Iran

Islamic Republic of Iran

جمهوری اسلامی ايران
Jomhuri-ye Islāmi-ye Irān

Official language: Farsi (Persian)

As anyone who has managed to reach this blog will already know, things are shaking up in Iran right now. For background, check Andrew Sullivan; he's done a sterling job of covering the whole thing since the initial results were announced on Friday.

I've been watching the situation unfold with a mixture of joy, hope, and worry. On the one hand, it's always wonderful to see people, the people, standing up for themselves and their rights in the face of oppression, no matter what country. Iran's critical position in the Middle East vis a vis our own further appeals to my inner von Bismarck. Most powerful of all, however, is seeing this through the lens of our tortured history with Iran and its people.

***** (background follows)
The linked Wikipedia article will have more details, but to summarize, the Islamic Republic in its current incarnation is a result of Cold War meddling on our part during the early 1950s. At that time, Iran was a more or less healthy secular democracy, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (also spelled Mossadeq). Unfortunately for him, Prime Minister Mossadegh got it into his head that the wealth flowing from Iran's rich oil fields, then exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, should instead go to the state and people of Iran. So he nationalized the oil fields (boo! hiss! dirty marxist!). Unhappy with this development, Britain and the United States colluded in Operation Ajax to correct Mossadegh's little misstep and replace him with someone more pliable. National security, can't let the Reds worm their way in, that sort of thing. It went off without a hitch and we installed the Shah, a nice (to non-Iranians, anyway) man named Reza Pahlavi who cut a dashing figure in uniform and did exactly as we said.

Right: the Shah on a particularly dashing day

Unfortunately, the bothersome Iranian people weren't altogether happy with their new Shah--some silly rot about being ruled by an unaccountable dictator installed by foreigners--and in all honesty he didn't really help matters, setting up a secret police complete with cool acronym (SAVAK) to properly crush dissent. Add in the fact that he was completely tone-deaf to his own country's culture--he constantly played up the pre-Islamic Persian aspects while the Iranian people were and remain pretty solidly Shi'ite Muslim--and after 25 years of Shah Pahlavi, the Iranian people had had enough.

The Shah was overthrown and exiled in 1979, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was born, headed by the stern Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Unfortunately (see how often that word seems to pop up in this post?) for the Iranian people, the good Ayatollah decided that Western corruption was entirely to blame for that nasty business with Pahlavi, so why not ban it all straightaway and stick with [Khomeini's interpretation of] the Koran. What was good enough for the Prophet is good enough for us, and so forth. Right, Imam Khomeini?

"Absolutely! Oh, and while the Shah, cursed be his name, truly was a royal jerk, he had the right idea not to trust the people, though for the wrong reasons. He wanted to enrich himself and impose his personal vision of 'Persia' on all of us, dastardly fellow. We're merely concerned with moral purity, as laid out by the Prophet and, naturally, interpreted by us. Allah knows the common folk will fall into decadence at the first opportunity; they simply cry out for moral guidance--I can almost hear them now, poor things! Who to rule, then...well, since the Koran is the final word on everything, why not give power to those most familiar with it? That's right, the clerics! Headed by wise old me, of course, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Oh FINE, quit whining, we'll give them a directly elected president and some other trappings of democracy, all candidates pre-approved by our learned selves, of course. Someone's got to lay down the law around here--remember, 'Allah did not create man so that he could have fun.'*"

So there you have it. Straight from authoritarian dictatorship to authoritarian theocracy with some democratic aspects. Since then we've had one hostage crisis, the good Iranians not forgetting our role in installing and propping up the Shah; funded one war against those ungrateful bastards, prosecuted by the ever so helpful and secular Saddam Hussein; and, more recently, we've been trading mean words and threats, interspersed every so often by that wonderful international expletive nuclear. Hmm, I suppose that was a hell of a lot more than a summary, but no matter.
*****

So now we have, at a glance, challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the reformist corner vs. everyone's favorite, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the...Ahmadinejad corner. Come to think of it, I have heard, note the emphasis, that Iranians seem to like Mousavi more by virtue of his not being Ahmadinejad than much else, so perhaps he's more in the...anti-Ahmadinejad corner? Mousavi served as Prime Minister from 1981-1987, and according to Wikipedia, "Mousavi refused to run for President in the 1997 elections, which caused the reformists to turn to his former Cabinet Minister, then a little-known cleric, Mohammad Khatami, who was elected by a landslide. During Khatami's administration, Mousavi served as the Senior Adviser to the President." Khatami served as a generally moderating force, softening restrictions and perhaps even some of the Great Satan rhetoric, though my memory is foggy on the particulars. Sane, intelligent people generally seemed to think he was a Good Guy, so I'll go with that. With that in mind, it's a fair bet that Mousavi probably wouldn't be too different, though I've heard things about his involvement in the founding of the Lebanese Islamist militia Hezbollah (apparently now deployed against Mousavi's own supporters in Iran; I'm sure Mousavi has some very choice words acknowledging this little irony) which might ordinarily give one pause, except, well, he's not Ahmadinejad.

I'm going to trample any remaining vestiges of impartiality here and side with Mousavi, just so you know where I stand. It's really not that hard, of course, especially after Ahmadinejad and his boss Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (who directly succeeded Khomeini when he died) pretty clearly rigged the election in Ahmadinejad's favor.** Having a base firmly planted in the traditionalists and the Revolutionary Guard, an elite wing of the Iranian military with its own ministry, army, air force, navy, etc. (think the Nazi SS, only bigger and more elaborate), doesn't really help, either. Ahmadinejad is himself a veteran of the Basij, a fanatical paramilitary force that reports straight to the Revolutionary Guard and which is believed to be largely responsible for attempts to crush the current unrest.

So now what? Well, it's a developing story, but again, although it's immensely uplifting to see the people of Iran protest en masse against this apparent coup d'etat, without the support or at least neutrality of the army, as occurred in the 1979 revolution, there's not much they can do to actually change things. And even if the army flips, the protestors' main man Mousavi is himself a member of the clerical establishment, a moderate only in comparison with Ahmadinejad. As such, I don't hold out much hope that he'd demand the truly fundamental changes that, from what I've heard, many of the Iranians want. True self-determination, at least, seems unlikely.

President Obama has rightly noted that any U.S. attempts to weigh in on things would help Ahmadinejad more than anyone else, though it's clear who's side he's on. Of course, the...alternate view is also readily available. If you want me to go into detail to refute these last, let me know, I'll not clutter this post up with back and forth arguments.

Speaking of musings and predictions, the NYT has an intriguing little op-ed which grimly describes the the coup as a virtual fait accompli (let's see how much French I can squeeze in here!). It despairs that we are now seeing "the consolidation of power by a ruthless regime and the transformation of a theocracy to an ideological military dictatorship." Sullivan blasts it as "outright hoping for the coup to succeed," and he has a point, as it's authored by a couple of neocon AEI drones and is especially transparent in its conclusion:

What does this mean for President Obama and the policy of engagement he hopes to pursue? Some will argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad may be in a conciliatory mood because he needs talks with the United States to underscore his own legitimacy, but that can only be read as a self-serving Washington perspective...[The new] Iran neither needs nor wants accommodation with the West.

However, the overall analysis nonetheless seems depressingly plausible, as far as I can be the judge of plausibility in a country I've only experienced through books and articles.

If only, if only...to think that we are ultimately responsible for this whole mess, all due to [simple greed masquerading as] early Cold War paranoia. It's maddening! One would hope we would have learned to appreciate a lighter touch, and thankfully Obama does, but the size, influence, and unholy persistence of the hawks is still chilling. Every problem a Gordian Knot, every tool a sword.

Anyway, here's hoping that by some miracle the Iranian protestors do prevail and implement some real reform. At the very least, Americans now have a vivid image of them as fellow human beings rather than simply targets on a map.

A few interesting notes:
-[In]famous torrent site The Pirate Bay has changed their logo to reflect solidarity with the Iranian demonstrations
-As linked above, the State Department prevailed upon Twitter to postpone downtime originally scheduled for the middle of the day, Iran time (Iranian protestors have been making extensive use of the service, as the government has shut down most opposition websites and newspapers)
-Andy Samberg, gold as usual


*An actual quote. Longer form (source): "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition..." :(

** Proof (again, Sullivan is a good place for details and sources): Ahmadinejad won landslides in solid Mousavi and Karoubi (another reformer) strongholds, including ethnic Azerbaijani ones (Mousavi is Azeri); Ahmadinejad's lead remained perfectly consistent throughout the night the results were tallied; the Iranian government's own election commission declared the results suspect; Mousavi and Mousavi-allied newspapers were told by the government to prepare for victory shortly before the final results were out, and even admonished not to be too exuberant in the interests of national unity; Khamenei rushed to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his victory, rather than waiting the traditional 3 days; and so on. Just to clarify, the vaunted "2 to 1 Ahmadinejad lead" poll from the waning days of the campaign, which the Washington Post irresponsibly ran an op-ed on, actually showed the incumbent with ~30% support compared to Mousavi's ~15%, with a huge chunk of voters undecided. Some lead.