, in any case, socially obscured by prevailing custom. This contradictory element was-as I know-the basis for the birth of the "Women, Life and Freedom" movement and guided the struggle for emancipation, giving rise to a radical and profound movement that involved a large portion of Iran's youth, especially women. They waged their own struggles from 2021 to 2024, arousing the interest of all those forces opposed to the Islamic Republic and widespread sympathy and support in feminist movements and beyond. The worsening economic crisis, largely caused by 46 years of sanctions, has resulted in an institutional and political crisis for the regime, worn down by the spread and persistence of clientelistic relationships (often resulting in corrupt activities), and increasingly clashes with the aspirations of an educated and meritocratic middle class whose aspirations are being squeezed.
Added to these domestic causes are the effects of the international political crisis, which, due to Israeli and US attacks, has led to the elimination or neutralization of the country's proxies, consisting of the many anti-Zionist movements born in Lebanon, Palestine, and among the Houthis, which have allowed Iran to play an active role in the Middle East and support the Palestinian struggle. The rearmament costs imposed by international attacks, which have united the country around the government and strengthened it, have further worsened the economic situation, along with the sanctions imposed on the country by the United States and the West.
This has provided enough fodder to fuel protests over extremely high inflation and the devaluation of the rial (the national currency), just when the new economic relations established within the BRICS seemed to offer the country a prospect of development and overcoming the siege through sanctions.
The costs of Israel's attack on Iran and the necessary rearmament expenses are one of the causes of Iran's economic crisis, along with geostrategic reasons stemming from the fact that Iran had found in the BRICS and its economic partnership with China a way to escape the noose of sanctions that have strangled it economically for years. Today, the economic crisis risks making the economic situation increasingly critical, even though the arms partnership with Russia has contributed to increasing the US hegemon's pressure on the country.
The US and Israeli Destabilization Plan
As Trump's further aggression against Iran appears to be brewing, this time led directly by the Americans, who once again claim control over Iranian oil and gas, with Israel stepping in to complete the destruction of its infrastructure, one wonders what the hegemon's objective is. While the strategic and economic rationale for this aggression is well understood, consisting of gaining control of the major oil-producing countries in order to manage and influence the crude oil and gas market, allowing the United States to assume a dominant position in the marketing of the product and in setting its price globally, less clear are the ways in which the United States intends to pursue this goal, nor is it fully understood what Israel's objectives are.
A fairly credible hypothesis is that Iran will replicate the ideas of the brilliant minds raging in Washington regarding Russia. Considering that the country is, as we said, an empire, made up of multiple ethnic groups and peoples, the perspective in which the United States seems to be moving is to produce the fragmentation of the country, its balkanization and division into many small ethnic states, more easily manageable and maneuverable, thanks to a network of alliances and interconnections that Israel and the United States believe they are capable of building. A fragmented Iran, divided into many small states, could pose no obstacle to Israel's hegemony over the entire Middle East, allowing it to radically and definitively redraw its borders, creating the space and the conditions for the construction of a greater Israel. Its government is now desperately seeking a success that would justify its war efforts, as the country has opened many fronts but failed to close even one, with even limited success.
If this is the reasoning, the United States and Israel have failed to reckon without their host: the Iranian people. The attack on the country in the 13-day war and the history of its relations with the West have taught the Iranian people that the enemy's goal is to undermine national unity by undermining the pride and prestige of the Persian people, who are certainly not willing to be under the thumb of the Americans or the Israelis. Indeed, the growing possibility of the dissolution of the country's unity strengthens the Shiite clergy's power over institutions, especially since it retains a very large influence over the country's rural population. This is demonstrated by the large demonstrations in support of the government that, despite everything, have taken place, which the West and its media, subservient to the US mainstream narrative, have been careful not to publicize and have done everything to conceal.
We are convinced that a US attack on the country would not only be painful for the naval squadron led by the aircraft carrier Lincoln heading for the Persian Gulf, but would also end up further strengthening the regime.
After the 13-Day War, China, more than Russia, has renewed its missile arsenal, radar networks, and Iranian air force, as they saw the attack on the country as a threat to their investments (it should not be forgotten that China purchases much of the Iranian oil and gas essential to its economy).
The Iranian game is therefore wide open and yet to be played, and the future of the Middle East and beyond depends on it and its outcome.
Gianni Cimbalo
https://www.ucadi.org/2026/01/31/liran-alla-ricerca-di-una-terza-via/
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Link: (en) Italy, UCADI, #204 - Iran in Search of a Third Way (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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