[...] It has not been lost on observers that the initial protests featured relatively rare chants, such as “Death to Rouhani.” Mashhad is home to conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi, Rouhani’s main rival in the May 2017 presidential election, and Raisi’s father-in-law, radical cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda, who has defied governmental authority on matters such as the holding of concerts. In this vein, the protests erupted one day after the Tehran police chief announced, in a seismic policy shift, that women would no longer be arrested over “improper veiling” but rather sent to educational classes.
Referring to Rouhani’s conservative rivals, First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said, “When a social and political movement is launched on the streets, those who started it will not necessarily be able to control it in the end.” He added, “Those who are behind such events will burn their own fingers. They think they will hurt the government by doing so.”
Apart from targeting high prices, chants at the rallies have also included criticism of Iran’s involvement abroad. But these slogans are not new; they predate Iran’s involvement in Iraq and Syria. Such slogans also clash with surveys that show the Iranian public strongly supports the deployment of military personnel to aid the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Thus, rather than focusing on the idea of a conservative ploy to undermine Rouhani or that foreign policy is the driver of discontent, one should perhaps focus on the main grievance of the protesters — namely, "high prices." [...]
