The parallels between the Iranian and Syrian revolutions are striking. Will Syria experience the same future as today’s Iran of the Mullahs?
FLASHBACK: IRAN, JANUARY 1979
Flashback: In 1979, an autocratic reigns in Iran. He is the Shah. He holds his country a terrifying political police force that all opponents fear – and rightly so.
An opposition movement exists, in exile, which eventually succeeded in seizing power at the end of a revolution. The new regime is made up of two main forces: the “Democrats”, i.e. the Communists in the Communists in the ’70s, and the Islamists.
They agreed on nothing except bring down the current regime. But when they talk about liberating the people, the women, the students or the workers from oppression, they don’t speak the same language.
Forsaken by its international supports (in the case of Iran, the United States and Europe), the Shah’s regime collapsed and the Shah went into exile.
Today’s Syrian picture is exactly the same.
Regime opposition groups have nothing in common between (“Democratic Forces” vs “ISIS-like Islamists”), but combine their efforts with a common goal: to bring down the regime. International “sponsors” have agreed to abandon the regime in place, condemning the despot to flight in exile.
In both cases, the people rejoice and the medias from all over the world bring out haggard prisoners from fascist jails. Fascist, inevitably fascist.
Everywhere, the main stream medias, chancelleries and official authorities rejoiced at the fall of the dictator. Game over.
WHAT FIT YOU BETTER? A MULLAH OR A SHAH?
In Iran, the euphoria was short-lived.
Ayatollah Khomeini quickly installed a new dictatorship, but it was this time an Islamist one. He rapidly swept aside the rebellious democratic forces, who ended up in the jails of the new regime, in the hands of a regime police force whose name alone had changed – but not its bad habits.
Fifty years on, the people who once rejoiced in the streets of the capital is weeping desperately, praying to heaven that someone will finally break the burden that crushes their shoulders and hangs their youth for dancing or singing.
In short, Iranians and Western chancelleries are mourning the evil Shah, who in the end had some good in him.
SYRIA: WORRYINGLY WEAK SIGNALS
Fortunately, Syria is not condemned to the same ordeal as Iran. But I’d wager that the path will be the same. A path to hell.
The new masters of the Syrian regime have begun to show where they want to go.
About the possibility of a Coalition government? Afuera! To speak the words of the newly elected Argentinean president Millei. The non-HTS rebel factions have been excluded from the talks on the new future Syrian government. Congrats!
The new Minister of Justice announced, among his first decisions, that women can no longer be judges; and that consequently cases that were handled by female judges had to be reassigned to men judges and that these women judges had to change professions. Congrats!
The regime’s new strongman announced that women must start wearing the Islamic veil voluntarily (of course!) but that if they didn’t do so voluntarily, they would soon feel the coercive violence of the state. Congrats!
Christian communities are now asked to stop ringing their church bells. Congrats!
I don’t know about you, but I’m afraid this good news about the fall of Bashar El-Assad’s regime is a Pyrrhic victory, or rather an Iranian-style victory. Who will live will see. Or, more likely, will weep bitterly.
