For Anon, something to consider

From Strategy Page

Since late 2017 Iran suffered continuing nationwide outbursts against the religious dictatorship running the country. There was similar activity in 2009 to protest the lack of fair elections. The 2009 protests were put down with force as were the recent ones (with over a thousand dead in 2019). What started in late 2017 was different, with the protestors calling for the corrupt religious rulers to be removed, even killed if necessary. Some protestors called for a return of the constitutional monarchy the religious leaders replaced in the 1980s (after first promising true democracy). Even more disturbing was that some of the protestors are calling for Islam to be banned and replaced with something else, like Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian religion that Islam replaced, violently and sometimes incompletely in the 7th and 8th centuries. Right before the late 2017 unrest, the religious rulers saw Iran on the way to some major victories in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. The optimism turned out to be premature. The good times were supposed to begin in the wake of a July 2015 treaty that would lift the many sanctions Iran operated under. That did not, as many financial experts pointed out, solve the immediate cash crises because oil prices were still low. This was because Saudi Arabia refused to cut production to keep oil prices high. This was made worse by the continued use of fracking in North America which triggered a massive (more than 70 percent) drop of the price of oil in 2013. Iran made their situation worse by trying to avoid complying with the 2015 treaty while still getting most of the sanctions lifted and for a while, that seemed to be working. That deception turned out badly as the U.S. accused Iran of violating the 2015 deal and by the terms of that agreement the American could and did withdraw. That meant many of the sanctions returned in 2018. Even before the American action foreign economists believed the Iranian economy wouldn’t get moving again until the 2020s. Now it is going to take even longer and Iranians, in general, are not pleased with that at all. The 2017 protests are continuing and intensifying. The violent reaction to the demonstrations has not halted them. The protests keep reviving. The senior clerics are worried and openly seeking a solution that does not include them losing their power. Few Iranians are willing to accept that kind of compromise. The religious dictatorship is not only hated but also seen as corrupt and untrustworthy.