On Jan. 8, Iranian forces shot down a Ukrainian airliner shortly after it took off from an airport in Tehran carrying 176 passengers bound for Kyiv. Many of those killed were Iranian nationals living abroad, including over 60 from Canada, who had come to visit family during the winter break.
The tragedy was caused when a trigger-happy Iranian anti-aircraft crew fired a Russian-made missile at what they later claimed to have mistaken for a U.S. cruise missile. This happened a few hours after the Iranian missile attack on an Iraqi base housing U.S. troops, which was in retaliation for the targeted killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Iran’s initial reaction was one of complete denial, despite the obvious indications that it was responsible. It was only after four days and overwhelming evidence, including a video showing the missile impact, that they finally changed their tune and reluctantly began to release some details. But officials continued to reject any independent investigation of the disastrous decisions that led up to this, starting with their failure to close the airport. And, when Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who is responsible for marketing the Islamic Republic to outsiders, finally acknowledged the truth, it was coupled with the usual propaganda lines and deflection of blame: “Human error at time of crisis caused by U.S. adventurism led to disaster.”
If this combination of lies and denial sounds familiar, it is because the same elements were central to the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor fire in 1986, recently depicted in a five-part television series. In that case, the evidence slowly trickled out, and the Kremlin’s attempted cover-up unraveled. As a result, the regime’s criminal incompetence was suddenly revealed in a manner that even its strongest defenders could no longer ignore. Four years later, the Soviet regime and empire, with its stranglehold on close to 300 million citizens, had unraveled too.
History rarely repeats itself, and a Chernobyl-type result in Iran, meaning a revolution, an overthrow, or a replacement of the regime, is admittedly a long shot. But the habits of lying and the code of silence that feeds incompetence are deeply ingrained in Tehran, just as they were in Moscow. Even after the Iranian government admitted that one of its ground-to-air missiles had been launched at and hit the slow-moving Ukrainian jet, officials continued to put out false claims that revealed still more incompetence. Apparently, one military official had proposed closing the airport, apparently aware that such an incident was possible. He was either ignored (according to one version) or the communication links with the authorities able to take this action were down (according to another).
The Iranian cover-up also included measures to prevent independent investigations from determining the exact sequence of events, establishing responsibility, and correcting the mistakes. To bring back the airlines and passengers that have suspended flights pending the implementation of measures to prevent another tragedy, Iran needs to open up. But, instead of following the standard procedure of immediately sealing off the area of the crash and ensuring that all of the evidence is left undisturbed until qualified international investigators arrive, officials ordered the area cleaned of all debris, including the remnants of the missile that brought down the plane.
For thousands of Iranians, led by university students in Tehran, the anger, which was still simmering after the violent crackdown against previous protests, led to noisy demonstrations openly mocking and challenging the regime. They can be seen courageously and defiantly denouncing the “shamelessness” of their leaders, including Ali Khamenei, while chanting slogans that Iran’s leaders are the enemy, not the United States. They additionally denounced the man who had been the subject of so much official public adulation in recent days: “Soleimani was a killer.” Many Iranian newspapers printed headlines highlighting the word “shame.”
And, in another sign of incompetence and paranoia (the two often go together), the Iranians detained the British ambassador, who had gone to Tehran University to participate in a memorial vigil for the victims. He had made a point of leaving when the political chanting against the regime began, but that didn’t stop the authorities from hauling him in.
Even more than the Soviet citizens of the 1980s, Iranians are not willing to accept widespread international isolation and ridicule as the price for permanent revolution.
Whether these events are enough to finally trigger full-blown rebellion and an internal regime change in Iran is far from clear. There are important differences when compared to Chernobyl. The magnitude of the nuclear disaster and cover-up was much greater than the 176 deaths from Ukrainian Air Flight 752. And Iran appears, at least from the outside, to be more resilient than Gorbachev’s teetering empire in the late 1980s.
But for the people of Iran, and for everyone else in the region, the scenario provides hope.
Professor Gerald M. Steinberg teaches in the political science department at Bar Ilan University in Israel.
