As mass protests erupted in Iran
during the second week of January, 2026, Iran’s theocracy was on edge. That the
protests stemmed from the dire economic conditions facing the people
amid staggering inflation, including on basic food staples, rather than from foreign
affairs, raises the question of whether religious clergy, including the “supreme
leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are competent in making economic policy.
Without the ongoing political pressure that can come from constituents in a
representative democracy, or republic, it is no surprise that the protests in Iran
quickly became mass riots. In other words, bad economic policy by religious clerics
in power in an autocracy can easily result in popular protests abruptly erupting
into rioting. The overreaching of functionaries based in the domain of religion
into politics (including economic policy), such that the distinctiveness of the
two domains is ignored or obfuscated, can be distinguished from the problems
that go with autocracy.
On January 9, 2026, the
theocracy signaled that the rioting would be dealt with severely. Iran’s
judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, in assuming a non-judicial political
role, “vowed that punishment for protesters ‘will be decisive, maximum and
without any legal leniency.”[1]
Separation of powers obviously did not exist in the Islamic regime. That both the
internet and international calls were being blocked by the government signals
that the protests could realistically result in the fall of the Islamic revolution
in Iran. In other words, the severity of the government’s measures in shutting
down communication can be read as indicative of a government whose days are
numbered. In an interview, U.S. President Trump said that Iran’s dictator was
already “looking to go someplace” because the situation on the streets was “getting
very bad.”[2]
Demonstrating that expertise
in theology does not extend to politics (as well as economics), Khamenei accused
the rioters of “ruining their own streets . . . in order to please the
president of the United States.”[3]
Nothing was said about the hyperinflation that was putting even basic
foodstuffs out of reach for an increasing number of people as the reason for
the protests. Nothing was said about Crown Prince Reza Pahavi having called for
the protests on January 8, 2025, and that the protests “included cries in
support of the shah,” which can be distinguished from chants in favor of
President Trump, which did not occur.[4]
Pahavi was not calling for the United States to invade Iran. Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei’s rhetoric was therefore very poor from a political standpoint (i.e.,
his statement was incorrect), and he did not address the reeling economy in any
constructive way in terms of advocating economic reform that actually had a
chance of working. Knowledge in theology does not carry over onto the domains
of politics and economics, so the overreach is problematic.
This critique can be
distinguished from one premised on the American separation of “church and
state,” which actually could use some work in American jurisprudence because “In
God We Trust” is printed on the currency. To be against a government
establishing a religion (e.g., proclaiming a religion to be the official
religion) is different than being against a religion superimposing its
distinctive criteria onto a civic government because an over-reaching of the political
domain into the religious domain is distinct from the religious domain
overreaching into the political realm, even though both instantiate the
conflation of two distinct domains of human experience. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
should have stuck to theology as a cleric rather than try to run a government,
and his response to the economic protests—even that such protests
morphed so quickly into riots—demonstrates the intractably problematic nature
of overreaching from one domain onto another, qualitatively different, one as
if the criteria and credentials of the former could and should supplant
those of the latter in the latter.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
