Don't Oversimplify the Protests in Iran

by Abbas Milani, NPR

For years, Washington's thinking on Iran has fallen into two oversimplified opposing camps. Regime apologists insist the Islamic Republic is strategically invulnerable and the United States must not only accept, but appease, the status quo. On the other side are American jingoists who rightly point to the Iranian regime's egregious behavior — human rights abuses at home and proxy bating of the U.S. and its allies regionally — and then wrongly conclude that no negotiation with the regime is warranted and that the only prudent policy is regime change in Iran.

Both were wrong in the past, and are even more harmful now when the regime is in the throes of a serious test.

The regime is strategically weak because it faces daunting challenges — from oil price changes and water shortages to a disgruntled, Internet-savvy, youthful population, led by increasingly assertive women, hampered by chronic double-digit inflation and unemployment, and angered by corruption, cronyism and the squandering of massive sums in proxy wars, particularly in Syria.

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