Dictatorships are particularly successful when they are flexible at the right moment

It was an almost casual remark. "The vice squad has been disbanded, but the judiciary will continue to deal with this societal task," Iran's Attorney General Mohammed Jafar Montazeri said at a news conference in response to a reporter's question.

Perhaps the leadership wants to use this nonchalance to cover up the fact that, in response to months of protests, they are revising their Islamist government practice on an important point. Unlike in other Islamic countries, Iran's moral police are not only responsible for censuring loose headscarves.

At the same time, it embodies the Iranian system's claim to serve a religious goal, the "promotion of virtue and the prevention of sin", as required in several places in the Koran. If the moral police really is dissolved, then the so-called Islamic Republic has given up an important symbol of its identity.

That would be a real victory for the protesters. But everything indicates that it is at most a tactical concession.

Montaseri's postscript already makes it clear that the rules that the moral police were tasked with enforcing have by no means been abolished. Other bodies should now ensure compliance. The Islamic Republic will certainly not give up this part of its self-image.

Rather, the leadership seems to want to split the demonstrators with this step. If those who only wanted the headscarf requirement to be relaxed stay at home, then the others who are demonstrating for a system change will be on their own. That is probably the hope of those in power.

The Chinese government is currently acting in a similar way. She is loosening corona restrictions to get those demonstrators off the streets who were only protesting against the lockdowns. The others, who also want an end to communist rule, are to be isolated. Dictatorships are particularly successful when they are flexible at the right moment. The question is whether that will still be enough to save the Islamic Republic.