Iran: 3 Problems (for the Greens, for the US, for Ahmadinejad)

0645 GMT: A busy Wednesday, not only in political updates but in conversations with those who have a window into what is happening in Washington and Tehran. The politics and possibilities are so complex that days will be needed to work through the analysis but:

1. The chief problem for the Green movement vis-a-vis the US is not if there is an envoy --- Mohajerani, Makhmalbaf, Sazegara --- but its lack of a clear policy (how would it take power? what would it do if it held power? is there even a single Movement rather than movements?). Then again, does that matter? In other words, if the Green movement focuses on changing the situation inside Iran, giving the US Government (and everyone else) a different political scene to consider, can "Obama: You're with them or you're with us" be treated as a slogan rather than a pressing concern?

2. The chief problem for the Obama Administration is that its nuclear-first policy of engagement is facing the twin difficulty of 1) an Iranian Government that is too fractured and too weak to accept soon a "third-party enrichment" deal taking uranium outside the country and 2) its self-imposed artificial deadline of December to close off the talks and move to tougher sanctions. No doubt, since the talks are still "live" --- International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohmammad El Baradei, Russia, and Turkey are all pushing Tehran to accept a compromise on the Vienna third-party plan --- the US Government will try to push back the cut-off date into the New Year.

It is unlikely, however, that either Congress or the loud sections of the US media and "think tanks" will be willing to accept even a few months of grace. So Obama and advisors  face either the prospect of getting a sudden break-through in Iran's position (how to get to the Supreme Leader so he will endorse this?) or having to accept a "compromise" sanctions regime (probably financial and banking measures outside the United Nations framework).

And that in turn has consequences, because any rupture in the engagement with Iran will affect US strategy in near-by countries. All together now....Afghanistan.

3. And the problem for the Ahmadinejad Government? Take your pick.

The Green movement, whatever the indecisions and vagaries of prominent figures like Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mohammad Khatami and the recent caution of Mehdi Karroubi, won't go away. And the calendar is moving towards 16 Azar (7 December).

Unless the Supreme Leader has an immediate conversion, there will not be a nuclear agreement which both bolsters President Ahmadinejad's legitimacy and gives the impression of Iranian strength.

The "threats within" have resurrected: the Larijanis, Rafsanjani, other Parliamentarians, Ministries who don't like the quest for control of Ahmadinejad (or those allied with him). And they have plenty to work with --- the nuclear dispute, the Government's economic plans, the running sore of the post-election abuses.

The current manoeuvres to ease difficulties are no more than short-term bandages. Allow the most prominent reformists (e.g. Abtahi) to escape their recent sentences and face both the impression of weakness and the risk that those figures will not remain silent. Put them back in prison with "compromise" sentences (2-3 years) and make them martyrs.

And the solutions which sweep away all these little problems? They risk taking down even the symbolic appearance of the Islamic Republic. A Revolutionary Guard public move to assume power, a negotiation to keep rule in the hands of the Supreme Leader (and his family), a new set of the "right" Grand Ayatollahs: any of these bring the pillars of 1979 crashing down.

Problems, problems, problems.....

Comments

[Payom]

Quick correction : 16 Azar*

[arman]

As an iranian i dont see how the pillars of the republic can be come crashing down. The IR is one thing, but Iranians in general are extremely religious people and more people than we think back the IR system. The system has a lot more support than people like to think of. This is not a secular government and hence an anti-IR movement means a movement against Islam. If people must choose between Islam and democracy, without a doubt they will choose Islam. At least for another 50 years im afraid,

Similarly we can see that the people opposing the IR and coming to the streets have been largely the (upper) middle class and not the whole population and most importantly not the poor religious masses who support not only IR but ahmadinejad. Mostty people dont scream for democracy and secularism but allahoakbar.

Iranians are not advanced like the turkish but backward and more traditional. Im afriad IR will stay for a long long time and if it goes away one day the masses who are not much different from IR are there.

Lastly all the socalled opposition members within the country are very much pro IR.

So i dont see how the the system is going to go away.

If khatami or mousavi is placed in power, this green movement happily will stop, and the IR will continue with the same brutality.

Too often we see the situation with a western view.

[Scott Lucas]

Payom,

Sorry for the slip. Thanks for picking it up,

S.

[Barry]

Arman

"If people must choose between Islam and democracy"

I am a foreign observer - whose life experience is VERY different to those living in Iran

But, from my perspective, Islam is a religion and Democracy is a system of Government based upon the will of the people. Do people in Iran really see these 2 things as being mutually exclusive? If so, then it is really not possible for the people of Islam to embrace both. I am not religious - but I can and do embrace both things. They are not mutually exclusive and can and do add to one another. Democracy as practiced by an Islamic country will undoubtedly be different to that practiced in a Christian country - or in a country like Japan which practices Shinto and Buddhist religions.

Barry

[Rev Magdalen]

To me, the question is how has the Islamic Regime held power this LONG, not "is it possible to remove it." Of course it's possible to remove it, revolutions happen all over the world all the time, for far less noble justifications than the Green Movement has.

Some people wonder why the US pursued a policy of ignoring Iran for so long, and I believe it's because frankly nobody thought this experimental velayat-e faqih system with the iron-willed guru at the top could last very long. It's just a type of social organization that people sometimes get into very strongly, but it always falls apart. We've seen it countless times, in Jonestown and various other cults, and going on right now in many other countries with cult-of-personality leaders.

People just don't stay living that way forever, it's unnatural and in the end, when the charismatic source of authority inevitably loses the faith of the people, as we saw when the picture of Khamenei was trampled, they WILL rid themselves of it, one way or another. This unraveling can happen quickly or in a long, drawn-out process but the end is inevitable.

With the intelligent, military trained, majority-youth population in Iran fighting for freedom at full bore, I believe Free Iran could come much sooner than anyone would believe. The ends of these types of things tend to happen in spectacular bursts when years of repressed frustration are suddenly unleashed against the oppressive leadership.

[mukharbish]

scott,

re: "a new set of the 'right' grand ayatollahs" - i wanted to comment on this as you previously mentioned a rumour that the Qom Seminary Teachers' Association was going to issue a radically revised list of grand ayatollahs.

It's not new for this association to issue lists of regime-approved religious authorities - it did this most prominently in 1994 (i think) with a list of 7 ayatollahs, controversially and deliberately including Khamenei for the first time. Its homepage (http://www.jameehmodarresin.org/) also currently features links to the sites of current grand ayatollahs/marja'-e taqlid, and intriguingly includes Sistani (who wasn't in the 1994 list).

The implicit endorsement of Sistani (clearly not an IRI favourite) suggests that even this quasi-state association feels obliged to compromise in this area in order to avoid alienating wide sections of the clerical establishment who are wary of being absorbed/controlled by the state. lt seems unlikely that pro-regime members could use the association to overtly impose their preferred scholars as the report you cited suggests.

There are also a number of other grand ayatollahs who have never received this kind of official endorsement of their status but are nevertheless well-established, e.g. Sanei. However any deletions or additions to the 'official' list would of course be significant. I think the only featured scholar among those who've recently criticised the govt is Makarem Shirazi.

[Catherine]

I found this interview from 23 November with George Perkovich by the Council on Foreign Relations to provide an enlightening overview of the steps leading up to /factors creating the current impasse in the nuclear fuel negotiations, and pragmatic advice to the P5 +1 if Iran ends up not being able to seal a deal: http://tinyurl.com/yhdlnju

George Perkovich is vice president for studies and director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

[kamran]

@ Arman

You are so negative about Iranian people and their power. You are not looking back to the our history and richness of thousands years of culture. There is basically no other nation in middle east that can come close to us when it comes to this. We are the only nation in this area that kept their language and culture and did not become "Arab" after they took over our country. People may fall for for "Zahak" for a little while, but they will get out of it as soon as they can (look at our history). Velayt-e Faghieh has no legitimacy any more and will vanish soon. I have seen the power of Iranians in 1979 and I belive they will do the same thing "Faghih" as they did with "Shah". They will do it sooner rather than later.

[Hamid]

I agree with many of Arman's points. There is a strong "Tehran-centric" bias to the news and analysis that we see. Tehran is important but it makes up less than 20% of Iran's population with a higher than average proportion of middle and upper middle class families. What we frequently saw when the large demonstrations were active in Tehran was the more educated, more affluent, and less religious northern part of Tehran and the youth.

The fact that we did NOT see mass demonstrations in other cities is a clear signal that the regime still enjoys large support especially among its core Shia, ethic persian citizens.

Although the middle class in cities outside of Tehran is for the most part fed up with this regime, middle class does not enjoy the majority position.

The key in Iran has always been finding ways to shift the large religious masses to, at worst, stand by and not view the regime as protectors of Islam.

This is very different from what we faced during Shah's regime when only a very small minority made up of upper class families, who helped Shah in controlling Iran, supported Shah... everyone else was ready for a change.

Unless the regime mistakes (revelations of corruption) and independent Grand Ayatollahs are able to shift the view of the masses, unfortunately I see "civil war" as the most likely path for regime change.

[Bill Davit]

Barry,

I think your making the classical mistake of seeing Islam from the upbringing or Judaic/Christian heritage of the West. The problem in doing so is we then attribute the qualities of our religion/society to an Islamic one. Western civilization is based on the premise of critical thinking(Greek/Hellenistic thought) and the idea of "leaving unto Cesar's what is Cesar's." Contrary to this Islam early on rejected critical thought in favor of the divine and in Islam is politics, religion, government, and culture are all wrapped up.

If read up on Al Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyya and you will find the rejection of critical thinking early on in Islam. Al Ghazali's work "Incoherence of the Philosophers" and Ibn Taymiyya statement describing when a person becomes a ture Muslim is when "a perfect dissimilarity with the non-Muslims has been achieved" are clear indications of this rejection. In fact many Islamic philosphers the Islamist like to exclaim about today were in fact declared heretics. Al Kindi and Al Razi were prime examples of scholars who embraced critical thinking and were then branded heretics. This has carried over from century to century. It is why the Islamic world rejected the printing press for 300 yes 300 years. Its is why today the Islamic world lags literally centuries behind the Western world in educational and scientific development. Science and critical thinking is inherently viewed as threat by Islam because it negates the premise of the validity of the divine, says man can figure things out himself, and probably most importantly the rejects the whole concept of predestine(God's set in stone plan for the future) view of the world. Simply put embracing western civilization is an innovation is many Muslims minds and thus must be rejected at all costs. It is why non Muslims are so categorically termed the "enemy" throughout the Islamic world.

Democracy was born out of critical thinking and the concept of man being able to figure things out himself. Thus what we know as democracy in the West is contrary to Islamic thought. In Islam how can man trully know what is good for him in light of the master plan laid out in Islamic scripture. Christianity is viewed as a narrative on how we are to live life and clearly seperates church and state. Islam rejects man made laws and their religion is the word of God and thus inviolate. To challenge God in Islam is blasphemy thus technically speaking true democarcy as we see it can never trully be adopted in the Islamic world. To a Muslim the Quran, Haddith, and Sira is the perfect blueprint of how to live their lives and in that state, life, and religon are all one. Unlike Christianity or Judaism Islam is not a narrative but prescriptive religion. Muslims have submitted and thus must obey according to the dictates of scripture.

Sorry if I am being a bit pedantic but I see this type question quite a bit. Personally I think the Islamic world will embrace democracy at some time but it will not be true democracy as we see it. I hope we can see secularism rise in the Islamic world but I wouldn't hedge my bet on it. Secularism clearly espouses a seperation of church and state something quite against the teachings of Islam. What we are seeing in Iran is a democractic movement but you must view it from an Islamic standpoint to understand it. The Green movement has not rejected Islam but is in fact challenging the regime using many of the rights they are suppose to have because of it. After all the constitution in Iran is based on Sharia and who is the regime to deny those. They may think they are appointed by God but in the end it is God's law not what the regime thinks is law that is right! Read the Quran, a Hadith source(Bukhari is one), and the Sira and I gurantee while it may be at times boring it will be an eye opener. You will see that over 50% of the scripture focuses on the non Muslims and puts quite a negative predisposition on us. That predispositon will offer you a lot of explanation of why their is so much conflict in the Islamic world with those of other faiths.

Thx
Bill

[arman]

@Hamid.

I strongly disagree. they stood against the shah for his dictatorship and liberal social values. Iranians are conservative. They dont mind the conservative hejab police and the social values of the IR. Because its their own values too. Iranians will never stand up against religious dictatorship since its religious.

Again i disagree, we did become arabs! our alphabet is arabic, at last half of the words in our language is arabic. I would say most of them and our religion is arabic. What is left of iran?

Looking at the region only modern turkey has freed itself from arab imperialism. Thanks to Ataturk.

what you saw in 1979 was nothing but religious movement and hatred against social freedom and the lack of religion in politics. Plus the very few who actually wanted democracy.

Im sorry but we are a lost nation with backward people. soon we will be behind in the region too, sitting there with our Islamic system and envying Afghanistan.

[arman]

@ Barry. Thanks for your excellent input. This is one of the reasons almost no countries in the muslim world are democracies. Only turkey since they understood that the only way towards freedom from islamism is to crack down hard on islamic dogmatism.

The west won the battle of civilizations. and the only reason was simply critical thinking, hence deviation from (political) religion and humanism.

[arman]

Sorry!

my reply was meant for Kamran not Hamid who said he agreed.

now well. Face it people. Most iranians SUPPORT the clerical regime and are happy with islamism and dictatorship, this is exactly what they wanted in 1979.

[Barry]

To Bill and Arman

There is a truth in what you say - but you have left some important things unsaid.
Notwithstanding the imperfection of current western Democracies, they have not arrived at their current position overnight. It has been a long slow painful process. Western Christian societies have passed through what is termed the Dark and Middle Ages - when ""God's word" was all powerful, God's representatives were all powerful, and people were not allowed to think for themselves. Does this not sound a bit like many Muslim societies today.

Then, after the Christian "Reformation", the representatives of God split into different factions - and persecuted one another. Heresy was whatever the Pope said it was and they burnt competing factions at the stake. The Reformist Protestants did the same. Today, these different Christian factions are still at one another in the modern state of Ireland. Does this not sound a little like today with the worldwide hatred between Sunni/Shia.

A very large difference between Islamic society and Western society now - is simply that Western society has moved forwards during the past 1000 years - whereas Islamic society hasn't. Things like separation of Church and State and Democracy are relatively recent innovations in Western societies- yet to be discovered (or perhaps more so yet to be embraced by Islamic society). These things would have been undreamed of in the western Christian world of 1000 years ago.

The uneducated European peasants of 1000 years ago all thought that the Pope directly spoke for God - today, they are no longer uneducated, and although bad habits are difficult to give up, they no longer really believe that. But it has taken them 1000 years to get to this point. But today, education in Islamic societies is readily available and communications around the world allow Islamic people to see things and hear things that the ancient European peasants could not even imagine. It is not going to take 1000 years for the Islamic societies to find their own "Renaissance"

Barry

[Megan]

Arman,

“what you saw in 1979 was nothing but religious movement and hatred against social freedom and the lack of religion in politics. Plus the very few who actually wanted democracy.”

1979 most certainly was not a religious movement or rejection of social freedom. 1979 was the product of disproportionate ratio of “have” and “have not” in Iran. The “haves” who were few in number had wealth, education, opportunity, drive, ambition, and the ability to grasp progress and quickly embraced Iran industrial revolution. The ‘have nots” who were significantly larger in number did not have the opportunity to participate in Iran industrial revolution and felt left-out.

Every religion has always targeted disenfranchised members of the society because it is much easier to manipulate the uneducated and dissatisfied.

Iranian mullahs who had existed because of this vulnerable majority of “have nots” and had made their living on the backs of disaffected knew the time was right to exploit them to the full extent. All they had to do to herd people pointing finger at the bogeyman responsible for their misery and promise them both material and eternal rewards if they rose and crushed the culprits, the Shah and the West. Khomeini, the chief charlatan, played the “have nots” like a violin and we know the rest. People realized within the first two years that they were tricked. Unfortunately, in the absence of any intervention by the World super powers these criminals crushed every domestic discontent quickly and with utmost brutality and they continue doing it today.

Today, Iran is vastly different from 1979. Today, communication technologies are light years different from 1979. Today Iranians have firsthand experience with clergies in government seats. Today, they know their real enemies are among them. You cannot fool them and point finger to the West as the bogeyman anymore.

2009 Iran will not embrace the 1979. It is gross injustice and disrespect to families of those who have lost their lives in undoing the 1979 during the past thirty years by suggesting otherwise.

[Hamid]

Megan, I agree with your main point about the major differences between 1979 and 2009. But to describe things as a battle of "haves" versus "have nots" is too simplistic and ignores complexities of human beings and what drives their actions.

Although the top 1,000 families that helped Shah run Iran were never a part of the 1979 protests, many families of doctors, professors, and merchants were. What drove them was not a lack of economic opportunities but a frustration with lack of basic freedoms and fear of Savak that was so different from what their western education had taught them about.

The massive population that supported the overthorw of Shah knew that they wanted to end Shah's dictatorship and subserviance to the US, but unfortinately their lack of political maturity did not help them know what they should want to replace it with.

The devout religious segment of mostly lower class and less educated Iranians clearly wanted a move toward what they perceived as the solution to everything: an Shia society.

The rest had hoped that somehow a democratic system would take hold and the best ideas would win. Over the past 30 years this segment has learned from actual events and learned a great deal about the importance of separating the clerics from the government and using rational thinking to guide discussions.

However, although the original religiously devout, "have not" segment has also experienced some changes, at its core it still views the current Islamic Republic system with a Velayate Faghih at its helm as the "God's system" which must be preserved and spread.

So the challenge for the opposition continues to be how to convince this base to reduce its support of the regime that uses three main levers to extend its existence: 1) Religion (specifically the shia velayate faghih branch), 2) Oil money (used thru tactical moves like targted subsidies and development projects to improve the lives of its core base), and 3) Security Forces (to shut down its opposition).

So to be successful, the opposition strategy must address these three major levers: 1) discredit regime leaders and velayate faghih, 2) reduce the flow of money to the regime, 3) discredit the coup security forces and encourage support from those who sincerely want to protect their people and country.

[Bill Davit]

Barry,

Thank you for your reply. You got my point and expanded on it describing the reformation. As you correctly stated Islam has never gone through a reformation. It is important to note that the very premise of Islam uniquely negates change unlike any other religion. While those in Europe were bound by the chains of religious intolerance it was man made not religious in nature. Islam by its own word says the Quran is perfect and cannot be changed because it is God's word. When you take that into context It is quite easy to see why the Islamic world has such a difficult time with modernity and change. My hope is we are seeing the starts of a reformation in Islam and the Green Movement is a good example of that. Hopefully one day we can all think of each other as equals regardless of faith. Sadly until then we will have deal with people like A Ma Dinner Jacket dreaming of the return of the Mahdi.

Thx
Bill