Student rebellion frightens Iran religious bigots

Amir Taheri:

'A WAR zone": That's how the official Islamic Re public News Agency de scribed the campus of Tehran University on Monday after a hit-and-run battle between youths and security forces lasting several hours.

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The authorities had hoped to transform this year's Student Day into a nationwide show of support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration. "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei was to address the Tehran U students in what would've been an unprecedented occasion, while Ahmadinejad was to visit the Science and Technology University. Two dozen top officials, including commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were enlisted to address campus audiences in some 50 universities nationwide.

But just hours before the big show was to start, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad were both warned to stay away from the campuses: The security forces couldn't ensure their safety.

As news of the cancelations spread, some student activists saw this as a victory. "The dictators dare not show their faces," said a spokesman for the Office of Consolidating Unity, one of many groups organizing the protest. On most campuses, the new was greeted with shouts of "Democracy Now!"

The authorities decided to take no risks, sending in thousands of troops to cordon off the campuses in Tehran and at least 12 other cities.

Could this develop into a nationwide movement that could upset the regime's calculations before the June election? Is Iran entering a pre-revolutionary phase that could threaten the Khomeinist regime?

Well, many groups in and outside the establishment doubtless see the coming campaign as an opportunity to either reshuffle the leadership or open the way for regime change. But the students, on their own, are in no position to provide the energy needed for meaningful change.

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Student activists may have succeeded in scaring Khamenei and Ahmadinejad away from the campuses, but they're unlikely to achieve any significant change on their own.

The importance of the movement lies elsewhere: It is now clear that Khomeinism has lost most of its appeal to young Iranians. "The idea of creating an ideal 'Islamic' state that would be the model for humanity may have sounded seductive three decades ago," says Ali Qavimi, a student activist. "Today, it sounds more like a sour joke."

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Most of the so called reformist in Iran want to rearrange the constitution while keeping the religious bigots in charge. Iran is proof that a religious state is not heaven on earth.

The students are largely impotent in the face of a totalitarian police state run by religious bigots. They have the capacity to make the bigots unwelcome in places, but they do not have the ability to take their power.