Iranian Green Wave and the Nuclear Issue

The Geneva negotiations between Iran and P5+1 in early October 2009 opened a window for compromise and weakened the prospect for military attack or international sanctions against Iran. Iran's agreement to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspection and to send most of its openly declared lightly enriched uranium (3.5 percent) to Russia and France to be turned into nuclear fuel (enriched to 19.75 percent) was received as a step toward confidence building. This led to the P5+1 implicit agreement to allow Iran to enrich uranium in defiance of the United Nation Security Council’s resolution. Iran later rejected this solution that was suggested by her own diplomats.

While Iran is buying time by playing the two steps ahead and one step back game, the international community will have enough leverage to put pressure on Iran to postpone its atomic program until a democratic government can take hold in Iran.

Demand for Democracy

Iran’s divulged the existence of another enrichment plant and conducted missile tests before the negotiation in order to divert international attention away from the Green Wave. The nuclear issue has always been used to marginalize Iranians' demand for democracy and human rights and to buy legitimacy for the regime. If the negotiations continue, the threats—real or imagined—will fade and the national context will be more accepting for the democracy movement. Obama's policy to negotiate with Iran has been a fertile pretext for this movement.    

Sanction Is Not the Solution

Sanctions will not deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear program. Iran will find ways to bypass the restrictions as it has done for thirty years. Thirty years of ineffective sanctions against Iran is evidence that sanctions alone will not alter Iran’s long-term behavior. China and Russia have been reluctant to impose new crippling sanctions on Iran, and without their cooperation and international consensus, sanctions will not be enforced.

Economic sanctions, which may lead to war, will function against the Green Wave for four different reasons: they will weaken the national economy and deepen the misery of ordinary people, while benefiting the IRGC commanders who have the grip on smuggling routes; they will decrease government transparency; the government will continue blaming others for its own ineffective economic performance; and a new wave of military personnel will be sent to middle range bureaucratic positions which will further militarize governmental institutions.

For the same reasons, the leaders of the Green Wave are against sanctions. In his 13th statement (issued on September 28, 2009) Moussavi clearly stated: "Sanctions would not actually act against the government – rather, they would only inflict grave distress against a people who have experienced enough disaster at the hands of their own statesmen. We are opposed to any types of sanctions against our nation. This is what living the Green Path means."

National Interests, Regime's Interest

Since the June 12th presidential election and its violent aftermath, the Iranian regime's interests diverged from Iranian national interests. The fraudulent election has pushed the regime towards closer ties with authoritarian regimes while the movement is inclined toward the free world. Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions will increase this gap. The Green Wave is both against sanctions and the nuclear program as it has been managed by the government.

Greens Do Not Want the Bomb

The Green Wave is a non-violent movement and rejects any arms competition in the region. One of the spiritual leaders of the movement, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, prohibits investment in, production, stockpiling and use of atomic energy for nuclear weapons. He stated: "Humanity is heading toward prohibition of WMDs all over the world." (Gooya News, October 16, 2009)

Green Wave activists reject double standards in dealing with nuclear stockpiles and proliferation in the international arena. They look for a world without nuclear arms. From their point of view, nuclear proliferation, even for peaceful purposes, is the people's choice, not the government's right. They are suspicious about the government's agenda on nuclear issue due to its policy of concealment and fraud in every aspect of public administration.

Democracy Is the Solution

The Green Wave activists believe that the only solution to Iran's nuclear issue is its transition to democracy. They emphasize four different channels of international support for this transition: breaking the propaganda machine of the government by supporting alternative media, stopping the government's attempts to interfere with social networking activities, lowering oil prices through cooperation with oil exporting countries in the region, and sending Iran's file regarding crimes against humanity to the International Court of Justice through the Security Council.

According to the Green Wave's leaders, instead of military threats and sanctions against the country, the international community should support the Green Wave, not only for the sake of promoting human rights and democracy in Iran, but for their own national and security interests as well.