The Thread that Binds the Unrest in Iran and China

A common thread runs through the current hard-line crackdowns in Iran and western China. It's business -- in the case of Iran, the personal fruits of the country's entire economy; in that of China, just ordinary livelihood.

Starting with Iran, Michael Slackman of The New York Times contributes a strong profile on why the Revolutionary Guards are so intent on their man – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – retaining power after the disputed June 12^th presidential elections. It’s the “military-based conglomerate” that they control, a “multi-billion-dollar empire reaching into nearly every sector of the economy,” Slackman writes. That includes oil, car-making, and road-and-bridge building. Since he came to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad has awarded the Guards 750 oil and natural gas development projects, Slackman writes.

Not that Ahmadinejad initiated a new practice by enriching the group that’s primarily keeping him in power. A year before his 2004 murder in Moscow, Forbes correspondent Paul Klebnikov wrote a brilliant investigative piece on how the family of former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had grabbed control over vast swaths of the economy. Today, Rafsanjani fashions himself as a reformer defending voters cheated in the June 12^th election; during the election campaign itself, he threatened to sue Ahmadinejad for accusing him and his family of corruption. Klebnikov doesn’t document corruption; he only lays out the family’s financial rise from poor obscurity.

All this adds up to is what those familiar with the region already know – there are no innocents in the race for power around the Caspian Sea. In the remote chance that Ahmadinejad were swept from power, would a new Iranian regime be clean of such pocket-lining? If the past is any teacher, the answer has to be a firm no. Slackman’s story doesn’t declare otherwise, only that the Guards have much to gain if Ahmadinejad remains in place.

Which brings us to China. Slackman notes that Iran remained conspicuously silent on the Chinese crackdown on Muslim Uighurs this month. One possible reason? One of the Guards’ main trading partners is China, he writes.

In China, my former Wall Street Journal colleague Ian Johnson weighs in with a penetrating piece on the subtext of ordinary business in the violence in Xinjiang. The rioting that killed almost 200 people was triggered in an immediate sense by the murder of two Uighurs, Johnson writes.

But he adds that the undercurrent is seething Uighur anger over the takeover of traditional industries by the majority Han Chinese – the bazaars, even the preparation of halal meats consumed by the Uighurs.

The Grand Bazaar in the regional capital of Urumchi is now run by Han. So is the main marketplace downtown. As for halal meats, Johnson describes a business owned by Huo Lanlan, a Han who runs one of Xinjiang’s largest halal food processors. Of 300 workers, Lanlan employs just a few Uighurs, including a cleaning lady.

So that when the Uighurs rioted, it wasn’t just over a murder. The Uighurs see Chinese prosperity creeping in to Xinjiang, but largely enjoyed by Han from elsewhere.

Iran: 'I'm Not So Sure I Want to Die Yet'

A simple calibration underlies the diminishing of protests in Tehran: The regime's bet -- correctly -- that those unhappy with the June 12th election results aren't prepared to pay the ultimate price for the right to express their opinion.

As an example, my former Wall Street Journal colleague Farnaz Fassihi quotes a 33-year-old woman who is rethinking her participation in the street demonstrations of the last week: "It's now crossed the line. If you come out it means you are ready to become a martyr. And I'm not so sure I want to die yet," the woman says.

While his dispatch isn't poetry, Sky News correspondent Tim Marshall has it about right: "In the short term it still looks like game over; in the medium term it looks like game on."

Like Russia, Uzbekistan and other dictatorship-based governments, this regime has learned from the mistakes of brethren in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, and is seeking as a priority to knock out the pillars of any resistance before they are set in place.

Indeed, in his long public speech last Friday denouncing the protesters and their alleged foreign supporters, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei explicitly cited the 2003 uprising that ousted Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze. Foreigners backing the Iranian demonstrators “thought Iran is Georgia," Khamenei said. "Their problem is that they don’t know this great nation yet.”

So, the regime has threatened to execute and try alleged offenders of public order; it has interfered with communications between would-be protesters by blocking Internet, telephone and television; and it has blocked mourning of those killed. The regime understands the last item most profoundly since the actions leading to the 1979 revolution were in part sustained by 40-day mourning periods for victims of the Shah.

Karin Laub of The Associated Press reports that on the possible show trials. Quoting state-run radio, she writes that Ebrahim Raisi, a top judicial official, said, "Elements of riots must be dealt with to set an example. The judiciary will do that."

Yet small demonstrations of defiance continue. "Protesters came up with new techniques, such as turning on the lights in their cars at certain hours of the day and honking their horns or holding up posters," Laub writes. She quotes an unidentified Tehran resident whom the AP staff got on the phone saying, "People are calmly protesting, more symbolically than with their voices."

The most frequent report in terms of next steps that one hears involve a general strike -- the shutting down of industries, public transportation, shops in the bazaars, for instance. Reports say that Mousavi's own Facebook page calls for a general strike, though I don't see this notice there. Such strikes could be effective since they would be far harder to stop than protests.

One notable aspect of these events is that, contrary to reporting leading up to the elections, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no rogue or loose cannon. The remarks by Khamenei last Friday, along with subsequent comments by the Revolutionary Guards, eerily resemble the president's.

So that when Ahmadinejad trails off on yet another incoherent diatribe on foreign conspiracies and perfidy -- the outbursts that many, including at O&G, regarded as the main impediment to a diplomatic breakthrough with the West -- he has simply been parroting his bosses.

The Second Victim in Iran

As we look for a picture of how long it will take for a resolution of Iran's brittle- and tension-filled politics, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's legitimacy is just one victim of the week-long events in Tehran.

The second victim is the already long-shot chance of a U.S.-Iran rapprochement.

Short of a remotely possible, far-reaching concession by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, there is now no near- or medium-term chance of a new day in Middle East and European politics and economics -- both of which seemed possible before the current bloody crackdown.

At O&G, it had specifically seemed possible to foresee a change in the balance of petro-power in Europe. If Russian dominance of Europe's energy picture is to be tempered, there needs to be a fresh, new supply of natural gas from somewhere. Iran seemed to be the best candidate. But for the last couple of years, Ahmadinejad's voluble belligerence has ruled out a lowering of the temperature with the U.S.: Diplomatic traction requires domestic political consent in both countries, and that's not possible when one or both sides is provoking jingoism.

A Mir Hosain Mousavi-led government would not have brought a qualitatively different policy, which was too much to expect given Iranian politics. But that also wasn't necessary. All diplomacy really needed was the leadership of both countries to shift to quiet diplomacy, which would have opened the door to finding areas of agreement.

Now that Khamenei has shed blood -- at least 12 are said to have been killed yesterday alone -- President Barack Obama cannot possibly enter into serious talks. Even if he were so inclined -- a considerable improbability -- U.S. domestic politics would not allow him to.