| Summary/Abstract |
The Iranian protest wave in the summer of 2018 and the ongoing sporadic strikes have been persistent reminders of the importance of regime protection. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iran has not been free of societal upheavals although they never posed a serious threat to the regime's survival. That they did not can be explained by the opposition's shortcomings and, more convincingly, the unhesitating and brutal crackdown of the regime's security forces. Still, not all parts of Iran's coercive apparatus are equally devoted to the imams' conservative rule. Under what conditions would military forces split from the government? What useful lessons can be drawn from Iran's own history and the examples of the Arab Spring upheavals?
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