Mahan Abedin
As much of the world has wavered in its response to what is now increasingly becoming a fully-fledged revolution in Egypt, Iran's rulers have proved an exception.
From the outset, the Islamic Republic and its vast network of organized supporters across the region have hailed the Egyptian uprising as a belated aftershock of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Only a week ago, Iran's Supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei branded the revolt against President Hosni Mubarak's regime as an intrinsic part of an Islamic liberation movement sweeping the region. The prospect of radical change in Egypt is intoxicating to Iran's leaders and their supporters across the region. This is a moment they have been awaiting for more than three decades. The
Iranians' hopes rest on profound geopolitical insight as well as a blind faith in the corrective power of revolutionary movements.
Any major political change in Egypt is likely to spread to the rest of the Arab world. More importantly, political change in Egypt will almost certainly complicate Egyptian-American relations, likely to the point of generating substantial geopolitical benefits for Iran and her allies.
States of revolution
It wasn't that long ago that Iran's rulers were facing what appeared to be a revolution on their home soil. Following the disputed presidential elections of June 2009, hundreds of thousands - perhaps millions - of Iranians took to the streets to register their protest at what they believed was a rigged ballot. Almost immediately, the street protesters widened their demands with the more radical elements calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
But there are fundamental differences between the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the so-called Green uprising in Iran in 2009.
In Tunisia and Egypt, the uprisings appeared to be spontaneous and not tied to political infighting within the establishment. In Iran on the other hand, the street protests were the most visible sign of deep fractures within the ruling elites. As the Islamic Republic moved away from a factional political model to a more conventionally authoritarian one, the street protests lost momentum and fizzled out.
There is also a striking contrast in the response to the protests. In Tunisia and now Egypt, the security establishment showed prevarication, divisions and hesitation in the face of mass protests, thus conceding the psychological advantage to the revolutionaries.
In Iran, the ideologically motivated security establishment swung firmly behind the Islamic Republic and set about managing the protests with a smart combination of hard and soft power.
At the street level, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) tasked its Basij paramilitary wing to crack down harshly on the protesters. While the Basij - alongside other security forces - was willing to use lethal force, this drastic option was used sparingly. This is reflected in the casualty figures where only a few dozen protesters were killed in six months of intermittent protests.
In Egypt by contrast, even though the security response has been convoluted and half-hearted, hundreds of protesters have been killed in only two weeks of demonstrations.
Meanwhile, at the political level the Ministry of Intelligence and Security intervened to ease the breach between the competing factions at a grassroots level. Faced with an increasingly radical hardcore of street protesters (especially in the latter parts of 2009 culminating with the bloody protests on Ashura Day in late December) the grassroots of the reformist factions decided to prioritize their ultimate loyalty to the Islamic Republic over factional political advantage.
In effect they sacrificed their leadership and organizations - and to some extent their political identity, at least in the short term - to save the legacy of the Islamic Revolution.
From the point of view of stability and security, the overall outcome has been highly favorable to the Islamic Republic, in so far as it has empowered the state at the expense of civil society. More broadly, the collapse of the so-called "Green" movement has reaped significant strategic dividends for the Islamic Republic.
At the most critical level, the failure of mass street protests in the face of the iron will of the establishment and its ideologically motivated security apparatus has finally put the myth of "regime change" to bed.
From their statements in the past 12 months, it is clear that Iran's rulers and their IRGC enforcers feel that the Islamic Revolution has become resilient to so-called "soft" threats, to the point of guaranteeing the continuation of the revolution for another generation. This point was made forcefully on Wednesday by Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former IRGC commander and currently a senior military advisor to Supreme Leader Khamenei.
Sweeping uprisings in the Arab world have been a key aspiration of Iranian leaders since the heady days of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In the early years this was primarily a reflection of the revolutionary nature and ethos of Iranian rulers and their quest to enlist allies and supporters in the struggle against the prevailing international system.
But with the passage of time and the consolidation of the Islamic Republic, revolutionary fervor has merged with a new set of national interests. This has increased Iran's desire for change, for not only does it allow the example and ideas of the 1979 revolution to penetrate deeper in the region but it also serves real Iranian national interests by making the region more resilient to Western political and cultural influence.
While it is foolish to compare the current diffuse and leaderless Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings to the epic events of the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, Iran's leaders are correct to some extent by claiming that the conceptual framework of these mass demonstrations - and presumably the outcomes they yield in due course - is at least partly inspired by the Iranian revolutionary model.
Iran versus Egypt
Iranian-Egyptian relations have been severely strained since the Iranian Revolution, after the late Anwar Sadat granted the late Shah of Iran residency in Egypt. But even if the Egyptians hadn't indulged in that provocative gesture, relations are likely to have hit rock bottom anyway.
From the very outset the Islamic Republic singled out the Egyptian regime as one of its greatest ideological adversaries, chiefly because of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. Official Iranian media have for over three decades vilified Egypt's ruling elites as the "Camp David" regime. The extent of this enmity was revealed after Sadat's assassination in October 1981, following which one of the main avenues in central Tehran was named after his assassin.
From an Iranian point of view, any regime in Egypt is preferable to the current establishment. But Iran is hoping for truly revolutionary change in Egypt and this can only come about if the street protests don't climax too soon (as they did in Tunisia) and thus leave the pillars of the regime intact.
With the model of the Iranian Revolution firmly in mind, Iranian leaders are hoping for a drawn-out confrontation between the people and the establishment, one that will gradually erode the political and security infrastructure of the Egyptian regime. By refusing to depart the arena Mubarak has played into Iran's hands.
Many analysts and commentators have waxed lyrical about Iran's desire to see the Muslim Brotherhood play a leading role in the unfolding Egyptian revolution. The truth is that the Iranian establishment is not convinced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's purported revolutionary credentials.
Whereas the leadership of the Iranian Revolution had a distinct and realistic plan to completely remake the state and create a new political society, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is far too conservative and risk-averse to undertake such a Herculean task.
For its part, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is too old and ideologically confident to seek inspiration from the Islamic Republic. Moreover, the bulk of the Muslim Brotherhood is determined to keep a safe political distance from Iran, despite sharing strategic objectives with the Islamic Republic, including the desire to check American influence in the region. The pro-Iranian faction in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is marginalized and resides outside of Egypt.
Strategic ramifications
Only the complete overthrow of the military-backed regime (with its roots stretching back to 1952) holds any realistic prospect of radically altering Egypt's strategic profile. But even a partial change in Egyptian foreign policy suits Iran, inasmuch as that change is almost guaranteed to be a step away from the American-Israeli security system in the Middle East.
A more independent Egypt is likely to be friendly towards Iran, thus enabling the latter to pursue its foreign policy in the region even more effectively. The unleashing of new political and strategic dynamics in the region will create spaces and opportunities which Iran can exploit to gradually accumulate hard power with a view to reaching a position where American aggression becomes prohibitively costly.
A so-called democratic Egypt of any shade or complexion is bound to consume American energies. This doesn't necessarily mean that Egypt will become overtly anti-American but that the United States needs to try far harder - and spend a lot more money - to keep Egypt on side.
The political and strategic outcome of the unfolding Egyptian revolution is far from pre-determined. But among the key international stakeholders it is only Iran's rulers who are confident about the outcome.
Mahan Abedin is an analyst of Middle East politics.
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