Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 21-May-17 World View -- Iran's younger generations propel Rouhani to decisive presidential win

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Iran's younger generations propel Rouhani to decisive presidential win
  
• Brief generational history of Iran and Saudi Arabia
  
• Donald Trump gets royal treatment visiting Saudi Arabia
  

****
**** Iran's younger generations propel Rouhani to decisive presidential win
****


Young woman voting in Iran on Friday

Iran's president Hassan Rouhani won an election battle to be
decisively re-elected for a second four-year term as president.
Rouhani is considered a moderate, and was not favored by the Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. Rouhani won 57% of the vote in a
large turnout, a huge margin against Khamenei's favored candidate,
hardline cleric Ebrahim Raissi, who got only 38% of the votes.

In his victory speech, Rouhani said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Honorable Iranian nation, you are the winners of the
> election. I humbly bow to you. I will remain faithful to my vow
> to you. ...
>
> Prouder than ever before, Iran is today ready to step up its
> relations with the world on the basis of mutual respect and
> national interests.
>
> Our nation’s message (of peace and friendship) was explicitly
> departed to the world ... and the nation expects this most
> important message to be correctly heard by all governments,
> neighbors, and specifically, by great powers. ...
>
> “Our elections indicated to the neighbors and the region that the
> way to restore security to the region is to shore up democracy and
> honor the people’s votes rather than to rely on foreign
> powers. ...
>
> Today, the world is well aware that the Iranian nation has chosen
> the path of interaction with the world, a path which is distant
> from extremism and violence. Our nation seeks to live in peace
> and friendship with the world. However, it is not ready to accept
> any disrespect or threat. This is our nation’s most important
> message, and our nation expects the message to be appropriately
> heard by all states, neighboring countries and, particularly,
> world powers."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

It's an interesting observation that Iran comes second only behind
Israel as the most democratic countries in the Mideast.

Analysts indicate the decisive victory comes from the overwhelming
support of young people, who came out in large numbers because of
opposition to the hardline restrictions on dress, free speech, and
gender relations, and because of the widespread belief that Khamenei
and the hardliners were using illegal tactics to win the election.
Some analysts say that the election was about the economy, but since
Rouhani has failed to meet his election promises in the economy, that
does not seem to be the reason that Rouhani won. Instead, it appears
that young people ignored the economic issues just to vote against the
hardline clerics.

As I've written many, many times, Iran is in a generational Awakening
era, just one generation past the Great Islamic Revolution of 1979 and
the Iran/Iraq war that climaxed in 1988 with Saddam's use of chemical
weapons. A generational Awakening era is always about a "generation
gap," a political conflict between the generations of traumatized
survivors of the preceding generational crisis war and the generations
of young people who grew up after the war, and have no personal memory
of it. The older and younger generations have completely different
world views, and the political conflict continues until there's an
Awakening era climax that settles the disputed. America's last
Awakening era was the 1960s-70s, marked by the "Summer of Love," as
well as widespread political and racial riots, until the Awakening era
climax occurred in 1974 with the resignation of President Richard
Nixon.

Iran is also headed for some kind of Awakening era climax, pitting the
younger generations, current represented by Hassan Rouhani, versus the
traumatized Great Islamic Revolution survivors, currently represented
by Ebrahim Raissi and Ayatollah Khamenei.

Rouhani's decisive electoral victory is not enough to be called an
Awakening era climax, but it could trigger events that could lead to
such a climax. During the campaign, Rouhani bitterly criticized his
political opponents, including Raissi's supporters and the powerful
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) which enforces many of the
hardline laws. Now that the election is over, hardliners are expected
to "settle scores," and this could result in a major political battle
of a kind similar to the one that led to Nixon's resignation.

In fact, there is a particularly bitter battle on the horizon.
Khamenei has been Supreme Leader since 1989, but he's 77 years old,
and is in poor health, so there's a succession battle approaching.
This succession battle may trigger the Awakening era climax that we've
been describing. Tehran Times and Reuters and The Hindu

Related Articles

• As Iran's election approaches, generational conflict becomes vicious (06-Feb-2016)
  
  
• Theological split in Iran widens as opposition protests continue (09-Nov-2009)
  
  
• Tens of thousands protest in Tehran after Rafsanjani says Iran is 'in crisis' (18-Jul-2009)
  

****
**** Brief generational history of Iran and Saudi Arabia
****

As I've been writing for over ten years, Generational Dynamics
predicts that Iran will be an American ally in the approaching Clash
of Civilizations world war, which will pit the US, India, Russia, Iran
and the west against China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries.

Now would be a good time to briefly reprise the reasons for the
prediction that Iran will be an American ally. There are two major
categories of reasons.

• First, Hindus and Shia Muslims have allied against Sunni
  Muslims at least as far back as the seminal Battle of Karbala in 680,
  which was the battle that firmly created what became the Shia-Sunni
  split. India is also very closely allied with Russia. America will
  be allied with India, and so with Russia and Iran.
  
  
• Second, college students in Iran started holding pro-Western and
  pro-American protests in the late 1990s, at the beginning of Iran's
  generational Awakening era. The Iran hardliners brutally suppressed
  those protests, but doing so didn't change minds. Today, those
  students are 30-40 years old, and have risen to positions of power,
  ready to take over when the current hardline leadership dies off.
  They are generally pro-Western and pro-American, and consider Saudi
  Arabia to be an existential threat.

Now would also be a good time to reprise the three events of 1979 that
shook the Muslim world in the Mideast and beyond, and how they affect
events today:

• Prior to 1979, Iran had been an important ally of the US and
  UK in the Mideast. However, Iran's Great Islamic Revolution brought a
  radical theocratic Shia government to Iran, threatening to take over
  the leadership of the Islamic world from Saudi Arabia, turning the
  entire political infrastructure around.
  
  
• In November 1979, 500 young Salafist terrorists took over Saudi
  Arabia's Masjid al-Haram, or the Grand Mosque. It took two weeks for
  a massive Saudi army effort to retake the Mosque. By the end, the
  official death toll was 127 soldiers and 117 militants. Unconfirmed
  reports indicate that over 1,000 civilians lost their lives. The
  Jihadists were re-fighting a crisis war that had occurred in the 1920s
  between the al-Saud family and a Salafist group known as the Wahhabis.
  At that time, the crisis war was resolved with an agreement that the
  al-Saud family would rule Saudi Arabia, but would follow the strict,
  austere demands of the Wahhabis. The attack on the Grand Mosque
  destroyed that agreement, and let the fuse for 9/11.
  
  
• The third epochal event of 1979 was the Soviet invasion of
  Afghanistan, which was seen by Saudi Arabia's Salafists as a Christian
  invasion of a Muslim country. After the violent takeover of the Grand
  Mosque, the al-Saud government started encouraging Salafists in Saudi
  Arabia to travel to Afghanistan to fight the Russians. The Russians
  were mainly fighting the Pashtun tribes that later formed the Sunni
  Muslim Taliban, and they were mainly fighting against what became the
  the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern
  Afghanistan, many of whom were Shias allied with Iran. At that time,
  the U.S. considered both Russia and Iran to be enemies, the latter
  because of the Iranian hostage crisis, and so the Americans supported
  the Pashtuns in Afghanistan (and Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war). The
  Afghan war led to the rise of Osama bin Laden, 9/11, and the
  Taliban.

Needless to say, Americans today are totally oblivious to the events
described here, but these were epochal events in the history of the
Arab, Persian and Muslim worlds in the Mideast and beyond, and they
define what's happening in the Mideast today.

Related Articles

• Iran's 'moderate pragmatist' Hashemi Rafsanjani dies at age 82 (09-Jan-2017)
  
  
• Arab views of Iran nuclear deal (15-Jul-2015)
  
  
• Political crisis in Iran grows over nuclear agreement (09-Nov-2015)
  
  
• Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, site of huge construction accident, has links to 9/11 (12-Sep-2015)
  

****
**** Donald Trump gets royal treatment visiting Saudi Arabia
****

President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia on Saturday, on the first
leg of his five-nation tour. The first three visits will be to the
centers of the Abrahamic religions -- Riyadh in Saudi Arabia,
Jerusalem, and the Vatican. After that, he'll visit Brussels, the
capital of the European Union, and then Taormina Italy for the G-7
meeting.

Trump was received like visiting royalty in Saudi Arabia. Trump, his
wife Melania, and his senior White House staff were serenaded by
military bands, treated to a flyover of Saudi jets, feted in opulent
palaces and given the undivided attention of Saudi's 81 year old King
Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud.

Trump and Salman signed an agreement for the sale of $110 billion of
military equipment to Saudi Arabia over several years. The deal
includes tanks, combat ships, missile defense systems, radar and
communications, and cybersecurity technology. Trump was joined on the
trip by the CEOs of several major U.S. companies, which announced
their own agreements with the Saudis. Among them was a $15 billion
arrangement with GE focused on power, oil and gas, and health care.

What's most interesting about Trump's visit is the symbolic flip-flop
from the previous administration to the current one in attitudes
towards Iran and Saudi Arabia.

President Barack Obama repeatedly showed his contempt, in one way or
another, for the Saudis, and the feeling was mutual. However Obama,
through his Secretary of State John Kerry who believes that America's
soldiers are terrorists, repeatedly sucked up to the Iranians, making
one humiliating concession after another to close the nuclear deal.
However, the feeling was not mutual, as Iran repeatedly insulted
Kerry, Obama, and the American people, and still does.

So now president Trump has made a symbolic reversal. Trump is
contemptuous of the Iranians, and the Iranians are contemptuous of
him. Trump loves the Saudis, and the Saudis love him.

This is a good time to remind readers that it's a core principle of
Generational Dynamics that, even in a dictatorship, major decisions
are made by masses of people, by generations of people. The attitudes
of politicians are irrelevant, except insofar as they represent the
attitudes of the people. So the relations between American, Iranian
and Saudi leaders is much less important than the attitudes that the
masses of Americans, Saudis and Iranians have for one another.

So we note the following:

• Although the Supreme Leader and other Iranian politicians say
  they hate the United States, their attitudes are not shared by the
  younger generations, who are generally pro-Western and pro-American.
  So it really makes little difference what Obama and Trump think of
  Khamenei.
  
  
• As illustrated by the 1979 terrorist attack on Saudi Arabia's
  Grand Mosque, there's a major split in Saudi Arabia between those who
  support the al-Saud government and the Salafists. How this split
  plays out in the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war remains
  to be seen.

I believe that a great deal of information can be determined by
detailed generational analyses of the various tribes and ethnic groups
in the Mideast. I believe that this analysis could be used to predict
how events will unfold in the coming years. I certainly don't have
anything like the resources to perform such an analysis, but any
college student interested in this kind of analysis could make an
invaluable contribution to understanding what's going on in the world
today by taking on, as a thesis topic, a generational analysis of the
tribes and ethnic groups in the Mideast. AP and Arab News

Related Articles

• Obama repudiates the Carter doctrine at bizarre GCC meeting (15-May-2015)
  
  
• Russia's policies thrown into confusion as US resumes its 'world policeman' role (09-Apr-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iran, Hassan Rouhani Ebrahim Raissi,
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Great Islamic Revolution, Iran/Iraq war,
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, IRGC,
Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud,
India, Russia, China, Pakistan, Battle of Karbala,
Grand Mosque, Afghanistan, Pashtuns, Taliban

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John J. Xenakis
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