Why Iran’s clerical establishment still holds as protests rage

Challenges Facing Iran's Clerical Establishment

By Samia Nakhoul

DUBAI, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Despite Iran's nationwide protests and years of external pressure, there are as yet no signs of fracture in the Islamic Republic's security elite that could bring an end to one of the world's most resilient governments.

Adding to the stress on Iran's clerical rulers, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened military action over Tehran's severe crackdown on the protests, which follow an Israeli and U.S. bombing campaign last year against Iran's nuclear program and key officials.

Impact of U.S. Military Threats

But unless the street unrest and foreign pressure can prompt defections at the top, the establishment, though weakened, will likely hold, two diplomats, two government sources in the Middle East and two analysts told Reuters.

Casualties and Arrests During Protests

Around 2,000 people have been killed in the protests, an Iranian official told Reuters, blaming people he called terrorists for the deaths of civilians and security personnel. Human rights groups had previously tallied around 600 deaths.

Iran's layered security architecture, anchored by the Revolutionary Guards and Basij paramilitary force, which together number close to one million people, makes external coercion without internal rupture exceedingly difficult, said Vali Nasr, an Iranian-American academic and expert on regional conflicts and U.S. foreign policy.

“For this sort of thing to succeed, you have to have crowds in the streets for a much longer period of time. And you have to have a breakup of the state. Some segments of the state, and particularly the security forces, have to defect," he said.

Iran's mission to the U.N. in Geneva, the U.S. State Department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by email out of office hours.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, has survived several past waves of unrest. This is the fifth major uprising since 2009, evidence of resilience and cohesion even as the government confronts a deep, unresolved internal crisis, said Paul Salem of the Middle East Institute.

For that to change, protesters would have to generate enough momentum to overcome the state’s entrenched advantages: powerful institutions, a sizeable constituency loyal to the clerical rule, and the geographic and demographic scale of a country of 90 million people, said Alan Eyre, a former U.S. diplomat and Iran expert.

Economic Challenges and Sanctions

Survival, however, does not equal stability, the analysts said. The Islamic Republic is facing one of its gravest challenges since 1979. Sanctions have strangled the economy with no clear path to recovery. Strategically, it is under pressure from Israel and the United States, its nuclear program degraded, its regional “Axis of Resistance” proxy armed groups weakened by crippling losses to allies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. 

Nasr said that while he didn't think the Islamic Republic had reached the “moment of fall," it was "now in a situation of great difficulty going forward."

The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning squarely against clerical rule. Politically, the violent crackdown has further eroded what remained of the Islamic Republic's legitimacy.

U.S.-based rights group HRANA says it has verified the deaths of 573 people, 503 protesters and 69 security personnel. More than 10,000 have been arrested, the group said.

Iran has released no official toll, and Reuters was unable to independently verify the figures.

TRUMP WEIGHS OPTIONS AMID IRAN CRACKDOWN

What sets this moment apart, and raises the stakes, analysts say, is Trump’s explicit warnings that the killing of demonstrators could trigger an American intervention.

Trump will meet with senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for Iran, a U.S. official told Reuters on Sunday. Iran said it is keeping communications open with Washington. Trump, who says he may meet Iranian officials, on Monday threatened tariffs on countries that trade with Iran. China is Tehran's top trade partner. 

In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation. 

Trump’s interest in the protests, the analysts said, is likely tactical rather than ideological, Salem said. The aim could be pliability - weakening the state enough to extract concessions such as curbs on Tehran's nuclear programme, he said.

Potential U.S. Actions and Responses

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Trump's goals in Iran.

The idea of a “Venezuela model” has growing appeal in some circles in Washington and Jerusalem, a diplomat and three of the analysts said. It envisions the removal of Iran's top authority while signaling to the remaining state apparatus: stay in place, provided they cooperate, they said.

Applied to Iran, however, it collides with formidable obstacles - a security state entrenched for decades, deep institutional cohesion and a much larger and ethnically complex country.

Two regional officials and two of the analysts told Reuters foreign military action could fracture Iran along ethnic and sectarian lines, particularly in Kurdish and Sunni Balush regions with histories of resistance. 

For now, constraints remain. U.S. military assets are stretched elsewhere, though the diplomats said that deployments could shift quickly.

David Makovsky at The Washington Institute, a think tank, said that if Trump acts, he expects a swift, high-impact action rather than a prolonged campaign - consistent with the president's preference in recent conflicts for a single decisive action rather than deploying ground troops.

"He looks for this one gesture that might be a game changer, but what is it?," said Makovsky.

Options range from maritime pressure on Iranian oil shipments to targeted military or cyber strikes, all carrying serious risks.

Some measures, all the sources said, could stop short of force, such as restoring internet access via Starlink to help protesters communicate. 

The White House and State Department did not respond to Reuters questions about what action, if any, Trump might take.

“Trump sometimes uses threats to delay decisions, sometimes to deter adversaries, and sometimes to signal he is actually preparing to intervene,” said Makovsky at The Washington Institute. “We just don’t know yet which applies here.”

(Reporting by Samia Nakhoul; editing by Frank Jack Daniel)