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WASHINGTON - Irans prolonged economic recession and increasing regional isolation as its Islamist rulers mark 42 years in power is largely a result of those rulers maintaining ideological adherence to their 1979 revolution through a discordant power structure, according to some Iranian analysts.

Iranian authorities celebrated the anniversary of the revolution by mobilizing government supporters to stage a series of nationwide vehicle processions on Wednesday, rather than the traditional street rallies of previous anniversaries, due to coronavirus-related health restrictions.

Irans ruling Shiite clerics seized power in a months-long Islamic Revolution that culminated in the overthrow of the nations monarch, or shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on Feb. 11, 1979. In a message issued Thursday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani praised the previous days processions as showing lasting scenes of cohesion, solidarity and the vigilance of the great nation of Iran at this critical time.

If you look away from Tehrans official narrative, the picture is very different, Alex Vatanka, Iran program director at the Middle East Institute, told VOA on Wednesday.

Iran right now is not doing well in terms of its economy, political situation, and sense of hopelessness that you find across civil society, Vatanka said. So for the majority of Iranians who feel their country is on the wrong track, today is not a day to rejoice. In fact, it is a day to regret what happened back in 1979.

Iran fell into recession in 2018 as toughening U.S. sanctions exacerbated long-standing government mismanagement of the economy. The IMFs latest world economic outlook published last monthestimates that Iran suffered a third consecutive year of recession in 2020, while projecting a return to GDP growth this year.

Islamist-ruled Iran, which has long called for the destruction of its regional foe, Israel, also found itself increasingly isolated from its neighbors last year. With the help of U.S. mediation, Israel signed peace agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the first such deals between Israel and Gulf Arab nations who have long been wary of Tehrans support for pro-Iran militias involved in several regional conflicts.

Israels peace deals with the UAE and Bahrain expanded its relations to six of the 13 countries in the regions bordering and surrounding Iran. Israel already had relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Turkmenistan, but it still has no official ties with Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

In interviews with VOA Persian in recent days, some analysts in the Iranian diaspora blamed Irans recent setbacks in part on its Islamist rulers continuing to pursue the ideological goals of their 1979 revolution, including confrontation with the West.

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Animosity toward the U.S. was the essence of the Islamic Republics creation, said Ali Sadrzadeh, a Frankfurt-based analyst of Middle East politics. Washington had been a supporter of the shah ousted by Irans first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Sadrzadeh said the incident that ruptured U.S.-Iran relations, the Khomeini-supported detention of 52 American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Islamist students from November 1979 to January 1981, has been used by Irans ruling clerics to inspire attacks on U.S. targets in the region ever since.

The U.S. imposed its toughest-ever sanctions on Iran under the administration of former President Donald Trump, who left office in January. Trump began tightening the sanctions in 2018, calling them part of a campaign of maximum pressure on Tehran to end objectionable behavior, including its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran denies having such a goal.

President Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump, has said he will not ease the sanctions until Iran first returns to full compliance with a 2015 deal with world powers to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that deal in 2018, saying it was not tough enough on Iran, which retaliated a year later by starting to breach the deals nuclear activity limits.

The hostility of Irans clerical rulers toward Israel has been another factor in the Islamic Republics decline, said Amin Sophiamehr, an Iranian American politics researcher at Indiana University.

The unintended consequence of the Islamic Republics attempts to mobilize the Islamic world against a perceived common enemy, Israel, is that Iran became a threat (not just to Israel but also) to Arab countries and inevitably led to a broad Arab-Israeli alliance, Sophiamehr said.

Irans Islamist rulers have stuck to their anti-Israel and anti-American policies because agitating against external enemies has been crucial for maintaining power in a theocratic country, enabling those rulers to mobilize supporters and suppress opponents, he added.

The analysts who spoke to VOA also blamed Irans recession on its complex ruling system, created by an Islamist constitution that grants ultimate power to a supreme leader who oversees a variety of elected and unelected institutions that compete for influence and benefits.

Reza Ghorashi, an economics professor at Stockton College in New Jersey, said Irans top military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has fought with the other governmental institutions about who gets access to Irans oil revenue, the main national income source that has been hit hard by the U.S. sanctions.

So instead of pursuing policies to develop the nations other resources, oil is the only sector in which Iran has added value by extracting and exporting the commodity, Ghorashi said.

Djamchid Assadi, a Paris-based professor at the Burgundy School of Business, said another factor in Irans economic weakness is the adherence of its Islamist rulers to the revolutionary goal of supporting the downtrodden. He said Irans ruling institutions have used that principle to justify taking control over most of the economy and suppressing the property rights of others.

Given that the institutions of Irans market economy have collapsed and the regime does not intend to repair them, I see no prospect of the economy getting better in the future, Assadi said.

This article originated in VOAs Persian Service.

Editor's note: This article had been updated to correct Amin Sophiamehr's title.

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On Revolution Anniversary, Analysts Blame Iran's Islamist Ideology for National Decline - Voice of America