Green

Recently there has been much talk of targeted sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard in Iran as a way to help bring about positive political change in that country, both to help our own interests of keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and also to assist the growing pro-democracy opposition movement in the country. In the interest of helping the opposition movement there in particular, we might look to the factors that helped precipitate the Islamic Revolution that brought the current regime to power.

One large factor in any popular uprising is the support of a majority of the people, and in almost all countries that means the necessary help of those in the working classes. While a regime still has substantial resources it is easy to keep the people content by engaging in pork barrel type spending, that while not addressing the root causes of their unrest (in this case, a lack of democracy in recent elections) takes care of basic employment needs and essential bribes them into supporting leaders who do not have their best interests at heart. The current regime in Iran under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is particularly adept at this, and has plenty of money to do that (and to buy bullets for the Revolutionary Guard to continue to put down those that do dare protest) because of their oil resources.

As long as the world continues to use oil at a stable or increasing rate, Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guard will have an easy time keeping protest at a controllable rate. The Shah was in a similar position in the '70s, with oil prices especially high during the oil embargo (in which Iran did not participate). It was only when oil prices fell after the embargo ended that the Shah's regime started to falter, as the economic fate of the poor urban masses fell apart after having been good for so long. It was this economic crisis, along with a drawdown of western support and the charismatic leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini that finally drew enough protesters to the street to end the tyrannical monarchy in Iran.

A similar drop in oil prices, this time brought about by a “green” environmental movement in the western world that could bring victory to the Iranian “green” democracy movement and an end to the military tyrrany of Ahmadinejad.