Posted on 07/11/2007 6:07:25 AM PDT by bensam
1939, 1945, 1948, 1962, 1967, 1973, 1981 …
These are just some of the dates that certain politicians allude to when attempting to describe the current crisis with Iran. Every so often, western analysts take past events such as the rise of Nazism in the early part of the 20th century, the looming Arab threat that Israel faced immediately after its creation, the circumstances surrounding the Yom Kippur War, and even the Cuban Missile Crisis and somehow try to correlate them with Iranian obstinacy about their nuclear program. Too often, each date is referred to with blind certainty, severely lacking historical or geographic relevance. When trying to reconcile contemporary Iran, I have often felt that this approach leads to a drastic oversimplification that fails to recognize critical aspects that are solely Iranian in nature, yet at times, alluding to specific examples, whether they are chronological or geographic, can yield critical insight into the enigma that is the Islamic Republic.
If for all practical purposes, a certain date has to be required to display a more accurate picture of the nuisances that make up post-revolutionary Iran, then let us now evoke 1985.
By now, most have heard Netanyahu’s famous analogy of equating the IRI to 1938 Germany. Yet all the realities of present-day-life within the Islamic Republic lend more to the argument that Iran is strikingly similar to the USSR in its waning days. When looking at the Islamic Republic, two fundamentals of Iranian life are emblematic of the state of the nation, specifically economic stagnation and political and social encroachment. A closer look at these two characteristics will yield convincing correlations between the present-day IRI with the USSR at its collapse.
Economic Stagnation:
In 1985, faced with the salient realities of a failed economic system all the while witnessing the affluence of Western rivals, newly elected General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev, decided to usher in a drastic economic restructuring, then hailed as perestroika. Allowing private ownership to enter into the Soviet economy for the first time since its inception, Gorbachev assumed that this new policy along with his courtship of foreign investment into the country would somehow save his failing economy. Yet the combination of Soviet inexperience with market forces and along with an ill-fated attempt to hold onto core communist economic philosophy caused Gorbachev’s new restructuring to become neither a traditional central planning economy nor a market economy. As a result, the Soviet financial apparatus went from stagnation to an all-out freefall. Despite many attempts at economic adjustment, skyrocketing inflation and the significant decline of the Soviet GDP was clearly evident by the end of Gorbachev’s tenure. Under these conditions, the quality of life for the average person deteriorated by the day and, as consequence, the Soviet public traditionally faced shortages of food, material goods, apparel, and other basic commodities. So powerful, so precipitous was this economic downfall that it became one of the main contributing factors in the destruction of Soviet system.
Similar events are now occurring within Iran. In August of 2005, Iranians awoke to find that new president of the IRI was political newcomer, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This small but charismatic son-of-blacksmith was definitely not what they were used to- for one thing, he was not a mullah. The prevailing issue of the August 2005 elections, as in past times, was reconciling Iran’s weak economy with its recent increase in population and attempts at internal development. During the weeks that led up to the elections, Ahmadinejad propagated his new economic “vision” for Iran on many news outlets. Ahmadinejad would openly lament Iran’s economic sluggishness and seemed to express genuine sympathy for the financial concerns and frustrations that all ordinary Iranians faced. He called for “restructuring” programs and “new ways” on how Iran’s vast oil wealth could be trickled down to the workingman. Coming from humble beginnings himself and being an educated man, Ahmadinejad lured an already disenchanted Iranian public away from his pragmatist rival, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. However, he never provided any outline for this “aggressive” new shift in economic policy.
Once his administration took power, inefficiencies became clearly evident. From his initial annual budget submission to the Iranian Majlis, it was clear that Ahmadinejad’s adminstration was clueless on not only how to deal with Iran’s future economic direction but on the deficiencies that the Iranian economy presently faced. As I have mentioned before, Ahmadinejad was elected solely on a domestic platform. Yet once his term began, he shifted focused on matters of foreign policy and the nuclear issue- two matters that he is not only unqualified but also powerless to deal with.
As the two-year mark approaches for the Ahmadinejad administration, Iranian domestic frustration is more apparent than at any other time since the inception of the IRI. In 2006, I witnessed firsthand what happens to a society when the price of food, durable goods, and housing doubles in the better part of a year. Even within this last month, ordinary Iranians are being forced to ration gasoline because their governments economic ineptitude. For years, the IRI has subsidized gasoline for its citizens. No economic agenda, rampant corruption, and profuse brain drain leads a government such as the IRI to depend solely on oil as the main revenue for their country. As a result, they put no substantial effort into internal development and sell everything that they pump out of the ground.
Because Iran has only one gas refinery in their entire nation, the IRI imports a great amount of the gasoline they need for domestic consumption (some reports are even as high as 40%). Yet years of economic mismanagement along with the affects of US sponsored sanctions have left the government with little choice but to ration gasoline in order to curb government spending. Even the most ardent supporter of the Islamic revolution now understands that the current Iranian economy is in shambles.
Social and Political Encroachment
It is but an intrinsic reaction of fading totalitarian regimes to lash out upon their own. No matter what political philosophy, irrespective of the times or cultures, all dictatorships manifest violence when inhaling their dying breath. As was the case with the Soviet Union so is the case with IRI. The impact of the average Soviet’s ability to acquire even minimal access to foreign media can never be overestimated. As the 1980’s drew to a close, advances in communications only shed more uncomfortable light upon the standing of the average Soviet, when compared to the rest of the world. Doctors, engineers, architects, musicians, artists, and even the simple laborer began to understand that the system that was imposed upon them was also depriving them of their inherent God-given potential.
As a result of this self-realization, the demand for political change, personal freedoms, and basic human rights echoed throughout the entire Union. In response to and in an attempt to maintain communist hegemony over the distinct cultures and peoples of the USSR, Soviet policy aimed to put down the growing tide of domestic opposition. Violent clashes in Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Moldova, Georgia, and the Balkans were only the beginning of what turned out to be the Soviet nightmare.
Yet in the end, the USSR could not postpone the inevitable. The decades of Soviet indoctrination and their attempt to eradicate the diverse histories of the cultures that it violently suppressed unraveled by the end of 1991.
In so like manner, the iron grip that the clerical dictatorship has upon the Iranian population is rapidly slipping away. Satellite broadcasting along with the internet have allowed Iranians to compare their personal realities with the affluence of the citizens of democratic societies of the world and as a result, they have found their system wanting. It is self evident when paid mercenaries on the streets of every major Iranian city, from Tabriz to Zahedan and from Ahvaz to Mashad, not only harass but physically abuse and incarcerate ordinary citizens for trite matters as what color shoes they are wearing or if the lengths of their sleeves are compatible with “Islamic” law. The regime has undertaken this cruel practice every time they feel their power is threatened. Yet, this time, political opposition is more overt than ever.
For the better part of thirty years, the Islamic government of Iran has been attempting to rewrite Iranian history and produce a new generation- a Shia brigade, to combat what it deems to be existential threats to its ideology. In doing so, like their Soviet ancestors, they have created a network of spies and a religious militia that oppress and violate the fundamental human rights of the average Iranian with impunity. When they can no longer find an Iranian to spy on or persecute their fellow compatriots, they import the most uneducated, vile degenerates from the poorest Palestinian refugee camps and the slums of South Lebanon to do their bidding for them. What one must understand about historical revisionists is that they have, at their core, both a racist ideology and a profound inferiority complex.
Ideologues such as these understand only the law of absolutism and subsequently when they are unable to sell their ideology, they impose it by force. The overwhelming majority of the clerical regime not only loathes the pre-Islamic Iranian identity but even the Persian language itself. Many of the Revolutions founders, such as former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, the now deceased “hanging judge” Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, and even Ahmadinejad’s own spiritual advisor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi have often portrayed true Iranian identity as a “Zionist fabrication”- yes- they do use those exact words. Yet every attempt at erasing Iranian identity has made the public even more resolute about the preservation of their rich heritage.
Today, we live in a unique age. Technology, mass communication, and the Global Village have made it virtually impossible for tyrannical governments to filter the outside world from their populations. When the average Soviet started to compare the quality of their lives to those of democratic societies, the schism between their government’s propaganda and reality became quite clear. Yet, this realization permeated the Iranian psyche long ago. For years, Iranians witnessed their best and brightest flee their beloved homeland and sporadically settle and succeed in whatever country that would accept them.
Iranians have also looked to the economic progression of neighboring countries like China, Israel, India, and Turkey (nations that have a fraction of the natural resources that Iran has been endowed with) and are wondering why the IRI cannot emulate them. For Iranians, the answer is quite simple. The IRI has lost the debate. The system that Mullahs have built attracts no one- it is what motivates Iranians to settle in foreign countries thousands of miles away from their homeland in hopes of reaching a future that is unattainable in Iran. Before 1979, there was no such thing as an Iranian Diaspora- this is simply a creation of Khomeini’s policies, a byproduct of the irrationality of the Islamic Republic.
Aesthetically, there is no similarity between the USSR and Iran. Both systems have vastly different outlooks on economics, social freedoms, political liberties, and religion yet, their end results are identical. So how can two diametrically opposed ideologies yielded the same outcome? The answer is that they are both based upon false constructs and illogical conceptions about what humanity truly is. And if Reagan’s words still ring true about communism being left on the “ash heap of history”, then surely the Islamic Republic cannot be far off.
The end days of the Islam Republic of Iran will be far more bloody than the collapse of the soviet empire.
The USA needs to do more to support anti-government forces like we did in eastern Europe in the 80s.
Michael Ledeen has been screaming about this for years but it hasn't happened under the current Administration.
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