- Taheri, Amir.
The Persian Night.
New York: Encounter Books, 2009.
ISBN 978-1-59403-240-0.
-
With Iran continuing its march toward nuclear weapons
and long range missiles unimpeded by an increasingly
feckless West, while simultaneously domestic discontent
over the tyranny of the mullahs, economic stagnation,
and stolen elections are erupting into bloody violence on
the streets of major cities, this book provides a timely
look at the history, institutions, personalities, and
strategy of what the author dubs the “triple
oxymoron”: the Islamic Republic of Iran which,
he argues, espouses a bizarre flavour of Islam which is not
only a heretical anathema to the Sunni majority, but also
at variance with the mainstream Shiite beliefs which
predominated in Iran prior to Khomeini's takeover; anything but a
republic in any usual sense of the word; and motivated by
a global messianic vision decoupled from the traditional
interests of Iran as a nation state.
Khomeini's success in wresting control away from the ailing
Shah without a protracted revolutionary struggle was made
possible by support from “useful idiots” mostly
on the political left, who saw Khomeini's appeal to the
rural population as essential to gaining power and planned
to shove him aside afterward. Khomeini, however, once in
power, proved far more ruthless than his coalition partners,
summarily putting to death all who opposed him, including
many mullahs who dissented from his eccentric version of
Islam.
Iran is often described as a theocracy, but apart from the
fact that the all-powerful Supreme Guide is nominally a
religious figure, the organisation of the government and
distribution of power are very much along the lines of
a fascist state. In fact, there is almost a perfect parallel
between the institutions of Nazi Germany and those of Iran.
In Germany, Hitler created duplicate party and state centres of power
throughout the government and economy
and arranged them in such a way as to ensure that decisions
could not be made without his personal adjudication of turf
battles between the two. In Iran, there are the revolutionary
institutions and those of the state, operating side by side,
often with conflicting agendas, with only the Supreme Guide
empowered to resolve disputes. Just as Hitler set up the SS
as an armed counterpoise to the Wehrmacht, Khomeini created
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the revolution's
independent armed branch to parallel the state's armed forces.
Thus, the author stresses, in dealing with Iran, it is essential
to be sure whether you're engaging the revolution or
the nation state: over the history of the Islamic Republic,
power has shifted back and forth between the two sets of
institutions, and with it Iran's interaction with other players
on the world stage. Iran as a nation state generally strives
to become a regional superpower: in effect, re-establishing the
Persian Empire from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea through
vassal regimes. To that end it seeks weapons, allies, and
economic influence in a fairly conventional manner. Iran the
Islamic revolutionary movement, on the other hand, works to
establish global Islamic rule and the return of the Twelfth
Imam: an Islamic Second Coming which Khomeini's acolytes
fervently believe is imminent. Because they brook no deviation
from their creed, they consider Sunni Moslems, even the strict
Wahabi sect of Saudi Arabia, as enemies which must be compelled
to submit to Khomeini's brand of Islam.
Iran's troubled relationship with the United States cannot be
understood without grasping the distinction between state and
revolution. To the revolution, the U.S. is the Great Satan
spewing foul corruption around the world, which good Muslims
should curse, chanting “death to America” before
every sura of the Koran. Iran the nation state, on the other
hand, only wants Washington to stay out of its way as it
becomes a regional power which, after all, was pretty much the
state of affairs under the Shah, with the U.S. his predominant
arms supplier. But the U.S. could never adopt such a strategy
as long as the revolution has a hand in policy, nor will Iran's
neighbours, terrified of its regional ambitions, encourage
the U.S. to keep their hands off.
There is a great deal of conventional wisdom about Iran which
is dead wrong, and this book dispels much of it. The supposed
“CIA coup” against
Mosaddegh
in 1953, for which two U.S. presidents have since apologised,
proves to have been nothing of the sort (although the
CIA did, on occasion, claim credit for it as an example of a
rare success amidst
decades of blundering), with the U.S. largely supporting the
nationalisation of the Iranian oil fields against fierce opposition
from Britain. But cluelessness about Iran has never been in
short supply among U.S. politicians. Speaking at the
World Economic Forum, Bill Clinton said:
Iran today is, in a sense, the only country
where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It
is there that the ideas I subscribe to are defended
by a majority.
Lest this be deemed a slip of the tongue due to intoxication by
the heady Alpine air of Davos, a few days later on U.S. television he
doubled down with:
[Iran is] the only one with elections, including the
United States, including Israel, including you name it,
where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds
to 70 percent of the vote in six elections…. In
every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to
70 percent of the vote. There is no other country in the world
I can say that about, certainly not my own.
I suppose if the U.S. had such an overwhelming “progressive”
majority, it too would adopt “liberal” policies such as
hanging homosexuals from cranes until they suffocate and
stoning rape victims to death. But perhaps Clinton was thinking
of Iran's customs of polygamy and “temporary marriage”.
Iran is a great nation which has been a major force on the world
stage since antiquity, with a deep cultural heritage and
vigorous population who, in exile from poor governance in the homeland, have
risen to the top of demanding professions all around the world.
Today (as well as much of the last century) Iran is saddled with
a regime which squanders its patrimony on a
messianic dream which runs the very real risk of igniting a
catastrophic conflict in the Middle East. The author argues that
the only viable option is regime change, and that all actions
taken by other powers should have this as the ultimate goal.
Does that mean going to war with Iran? Of course not—the
very fact that the people of Iran are already pushing back against
the mullahs is evidence they perceive how illegitimate and
destructive the present regime is. It may even make sense to
engage with institutions of the Iranian state, which will be
the enduring foundation of the nation after the mullahs are sent packing,
but it it essential that the Iranian people be sent the message
that the forces of civilisation are on their side against those
who oppress them, and to use the communication tools of this new
century (Which country has the most bloggers? The U.S. Number two?
Iran.) to bypass the repressive regime and directly address the
people who are its victims.
Hey, I spent
two weeks in Iran
a decade ago and didn't pick up more than a tiny fraction of the
insight available here. Events in Iran are soon to become a focus of
world attention to an extent they haven't been for the last three
decades. Read this book to understand how Iran figures in the
contemporary Great Game, and how revolutionary change may soon
confront the Islamic Republic.
January 2010 