© Reuters/WANA/Nazanin Tabatabaee
Data from two foreign polls tell a very different story about protests in Iran.
The economy is tough, but a majority of Iranians back their government's security initiatives and reject domestic upheaval.
On November 15, angry Iranians began pouring onto the streets to protest sudden news of a 50% fuel price hike. A day later, peaceful demonstrations had largely dissipated, replaced instead by much smaller crowds of rioters who burned banks, gas stations, buses and other public and private property. Within no time, security forces hit the streets to snuff out the violence and arrest rioters, during which an unconfirmed number of people on both sides died.
Western commentators tried in vain to squeeze some juice out of the short-lived protests. "Iranian protesters strike at the heart of the regime's legitimacy," declared
Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution.
France 24 asked the question, is this "a new Iranian revolution?" And the
LA Times slammed Iran's "brutal crackdown" against its people.
They grasped for a geopolitical angle too: protests in neighboring Lebanon and Iraq that were based almost entirely on popular domestic discontent against corrupt and negligent governments,
began to be cast as a regional insurrection against Iranian influence.
Comment: Some of the recent farmers protests throughout Europe: