Iran calls Wall Street protests ‘American Spring’

TEHRAN—An Iranian military commander said Sunday that the protests spreading from New York’s Wall Street to other US cities are the beginning of an “American Spring,” likening them to the uprisings that toppled Arab autocrats in the Middle East.

Gen. Masoud Jazayeri of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the protests against corporate greed and the gap between rich and poor are a revolution in the making that will topple what he called the Western capitalist system.

The Occupy Wall Street movement started in New York City last month and is spreading to other parts of the country. The loosely affiliated movement is peacefully protesting the power of the financial and political sectors.

Jazayeri said President Barack Obama’s election promises of change have reached a dead end.

“The failure of the US president to resolve the Wall Street crisis will turn this economic movement into a political and social movement protesting the very structure of the US

government,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Jazayeri as saying Sunday.

“A revolution and a comprehensive movement against corruption in the US is in the making. The last phase will be the collapse of the Western capitalist system,” he said, according to IRNA.