Could Iran Do What Iraq Could Not?

Rami G. Khouri seems to think so:

Of the two most significant events that impacted on the entire Middle East in the last two generations the Arab loss in the June 1967 war and the Iranian Revolution in 1979 the Iranian revolution has probably had wider and greater impact in the long run. Iran impacts on many parts of the region, because of its ideological influence and logistical support to Islamist movements in the Arab world, combined with its leadership of the “resistance front” of regional forces that defy and challenge the United States, Israel and conservative Arab regimes. If Iran once again sets the standard for mass political protest or even revolutionary change, the impact throughout the Middle East is likely to be enormous.

Arabs will not feel comfortable seeing the Iranian people twice in 30 years fearlessly challenging their own autocratic regimes, while the people of the Arab world meekly acquiesce in equally non-democratic and top-heavy political systems that treat their own people as unthinking fools who can be perpetually abused with sham elections and other forms of exploitation.

The particulars of the Iranian situation these days are specific to Iran’s political culture, where a secretive ruling elite seems to suffer serious ideological rifts, and a major generation gap is also coming into play. The spontaneous mass defiance of the ruling power structure, though, is not Iran-specific. If this turns out to be a serious challenge to the very legitimacy of the Islamic Republic’s system of government, rather than a narrow protest about the presidential election, we should not be surprised to see the Iranian precedent spilling over into other, Arab, parts of the Middle East, in a way that the 1979 Islamic revolution did not.