In February 2023, several figures from the fragmented Iranian opposition in exile met in Washington to try to unify positions and form a political coalition dedicated to preparing a potential transition in Iran towards a democratic and secular regime. The streets of the Islamic Republic They were once again abuzz. Months of massive protests under the slogan “Woman, Life and Freedom” They had put the ayatollahs on the ropes again. Faced with the new window of opportunity, that coalition of monarchists, liberals, leftists and human rights defenders such as the Nobel Prize winner Ebadi program was able to agree on a document of principles with the strategy to follow to unseat the regime. But it was nothing more than a mirage. Internal disputes resurfaced after the document was published, and less than two months after it all began, the coalition had dissolved.
“That was a farce,” says now the Iranian filmmaker and academic Kaveh Abbasian, involved in the student movements in his country and now exiled in the United Kingdom. “There were unknown people, groups close to American intelligence and then there was Reza Pahlavi, the shah’s son, who tried to lead the coalition by imposing on his people. When others opposed, Pahleví left the group and everything went to waste.” That episode serves to illustrate the difficulties that the Iranian opposition in exile has historically had to unite its different factions and act in a coordinated manner against the theocratic regime. An apparent necessity in the wake of recent massive protests in Iran — repressed by authorities with thousands dead — and Donald Trump’s threats to intervene in the country. The Pentagon has concentrated naval forces in the region, although, for now, the path to negotiation remains open, as was seen on Friday in Oman.
There is everything in this Iranian opposition. From republicans a monarchists, leftists and liberals, nationalists o moderate islamists who were once part of the regime. To all this we should add various factions linked to the ethnic minorities of the country, some of them separatists. “The opposition is weak and very fragmented because they are not able to agree on a strategy or agree on the country model to which they aspire”says Shaghayegh Norouzi, a women’s rights activist exiled in Spain. “When you face a regime that emerged from a revolution and with such a strong ideology, you need to have clear ideas and a capacity for mobilization that barely exists today.”
Long history of repression
The truth is that neither the shah first nor the ayatollahs later ever made it easy. After the Islamist forces of the Ayatollah Khomeini they would appropriate the revolution of 1979which ended with the prowess dictatorship of the shahYes, the new Islamic Republic was in charge of purging anyone willing to overshadow it. “In the early 1980s, many of those who participated in the revolution were arrested and years later executed. Thousands of them, including the leaders of the majority of political parties”explains activist for the rights of political prisoners Shiva Mahbobi, exiled in Europe after spending time in the regime’s prisons when she was a teenager. The repression also continued outside Iran, where some of the political activists who managed to escape were murdered.
Since then any attempt to organize opposition to the regime inside Iran has been a suicide mission. Those who tried, like the reformers Mir-Hossein Mousavi o Mehdi Karroubi, They ended up under house arrest. A dynamic that explains why the popular revolts of recent years have not had visible leaders or a defined strategy. Yet massacres have been the norm. Some human rights organizations Death toll rises to 30,000 in this latest mobilization, a figure that would be unprecedented in the modern history of the country.
Ties with third countries
With so many interests at stake, part of the opposition in exile has apparent ties to the intelligence services of third countries, which complicates things a little more. For years the Organization of the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (MEK)one of the best-known groups, operated from Irakto the point of aligning with the regime of Port Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Islamist but influenced by revolutionary Marxism, the MEK resorted to armed struggle against the regime for decades and ended up being declared a terrorist organization by the US. “The MEK never had real popularity among Iranians because of the brutality of their methods. People don’t like them,” says Mahbobi.
The weakness of the majority of forces in exile has left the shah’s son as apparent alternativedespite the memory of the brutal repression and widespread corruption of his 40 years of dictatorship. “Ten years ago the shah’s son had no following, but he has benefited from a campaign to project his figure and has ended up filling the void,” says Norouzi. Two television channels that broadcast from exile – Iran International and Manoto TV – have been instrumental in this campaign, both of which are opaque regarding their financing. But also a lobis conglomerate, idea laboratories y donors. “They have spent a lot of money on Pahleví and, as a result, it has ended up becoming the loudspeaker of the desires and strategy of Mossad and the CIA in Iran,” says Abassian. The Israeli newspaper ‘Haaretz’ recently published, for example, that Netanyahu’s government has carried out a digital campaign with fake accounts and bots on the networks to enhance the public image of the shah’s son, whose father was a close ally of Tel Aviv and Washington.
All of this has meant that in the recent protests some posters with the effigy of Pahlavi or the flags of monarchical Iran, but at the same time mistrust persists in many sectors of Iranian society. Among the experts consulted, however, all of them downplay the fact that the opposition in exile does not seem to be in a position to take the reins of the country. “In the end it will not be the opposition that will overthrow the regime. If there is a change, it will come from within. No revolution waits for political parties to be ready to take power. That’s not how things work,” says Mahbobi.
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