Posted on 04/25/2007 10:28:44 PM PDT by Lorianne
Thinking of the dominant views among American policymakers on Iran, I am reminded of the great Persian poet Jalaledin Rumi's story about a group of people trying to describe an elephant exhibited in a dark room. One felt the elephant's back and claimed that it resembled a great throne. Another, touching its ear, declared it was in fact a huge fan. A third felt its leg and concluded it must be a large pillar.
The Islamic Republic has been with us for almost three decades, yet still it manages to amaze and confuse the experts. In the 1990s, Mohammed Khatami inspired the majority of Western commentators to believe that Iran was on the verge of upheaval. But, while Khatami may have distinguished himself from his predecessors by ushering in a milder version of the Islamic Republic, he was, and remains, very much a part of that system. Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has persuaded us that the same system is an imminent menace and must, therefore, be overthrown. Yet, while Ahmadinejad may be more repressive and violent than previous presidents, his reactionary tendencies are fundamentally a sign of the Iranian system's weakness--not its strength.
The problem is that Western pundits are only feeling part of the elephant--the political one--and ignoring the most important part: the Iranian people themselves. If you take the long view of Iranian history and focus on the country's people rather than its rulers, a very different picture emerges: that of an Iranian order in crisis.
Evidence for this proposition is everywhere. A cursory look at Iran's publications and blogs shows that, although some Iranians--for a variety of reasons--support their regime's nuclear ambitions, most are far more interested in trying to redress day-to-day problems like corruption, the struggling economy, rising unemployment, political and social repression, and a general lack of freedom. Few are well-informed about the nuclear program, and most are embarrassed and disturbed by the image of their country in the world. Indeed, Iran's new international isolation and pariah status is deeply unpopular at home, and the fact that the government is emptying its coffers to foment revolution abroad rather than to support the welfare of the Iranian people has turned many of Ahmadinejad's supporters against him. Workers' protests have lately escalated in at least ten cities. Angry union leaders have held the president responsible for the weakening of the economy. In the recent city council elections in Tehran, only two of 13 winners were supporters of Ahmadinejad.
This discontent has seeped upward to high levels of Iranian politics--for instance, members of parliament, who, during Ahmadinejad's presentation of the annual budget last December, noisily protested the worsening economic conditions. There has even been serious talk about impeaching him. Since his election, Iranian hard-liners have openly divided into two opposing factions, creating a great deal of anxiety among conservative leaders who have been trying to mend the breach. Prominent reformist dissenters, such as Ayatollah Montazeri, have accused the government of using the country's considerable resources to meddle in other people's affairs. Even Ahmadinejad has occasionally sounded dispirited. He recently conceded that 28 years of Islamic rule has failed to eliminate liberal elements from Iranian society. Almost 30 years ago, in his prophetic essay "The Power of the Powerless," Václav Havel wrote that "a specter is haunting eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called dissent.'" That specter has now moved to Iran.
The fact that neither Khatami nor Ahmadinejad has been able to foster unity--even within the ruling elite--is a good indication of the crisis within the system. For over two decades, the main resistance to that system has come from within Iranian civil society. And it is Iranian civil society that will ultimately prove to be the Achilles heel of the Islamic Regime.
Knowing this, our target must be the Iranian people more than the Iranian government. Openness and freedom are far more likely to come from a change of mindset than from regime change. We must realize that our best weapons against autocracy and terrorism are not military or even diplomatic but ideological and cultural. The fight for Iranian democracy is not simply a political one; in this respect, Iran is very much like communist Eastern Europe and apartheid South Africa. The story of how those countries were liberated reminds us that human rights extend beyond the realm of government. In places where the state has politicized not just the cultural and social arenas but also the most private aspects of citizens' lives, resistance to a repressive system takes on an existential dimension: It is not just a struggle for political rights but also for the right of individual citizens to live the way they choose.
Who in the West will champion these existential rights on behalf of Iranians? No government--no matter how liberal--can devote itself only, or even primarily, to the defense of human rights and personal freedoms abroad, so we must rely on other actors to push the cause of liberty. I am speaking, of course, of nongovernmental organizations. What is needed is for human rights groups, activists, and journalists to take up the cause of the Iranian people. The secular journalist Faraj Sarkuhi, the former revolutionary and dissident Akbar Ganji, and the reformists Emadeddin Baghi and Ramin Jahanbegloo owe their freedom to a great degree to the efforts of organizations like PEN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders, as well as to the attention of journalists throughout the world. In the case of a recent transportation strike--a strike that received little coverage in the U.S. press despite being brutally repressed by the Iranian government--Western labor unions played an important role in the release of the protest's organizers. The progressive women who have staged two demonstrations since the start of Ahmadinejad's presidency are in the midst of a campaign to garner one million signatures demanding equality and justice for women in Iran. U.S. feminist groups should be doing far more to support them in their struggle.
Of course, this is not to say that governments have no part to play. A firm and united stand by the international community on Iranian human rights will send a message to the regime that it cannot bend other countries to its will, while encouraging more moderate and dissatisfied elements within the ruling elite to voice their displeasure.
In taking such a stand, Western governments must carve a path between the extremes of appeasement and belligerence. On the one hand, displays of weakness from the international community--such as the U.N. Human Rights Council's recent decision to stop monitoring Iranian and Uzbek human rights violations, even though executions in Iran are currently on the rise--suggest to Tehran that the West does not care about the fate of Iranian activists. "The council's action amounts to an endorsement of crackdowns on human rights in Iran and Uzbekistan," explained Peggy Hicks, the global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "It shows utter disregard for the human rights activists who are struggling in these countries."
At the same time, the notion that Iran will be subdued into compliance with a handful of precision-guided missiles is as dangerous and fanciful as the belief that an invaded Iraq would serve as a model of enlightened democracy. Indeed, to attack Iran at this point would be to send a lifeline to the regime's most militaristic elements, which would use an attack as an excuse to quash all domestic dissent.
Meanwhile, military action would damage the credibility of Iranian liberals. From studying the example of Eastern Europe, they have learned that the ends of democratic revolution must be the sum total of the means employed--that an open and democratic society can be reached only through open and demo- cratic methods. Fortunately, we can help them. The most important weapon in the U.S. arsenal is not its military might but its culture. Vigorously defending and promoting those values the United States was long thought to represent--freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of conscience--will do a great deal more than any missile to neutralize Iranian radicals. And, though this wide-ranging task is probably beyond the capability of American politicians, it is not beyond the capability of America.
Azar Nafisi is the director of the Dialogue Project at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced and International Studies and is the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.
America’s best weapon is the warrior ethos of King Leonidas.
“AMERICA’S BEST WEAPON IS THE IRANIAN PEOPLE.”
imho, the iranian people’s best weapon is a boatload of knives in the chests of the mullahs.
All this “we love you America but we are powerless to stop Amanutjob” is going to get a lot more Iranian civilians killed than if they just repeatedly and consistently rise up and depose their local jihadi scum.
But the Iranian people are MUSLIMS! And we’re supposed to HATE all Muslims, aren’t we? That’s certainly the impression I get from a lot of people on FR.
Wise words.
And applicable to our domestic struggles as well. As conservatives, our target must be the American people more than the elected members of government. A conservative America is far more likely to come from a change of mindset than from a political "regime change". We must realize that our best weapons against abortion, corporate/government corruption, and the continuing destruction of the traditional Judeo-Christian culture are not electons or even Supreme Court rulings but ideas and beliefs. What we want is not so much an America where abortion, gay "marriage", cowardice in the face of terrorism, and other ills are illegal; what we want is an America where the very idea of such things being legal is unthinkable.
There are over a billion muslims in the world. There’d be a whole lot of hating going around if we were to hate ALL muslims! That’s why it’s more senseful to focus on the real enemy not only of this country but of the rest of the world too, which are the islamofascist jehadist thugs and murderers.
The problem I keep having with this repeated message is people I know who personally visit Iran say it has become a lot more radicalized than ten years ago.
I would like to see progress from within, but I won’t hold my breath waiting. I see no action from within.
The impending nuclearization of Iran does not leave much long in the view.
Yes, it’s a guns vs butter issue with the iranian people, that much is obvious. But here we have to be careful. Remember the sanctions on saddam vs military action? Didn’t work very well, did it? Plus we got the oil-for-food scam with the UN. Thus if the iranian people DON’T take down the nutjob SOON, the military option is then our only choice as the free world cannot tolerate kooks with nucs.
And too, just e-mailed an iranian hydroengineer in tehran. He has written an article on cavitation bubble collapse on turbine blades, focussing on sonofusion effects thereof. Very intelligent fellow, typical of the iranian professional class. Thus we shouldn’t think of them all as dumb camel jockeys or terrorist kooks, it’s a much more sophisticated culture than that.
The PROBLEM is that they have to solve this guns vs butter issue SOON, mere griping won’t do it, it will mean VIOLENCE, something like civil war; do they have the COURAGE for the second iranian revolution? The hour grows late, and the clock is ticking . . . . .
Most Iranians I have met are nice people, a number of whom have converted to Christianity. However, if they are our best weapon, God help us.
28 years of a tyrannical Muslim fundamentalism and I don’t see much evidence there is any likelihood they can overthrow this regime themselves. I think it’ll take a Yeltsin-like character in power in Iran to overthrow the current regime. Wake me up when he gets into a position of power.
Then the Iranian men need to start killing the Pasdars and revolutionary guard one-by-one and steal their weapons like they did to the Shah’s troops.
Show some backbone and start killing these people yourself first!
Many of these Iranians don’t call themselves muslims anyways, look at what Islam did to their country.
I’d say the appropriate target would be the guy with his finger on the button!
And in some sense, the AMerican’s worst enemy is also the American people, for we are the only ones who can defeat ourselves.
Those are notions created and disseminated by German communists.
Really? How many? How do you know that? Have you been there? I've met some Iranians living in the US and they consider themselves Muslim.
I agree, but that doesn't stop some conservatives - including some on talk radio - from suggesting that it's our duty to hate all practitioners of Islam.
Gee, that’s funny, the Iranians I meet here deny being muslim.
Hows them apples?
BUMP!
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