The recent demonstrations in Iran began as protests against water shortages in different provinces in the country, but very quickly developed into a broad public demand to free Ahwaz Province from the Iranian occupation.

The Iranian response was severe: the number of casualties thus far stands at 24, 370 injured and 3,400 detained. The Iranian regime fears that a greater toll would stir a wave of media reactions by human rights groups in Europe and the U.S., and these reactions would hamper the Biden administration’s ability, publicly and politically, to remove the sanctions on Iran and rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal.

Who lives in Ahwaz Province?

Ahwaz, situated on the northern and eastern banks of the Persian Gulf, was named Arabistan in the past due to its predominantly Arab population.

Ahwaz has suffered for years from a difficult drought, caused by Iran’s lack of infrastructure investment due to the state’s economic crisis. But the water shortage is only the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The Islamic Republic has polluted the region for years, emitting poisonous substances from oil and gas wells, as well as from oil refineries. These substances poison the food and water in the area. They seep into the ground, and from there to fruit, vegetables, drinking water and the Gulf waters from where the Ahwazians eat their fish.

Other minorities join protests

After the Ahwaz protests broke, demonstrations of support in Iran’s northwestern Kurdish area and its Azari region in the north followed suit.

Interestingly enough, simultaneous protests erupted in Tehran as well, chiefly at stations of a railway that was disabled for longs hours due to electricity outages. In these protests, slogans such as “death to the dictator,” “not Gaza, not Lebanon, money to the sons of Iran.”

The solution

The possibility of Iran disintegrating into ethnic states is entirely realistic and its feasibility increases over time.

The growing public demand for independence among the non-Persian minorities -- consisting of about half of Iran’s population -- is an incentive for the process.

Wider cooperation between Iranian opposition organizations has been noticed recently as well, as these groups feel that the end of the country and the end of the regime are achievable goals.

If the Democratic Party in the U.S. and the administration of President Joe Biden really care about human rights and personal, political, civil and economic liberties, they must renounce all their plans to rejoin the nuclear deal.

Instead, they should invest all their resources, the overt and covert, military and civilian, in order to help the non-Persian minorities in Iran to free themselves from the tightening Persian pincer on their necks, and to all Iran’s citizens to free themselves from a suppressive and dictatorial regime.

Photo: Reuters