TIMES ONLINE: Beware the end of the decade in Iran. In 1979 it was the Shah who succumbed to the protests and was driven from power. In 1989 it was Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic revolution, who died after a long illness. In 2009 his successor is fighting to save the regime from its gravest challenge since Saddam Hussein’s tanks crossed the frontier in 1980.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, spent years in the Shah’s prisons, had his right arm paralysed by a bomb and has led Iran through many crises over the past two decades. But tomorrow, when he mounts the steps to the small stage at Tehran University to deliver the sermon at weekly prayers, he faces the toughest test of his almost 70 years.
If it was the “Great Satan”, as America is known, or even the “Little Satan”, as Britain is named, who were behind the challenge, then the regime would know how to protect itself. The Revolutionary Guards would be deployed along the borders, the Basij, a volunteer force, would patrol the streets. Instead, the challenge comes from within and from people that the Supreme Leader barely has contact with, using unfamiliar weapons — tweets, blogs, satellite television and text messages — that undermine him in ways he cannot imagine.
Two thirds of Iranians are under 30, meaning that they have no direct experience of the Revolution and [a] only passing knowledge of the Iran-Iraq war, which did more than anything to shape the modern country. What they have experienced is a life of missed opportunities caused by an aging clerical leadership, massive corruption and a regime that is increasingly dictatorial.
The mullahs once rigidly controlled access to information but their grasp has slipped. One third of Iranians have internet access. There are satellite dishes on every apartment block in Tehran, even though they are banned. Music channels beam in from California to show young Iranians how other young Iranians live half a world away.
The rulers may be living in the Middle Ages but their children and grandchildren are wired to the 21st century. >>> Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor | Thursday, June 18, 2009
