The Reckoning of the Ayatollahs: Understanding Iran's Burgeoning Uprising

**Ryan Evans** (0:10)
You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. My name is Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War on the Rocks. This is a very special episode. We're actually giving you a free episode of The Iran Reckoning with Afshon Ostovar, which is one of our members-only shows. We decided to ungate this great conversation that lasts about an hour that Afshon and I just had about the burgeoning protest movement in Iran, the regime's efforts to suppress it violently, and what outside actors, including the United States, Israel, Russia, China, and others might do. It's really deep. It's the result of decades of study of this issue by Afshon. And if you really want to understand what's happening, I think this is sort of the must-listen episode. This one's free, of course, but you can listen to all episodes of The Iran Reckoning if you become a member at waronlerocks.com/membership. You don't just get access to this show, but you get access to The Russian Contingency with Michael Kaufman, Thinking the Unthinkable with Ankit Panda, a bunch of newsletters, a bunch of other podcasts that only our members get that come out all the time. So, if you are a national security professional, a hobbyist, a nerd, someone that's just passionate about these issues, that finds importance in understanding what's going on in the world, this is the ultimate program for you. Again, that's at waronlerocks.com/membership.
And now to my conversation with Afshon. Afshon, lots going on in the topic that you've dedicated your adult life to studying. You must be going through a lot of not just thoughts, ideas, but also emotions in a way.

**Afshon Ostovar** (1:35)
It's been a busy time. I mean, whenever things pop off in Iran like this, you always have these mixed emotions. On the one hand, you want to remain your usual objective, analytical self. If I've tried to do anything in my career, it's to be sort of cool headed about things and try to look at things as clear eyed and objectively as I can. But on the other hand, when it touches something that's personal to you that you have a stake in personally, not just professionally, it's difficult to maintain that usual kind of objective self. And so, yeah, it's always kind of an interesting time. But in some ways, it's very exciting. In some ways, it's really heart rendering.

**Ryan Evans** (2:20)
So we're recording this on Monday in the middle of the day, US East Coast time. Things are changing fast. But I think it's fair to say, correct me if I'm wrong, that these are the most broad based protests that we've seen in Iran since the 79 Revolution.

**Afshon Ostovar** (2:37)
Yeah, absolutely. They are. And they didn't start off that way. They started off stronger in provincial areas and in ethnic minority provinces, but they steadily grew. Since December 28th, they've just grown and grown and grown until finally they really reached the capital with a vengeance a few days ago and have just been growing in intensity, in vigor, and in consequences. The crackdown that the regime has led has really intensified. Because Iran is in an internet blackout, phone lines are down, Starlink is being jammed. It's really difficult to get things out of the country. We don't know the scale of what's going on. We just get bits and pieces. But yeah, it seems to be intensifying in every way.

**Ryan Evans** (3:26)
How do you distinguish or delineate the protests from last year, which were primarily, it seems, about social issues and from the younger urban class versus what started kicking off in December?

**Afshon Ostovar** (3:38)
I mean, in many ways, we can kind of look at this historically a bit. I mean, you had the revolution itself, obviously, which was generated from a very prolonged and persistent protest movement across 78 and into 79 But through the 80s, things are very topsy turvy, but you also have the Iran-Iraq War that's kind of holding things together. In the 90s, you start to have this reform movement that kind of culminates in 1999 in these student protests, which were mostly about reform. And compared to everything that's come since, were pretty small, but they were the first real articulations of a younger generation that wanted things different. Then in 2009, you have the protests that kick off after the contested re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And those were really, really large. And it's the first time that we start to get this chant death to the dictator, right? It's the first time that you get this anti-regime sentiment within the protest. But they're still mostly about reforming what is the Islamic Republic.