Truth and Reconciliation in/for Iran? A Roundtable Discussion
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 9:15 
On July 31st, a politically diverse group of 31 academics, students, and anti-war protestors published an open letter in The Guardian of London, criticising what they viewed as the western media’s one-sided coverage of the post-election developments in Iran. Foremost amongst the fallacies they perceived was the portrayal of the election results as “the start of a ‘velvet’ revolution against the Islamic Republic". At the same time, the letter alleged that the US State Department has used the crisis to “justify its continuation of Bush-era policies of financing anti-Iranian government organisations". Not only was this an act of political opportunism on the part of advocates of regime change, this interference and propaganda campaign aided the Iranian Government’s crackdown on the opposition and slowed the pace of democratic progress.
The authors contend that is only without foreign threats and interference that “the Iranian people [can] reach their aspirations of freedom and establish their unity in a framework of independence and national sovereignty.” For the reformist and Green Movement to affect real change in Iran, there must be a reversal of the West’s opposition to Tehran’s nuclear program and an “end [to] all their illegitimate economic, political and military pressures aimed at the internal destabilization of Iran".
Beyond this critique of Western policy towards Iran, the authors issued suggestions for finding a “reasonable solution for the conflict”. They demanded of the Government an end to attacks upon activists and the immediate release of political detainees. The letter also calls for a spirit of national conciliation facilitated by the establishment of an “independent truth and national reconciliation commission with representation from all candidates, such that it can gain the trust of the people of Iran". Addressing the leaders of the reformists and the Green movement, the authors suggest that “in order to prevent exploitation of the current crisis by western propaganda and opportunist groups, they unambiguously oppose all sanctions and condemn regime change. operations and any foreign support for the anti-Islamic Republic opposition".
The publication of this letter provoked a spirited debate within academic circles, so Enduring America invited interested parties to participate in a roundtable discussion. The exchanges touched upon all the issues raised in the letter but also spread to a wider debate on how the academic and media approach critical analysis of Iran. Participants included: Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, a Doctoral Candidate in Contemporary Iranian History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Holding dual Iranian citizenship, he has reported extensively on Iranian affairs for national Italian newspapers; Dr Farideh Farhi, a leading US-based scholar of Iran and co-author of the letter; Chris Emery, a British-based Doctoral Candidate who has written on Iranian affairs for The Guardian and contributes regularly to Enduring America; and Nathan Coombs, a Doctoral Candidate in London who specialises in revolutionary politics and is co-editor of the Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies.
SIAVUSH RANDJBAR-DAEMI: The authors introduce themselves as “anti-war activists” and proudly highlight their recent efforts against the “the pervasive deception created by western and Israeli-influenced media”. The group further attempts to remember that it does not wish to see a particular faction in Iran advance its goals, rather they wish to see the country’s “national rights” to be respected and be borne to fruition.
Like many Iranians across the globe, this group has been taken aback from the aftermath of the heady June 12 elections. They state that they wish to “help develop realistic solutions for the benefit of all our compatriots of whatever political persuasion” and particularly propose the creation of a South African-styled “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to solve the current divergence internal to the regime and express hope that the large number of political activists and civil society practitioners currently imprisoned and facing trial will be freed soon.
What makes the “Open Letter” unappealing for informed readers are the frequent generalisations contained in some of its salient points. Particularly of concern is the lampooning of the Western media. While it is certainly true that segments of the European or American press have been incorrect if not entirely libellous in their respective Iranian coverage in past years - as unconfirmed scoops on the supposed military capabilities of the Iranian nuclear programme or the fake Yellow star story published by Canadian National Post in 2006 suggest - the concept that Western media as a whole has acted in unison to portray a constant skewed, biased and negative image of Iran is questionable. Even more alarming are sweeping judgements such as “The western media, by their one-sided coverage of the post-election developments, portrayed the street demonstrations protesting the election results as the start of a "velvet" revolution against the Islamic Republic”.
At the heart of this particular issue lies a more tangible definition of the “Western media”. The tendency to identify the latter with a few well known villains of the piece, such as BBC, CNN, Fox or Al Jazeera runs into serious trouble if one were to be present in media events in Tehran in the week preceding and following June 12. Nothing less than hundreds of reporters were accredited by the Iranian Culture Ministry for the elections, and most of whom catered for audiences that went in to the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Coordination across several time-zones, languages as well as experience in direct reporting from Iran that went from journalists on their first assignment in Tehran to experienced hands who pointed out to sign-posts left unchanged since 1979 to produce any sort of “one-sided coverage” was well-nigh impossible. Rather than preach the ills of an inherently diverse group of reporters, the authors could have spent more time detailing the specific parts of the western media that engaged in deception and wrong-doing.
The analysis of the internal situation offered by the open letter also raises some questions. The bulk of the current political-legal quandary faced by the reformists internal to the Islamic Republic is essentially blamed upon the “provocative and confrontational policies” of George Bush, which, according to the authors, “played a key role in the defeat of Iranian reformists in the parliamentary elections of 2003 [sic] and the presidential election of 2005”. Whereas there are no grounds to dispute the erroneous and inhumane traits of Bush’s Middle East policy, the attribution of the conservative victories in 2004 - when the Guardian Council, a distinctively hawkish body, disqualified thousands of would-be reformist candidates from the Majlis race - and 2005, when the reformists and pragmatists such as Hashemi Rafsanjani paid the price of an extremely lacklustre political performance in preceding years, to foreign political meddling is a conjecture that would most likely baffle even the more staunch reformists in Tehran. While it is certainly true that the perception of increased outside intervention made life difficult for Khatami’s camp, one is left wondering why the latter successfully convinced the Supreme Leader to accept to a series of major overtures to the West in that same time frame, such as the wide-ranging settlement proposal sent to Washington soon after the Iraq war in 2003 ,which included a radical overhaul of Iran’s entire regional foreign policy, or the Tehran Nuclear Agreement between the EU3 and Iran in late 2003. One is therefore left to ponder whether the reformists have been the target of their own undoing on the national political scene, going as they did from total control of Parliament and the presidency in 2000 to the almost total exclusion from institutional participation of present.
The analysis provided within the open letter as to the cause of present disturbances raises some questions. Most peculiar is the attribution of the decision by millions of Iranians to flood the streets of Tehran within hours of the election results to “various irregularities [...] including the suspension of reformist newspapers and mobile telephone SMS service on election day”. It would have been perhaps ideal at this stage to recall the main slogan of the protesting masses: “Where is my vote?” Iranians did not take to the streets to reclaim the distribution of reformists’ dailies or request the resumption of the ability to send text messages. Rather, they felt that an undeniable right of any modern society, and most particularly their own, that has spent the best part of the past century inconclusively engaging in a long-drawn state-building exercise, the chance to choose an official candidate of its liking, had been abruptly taken away from them. Far from being an irregularity whose classification can be cloaked under the term “various”, this request stands at the heart of the unparalleled tension between the different wings of the political elite of the Islamic Republic. Its omission from the discourse of the “open letter” is therefore surprising and of concern.
The open letter ends on a number of valid points, including the invocation to allow Iranians to be masters of their own destiny and the invitation, to Western governments, to avoid a repeat of the 1953 coup or any other sort of interference. However, in their role of informed and esteemed academics, the signatories should perhaps adopt a less generalising approach and one more inclined to grasp the complexity of the dynamics of the Islamic Republic’s relationship with the West and its domestic politics, whose insularity to winds of change occasionally blown from abroad appears to be remarkably resistant three decades after the Revolution that sought to end Western interference in Iran once and for all.
CHRIS EMERY: Although I found myself agreeing with large segments of this letter, I found its overall message confusing. This letter seems to have three aims: to criticise Western policy in Iran, to condemn Western media coverage of the current crisis, and to make suggestions to resolve the impasse. The first two assertions require a more detailed interrogation than is possible here and thus fall flat. The third aim requires MUCH more detailed elaboration, especially regarding the composition, remit, time frame and powers of the "national reconciliation commission". Without this, the purpose of this letter is as unclear as its intended audience. It reads more like a collection of academics trying to get something off their chests than a serious roadmap for solving the impasse.
Though I agree with many of the letter’s critiques of Western policy, several analyses are less persuasive. Firstly, the authors contend that the only thing standing between President Khatami's successful reformist agenda (1997-2005) and rehabilitation of Iran's relations with the West was Bush. This is simply false; Khatami had already faced a hard-line backlash in 1999 following the student riots and there is little to suggest the Supreme Leader was as equally committed to normalised relations. Even Khatami’s overtures were carefully pitched as a dialogue between faiths and peoples rather substantive talks between two governments. I think it is also disingenuous to suggest that Iran’s cooperation with the US in toppling the Taliban was a personal gesture by Khatami aimed more at rapprochement with the US than as an action clearly in Iran's security interests.
Whilst recognising the counter-productive nature of Western policies, I disagree that the final success of democracy and reform in Iran is dependent on the actions of the West. This, in my view, absolves the Iranian authorities of their primary responsibility for their actions.
FARIDEH FARHI: Siavush's criticism is certainly well-taken and there is no doubt that not all Western reporting has been as the statement describes, although much has. But I don't see how Chris' point about the understanding of Khatami's gestures can be construed from the statement. The point is simply that Bush's policies helped to undermine the reform movement (I believe the sentence says it played "a key role" and not "the" key role). Is this a wrong point? As to the West’s responsibility, show me a state that has not moved in the direction of securitization and away from democratic practices when under foreign threat.
Are there objections to our suggestions? Are they problematic or wrong suggestions? I will be delighted if this statement begins a conversation in this regard even if all the suggested ideas are rejected and replaced
NATHAN COOMBS: The authors’ focus on the Western media’s portrayal of the post-election insurrection follows two recognizable trends that we have witnessed since the elections in Iran.
First is the reformists' rhetorically convenient emphasis on the opinion of the unreconstructed (and-ill informed) anti-imperialist Left in the West, for whom Ahmedinijad is seen as the representative of the poor and a bulwark against American ambitions in the region. Need it be said, this is a distorted and caricatured portrayal; based as it is on a marginal strand of the Left’s take on the situation, never mind the Western media as a whole.
All the Western media, barring some exceptions that stand out precisely for their rarity, were firmly behind the uprising; not just in the sense of uncritical cheerleading for [Presidential candidate] Mir Hossein Mousavi, but in portraying the events as a broadly class-composed popular uprising. This impression was established through the reliance on English-speaking Tehranese ‘informants’ and Iranian scholars based in the West such as Professor Ali Ansari. It was not a critically examined proposition, whatever the truth of the matter.
As such the claim that the Western media portrayed the uprising as a “velvet revolution” by anti-Islamic Republic forces (implying that it was doing so for the benefit of foreign regime-change advocates) does not hold water at all. If anything, there was a clear recognition by the likes of the BBC that what was unfolding was an intra-establishment power play, to which Western commentators predominantly came down firmly on the side of Mousavi, to the exclusion of more radical currents.
Second, the overall framing of the letter is firmly nationalist. In its thorough conflation of anti-Islamic Republic forces with pernicious foreign influence, the letter amounts to essentially a whitewash of the realities of the Islamic Republic and an elaborate piece of apologism. The sub-text is status quoist. From the opening paragraphs to the last, the woes of the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] are firmly lumped at the feet of imperialist forces and the policies of the specific government of Ahmadinejad, rather than the Islamic system itself. In its call for a premature truth and reconciliation commission, the authors’ seek to co-opt the spirit of the uprising to refine and buttress the Islamic Republic.
This is justified in terms of seeking to bring in the interests of the bourgeoisie more firmly within the apparatus and juridical norms of the state. As the letter puts it, “These social and political pressures, along with government mismanagement caused by the removal of competent technocrats, have negatively impacted the public interest and put enormous pressure on the middle class, the educated class, journalists and artists. These people must be allowed a more open and free environment in order to fulfil their instrumental roles in service of the country.” And in the spirit of national unity, under the justification of representing the interests of the middle class, the authors applaud the fact that: “extremist elements who used the opportunity to create chaos and engaged in the destruction of public property were condemned by Mousavi". Finally, in a total denunciation of any authentic revolutionary anti-IRI ambitions: “We call on the political forces of both sides to move toward building such a constructive climate and toward creation of an economic, political, and cultural agenda that can respond to all social needs.”
One can only hope that the siren call of this letter is not heeded, and that the workers, students, and radicalized of Iran can build some sort of organization to surpass the inhibiting reformism of Mousavi and his nationalist supporters of the IRI. The Western media has little, if anything, to do with it.
EMERY: Farideh, I do not deny the damage Bush's policies have wrought. However, I think this letter overemphasized Khatami's ability to reconfigure Iran's relations with the West. Certainly, Bush's policies didn't help, but in many ways the instruments of the state were more arbitrary and 'rogue' in the 1990s.
As you say, the main point is that we talk about these issues. Given the enormously broad spectrum of political beliefs and perspectives amongst the authors of this letter, I do wonder how this can be coherently achieved.
FARHI: Chris, if you are reading the statement as though it is trying to discount the overall responsibility of Iran's leaders for political, economic and judicial failures, then that is a shortcoming that was not the intent of the statement. At least in one paragraph tries to deal clearly with those failings (and note that there is a reason the first recommendations address the domestic situation and forces).
At the same time, the intent was also not to shy away from discussing the context of the past two decades of containment and regime change policies on the part of the US and the impact of those policies on distorting Iran's body politic, making many already paranoid officials even more paranoid. Does this mean that the US is the cause for the mess Iran is in today? Of course not. Ultimately culpability lies with those who have other choices but choose to stunt their people's citizenship.
Did Iran have many rogue elements in the 90's? Yes, but Iran was also gradually moving in a direction that could be considered positive even during the Rafsanjani presidency (1989-1997). I have no difficulty acknowledging that the trend was deemed dangerous by hardliners and hence their resistance and reaction. But I don't see any useful purpose in not placing that resistance and reaction in the context of external pressures and threats that by the way were not limited to the Bush Administration.
FARHI: Are the hard-line forces wrong in using these props to justify their authoritarian policies? Of course they are, and they should be condemned as the statement does. But I do not see any useful purpose in toning down the discussion of the instruments they were given, which they have recklessly used and should be held responsible for, since they had the option of not using them.
Frankly, I do not see any reason for anyone interested in the expansion of civil liberties and equal treatment of citizens as well as a somewhat independent foreign policy (yes I am a shameless and hopeless liberal) to shy away from attempting a balanced view, even if that attempts ends up being flawed as you suggest.
EMERY: These are very compelling clarifications. However, I feel the fact that such detailed elaboration is required reinforces my point. The above debate is enormously complex and, I think, treated in much less measured terms in the letter. Likewise, the issue of how the West has covered the current crisis requires examples, comparisons, and historical and political context.
As Siavush pointed out, there has been some fantastic reporting of current events by some outstanding journalists, if of course there have also been some awful, politically motivated, and historically ignorant pieces. It strikes me as a) unfair to tar the former with the latter b) slightly naive to issue a call for the latter to end. It won't, anymore than the ridiculous reporting by the Iranian media.
So I am still unsure what the overall focus and intended audience of the letter was. It seems to be doing quite a lot, often with a slightly complacent reliance on an anti-imperialist framework. Your fundamental point is that the West should butt out and give the reformists space. I think this is essentially what the US Government has done. Obama was resolute in his insistence that this could not become a US-Iranian issue. He has not vocally supported the Green Movement and has not even alleged fraud in the elections.
You say that Obama has kept 'many of his predecessors' policies'. I think Bush would have claimed the Green Movement for himself, immediately condemned the elections as a sham, and would have used all of this as a platform to ramp up his confrontational policies.
If we are emphasising the need for external forces to moderate their policies to allow the political space for domestic change, why are there no suggestions for the Iranian Government to moderate its rhetoric and policies vis- a-vis the West, particularly in the Middle East?
I agree that there probably is a link between external threats and democratisation. I would disagree, however, with the implications of the statement, “Only under these conditions, without any foreign threats, can the Iranian people reach their aspirations of freedom.” Many non-democracies strengthen or uphold this state with or without facing external threats (Saudi Arabia, Burma, Guinea, China). In fact, the Central Asian region is littered with such states. The fact remains that the IRI's attitude to political and human rights has ebbed and flowed, but has never really shown a structural capability to tolerate dissent. Structural and bureaucratic obstacles are MUCH more significant than the external strategic environment.
FARHI: Chris, as to your point about the US government butting out, the statement did point out the difference between Obama's and Bush's approaches and noted the trend was positive, but it also pointed out that the general framework of US policy regarding Iran's nuclear program has remained the same, at least so far. Obama has continued to be interested in a sticks-and-carrots approach, so has his Secretary of State who has talked about "crippling sanctions" if Iran doesn't abandon its pursuit of a weapons program (The US Senate just passed legislation to that effect as well). To be sure, the linguistic shift to a "weapons program" and away from "enrichment suspension" is an important shift, but so far I have not seen any concrete manifestation of what that shift will mean in terms of policy. Suspension as a pre-condition has been removed, but that demand as an outcome has not necessarily been abandoned).
As to the equivalence you imply we should have endeavored to pursue regarding both the US and Iran's immoderate foreign policies, it just doesn't make sense in terms of the purpose of the statement written by people who identify themselves anti-war. Such people are worried about a US attack on Iranian territory, about which there has been not only a whole lot of loose talk but actual threats and policies
Finally, the IRI has been criminal and rigid more often than not but what has distinguished it from many other countries in the region and also other post-revolutionary societies is the level of conflicts and disagreements within it among various groups contesting for power. There is a reason the search for one revolutionary party was abandoned in Iran in the 1980s, and there is a reason you have such heated and violent confrontation about the direction of the country at this point. These conflicts are structural in so far as they represent different interests and ideas. The writers of the statements, despite their ideological diversity, believe that the contending forces --- and there are more than two --- need to find democratic and non-violent rules to live with each other, rather than attempt to purge the other from Iran's body politic.
From my point of view, there is nothing utopian or ideal about the Islamic Republic, but representing the conflict in Iran as many in the West --- or inside Iran --- have done as being between the "people" and the Islamic State, as though the people of Iran are one unit collectively engaged in an endeavor to transform a hated state, is both incorrect and I believe dangerous. It is part and parcel of the hope that a simple wishing away of the Islamic Republic or the street mobilization we have seen will do the trick.
The statement, by the way, is also written in Persian, and its intent for multiple addressees, I think, is clear in the five suggestions.
COOMBS: Farideh, let me take just two of your responses:
"There is a reason the search for one revolutionary party was abandoned in Iran in the 1980s and there is a reason you have such heated and violent confrontation about the direction of the country at this point.”
Could this also not have something to do with the fact that Mousavi, then Prime Minister, presided in 1988 over one of the most brutal mass executions of political opposition in the 20th century? The search for a revolutionary party to overthrow the IRI was not abandoned as much as extinguished.
Ultimately, what you write here, that people basically need to learn to live together, is a confirmation of my reading of the letter: the denunciation (in the contemporary lingo of democracy and pluralism) of the need for the overthrow of the IRI, and advocacy of the recuperation of the bravery of some of the protestors into a status-quoist regime realignment in favour of the reformists.
"There is nothing utopian or ideal about the Islamic Republic, but representing the conflict in Iran as many in the West --- or inside Iran --- have done as being between the "people" and the Islamic State, as though the people of Iran are one unit collectively engaged in an endeavor to transform a hated state is both incorrect and I believe dangerous."
I would of course reject any crass resource to the populist language of "the people". Likewise, I would also reject the naive belief (unfortunately promoted by many of the reformists supporters and sympathizers) that you can do away with the state through a "simple wish" or just "street mobilization". Here we at least can find some agreement. No, to bring down a system is a monumental affair. The idea that the IRI will just crumble when faced by street protest and intra-regime dissent is a laughable fallacy of our post-1989 world; informed by the entirely unhelpful analogy of the fall of Communism in the Eastern bloc. What is needed is genuine organization and the rebuilding of revolutionary organizations that can play the long game.
Politics, and more so revolution, needs to be constituted through a long ideological struggle. What the reformists and young liberals on the streets have as now failed to do (at least to my knowledge) is start to build these principled organizations, autonomous from the regime.
1830 GMT. Sinking. Ship. Etc. Further to our news that members of Parliament have criticised President Ahmadinejad's choice for Minister of Defence, Sadegh Masouli, two MPs have gone public with more revelations of trouble. Javad Arianmanesh, an MP from Mashhad, 
UPDATE 10 August, 1740 GMT: OK, EA staff and some well-informed colleagues have put heads together while we wait for some confirmation, any confirmation, from Hashemi Rafsanjani's website. 
Yesterday we reported the story from Press TV's website that President Ahmadinejad was going to the Majlis to "consult" over his choices for the Cabinet. Well, 
The significance of the renewed Tehran trial, as with the initial hearings a week earlier, is not in the purported evidence; it is in the display that the regime is not going to compromise --- not yet, not as long as these proceedings persist, and possibly never, given the impact of this trial --- with much of the opposition.