By Denis Korkodinov
The social unrest that swept Iraq, Lebanon and Iran almost simultaneously seem to represent an act of civil resistance of the Keynesian-style distribution economic model. This resistance demonstrates intolerance to the imposed Western model of a market economy. Therefore, such resistance is rapidly becoming the norm of social behavior in countries that have never been able to reconcile Western economic ideology with Middle Eastern reality.
The protest movement in the countries of the so-called “axis of resistance”, covering, in addition to Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, also Syria, despite its seeming internal orientation, is aimed at changing the whole geopolitics of the region, when all states are forced to urgently adjust their development models to neutralize the influence national opposition. In this regard, Axis countries are currently heading the regional agenda.
Actions of civil disobedience in these countries, of course, did not appear from scratch, and their origin was due to a series of ineffective economic measures by states trying to distribute national income without taking into account the principle of justice in relation to ordinary citizens.
These states could not guarantee their society, the resources of which were depleted, participation in the distribution process, in connection with which, the people rebelled. Regional influence groups took advantage of the protest movement in order to obtain certain political advantages, as a result of which the economic demands of the demonstrators were quickly replaced by demands of a political nature.
Therefore, it is not surprising that social unrest in the “axis of resistance” states could serve as a starting point for an international conspiracy, which, incidentally, was pointed out not only by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, but also by the Iraqi Supreme Ayatollah Shiites Ali al-Sistani. Despite the fact that sufficient evidence of this conspiracy does not yet exist, but this does not indicate that it cannot be in principle. At the same time, axis states indirectly contributed to this conspiracy through inefficient allocation of resources, social injustice and political inconsistency.
All this led to the transformation of the Lebanese, Iraqi and Iranian models of corruption into a fetish, which, apparently, came into conflict with the leading dogma of Shiite Islam – helping the poor and suffering. For this reason, the protest movement has become especially popular, as a result of which it will develop along an ascending path.
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)
Image Credit: Khalid al-Mousily/Reuters