David Menashri: American Resolve Can Stop Iran’s „March towards a Nuclear Weapon“

by Marilyn Stern
Middle East Forum Webinar
July 3, 2021

„David Menashri, emeritus professor at the Middle Eastern and African History Department of Tel Aviv University, spoke to a May 28 Middle East Forum webinar (video) about the nature of Iran’s regime and how Washington can bring it to heel.

According to Menashri, a scholar of modern Iranian history, Iran is „the only country in the Middle East which [had] two big revolutions in the 20th century.“ In contrast to the Arab world, which has been mostly quiescent save for the so-called „Arab Spring“ that roiled the Middle East in 2010-2011, Iran has experienced multiple „Persian Springs,“ from the student uprisings of 1999 to the Bloody November protests of 2019-2020, interrupted only by the pandemic.

Menashri said Iran is a „very complex“ country where what seems obvious on the surface is not always as it appears. The 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to Menashri, was Islamic in name only. The revolution’s roots were not religious, but „social, economic, political, cultural, [and] international.“ The basic issues behind the population’s unrest were „bread and freedom, welfare and liberties, social justice and political justice,“ causes that were „hijacked … to make it an Islamic revolution.“

There are differences in belief within the regime over „interpretations of Islam,“ but these are secondary to the pursuit of regime survival. In a „religious society,“ it is expedient for rulers to claim their actions are the „will of God,“ particularly when they use force to „suppress people,“ but what constitutes divine will depends on the exigencies of regime survival.

The factions that vie for power in Iran, „hardliners“ and „pragmatic realists,“ mainly disagree over strategy. As for the latter, „I would not call them moderates,“ said Menashri. With the (then-expected) election of Ebrahim Raisi as president, hardliners now control all the leading „institutions of power“ and „are not hesitant to suppress people.“  (…)