Double-Edged Swords

Iran’s cry for democratic reform, the obviously brutal repression that claims legitimacy in divine spiritual guidance, is a sign of corrosion of an extremist fundamentalist militant government that has funded Hezbollah and Hamas as they have hurled rockets at Israel, threatened the United States and the Western world with ultimate destruction, denied the Holocaust, worked tirelessly to undermine any peace efforts over Palestine and promised to push Israel into the sea. That’s good, right? But all those folks beaten, injured and killed. That’s horrible.

Will Iran’s questionably elected government with more-than-questionable ties to divine leadership be forced to deal with internal dissent, amping up repression, finding ways of destroying communications technology and crushing nascent democratic movement at the expense of creating regional instability that threatens incumbent Arab governments? Or will they need to accelerate regional turmoil to distract their own constituency from the problems at home; do they need to reestablish their regional power by some terrifying grand gesture? Or both? That’s bad, right?

With traditional animosities between Shiites (the 15% of Islam who believe in a mystical, cleric-defined interpretation of the Qu’ran and a merging of state and religion, embodied in Iran’s Islamic Republic) and Sunnis (the other 85% who believe in a literal interpretation of their holy book and government only as a “protector” of Islam), the struggles within Iran provide her Sunni regional neighbors with some comfort that their nemesis may be brought down from within. Perhaps the threat of a growing Shiite power, tapping into anti-incumbent extremists wishing to topple established Arab governments, has been minimized. Iran’s allies – like Syria – and the political movements she supports – like Hezbollah and Hamas – have been tainted as their “friend” is viewed by the world as a brutal and intolerant state willing to shoot, stab, club and kill its own citizens to foster a repressive view of the earth. Good news for the local Sunnis nations, right?

Perhaps the lessons for democratic movements in autocratic Arab nations – the power of communications technology and world opinion – create a new path forward for these struggling and clearly repression factions all over the Arab world. Iran’s “powerless” masses have shown how to disrupt incumbencies with cell phones, Twitter and Internet transmissions that defy many stabs by censors to close down. If you’re a repressive dictator or trying to hang on to your monarchical dynastic reign, that’s bad news, right?

If a softer, reformist movement had been elected in Iran, clearly relations with the West, particularly the United States, would have improved. That would have been good, right? Unless you are an Arab state, where Shiite Iran is your sworn enemy and most of your “cool” high-end weapons are American made – the last thing you want is a Western world trying to create a balanced foreign policy between Shiite-Iranian and Sunni-Arab interests. But Ahmadinejad won, right? That’s good, right? The same President who foments all that regional instability and funded nascent movements to topple regional Arab powers?

The June 25^th New York Times: “One gauge of how Arab leaders are reacting to the Iran crisis is their silence. Officials seem eager to avoid even the appearance that they are trying to influence the outcome, political analysts said. The state-controlled media outlets around the region have also been relatively low key in their coverage… “When you are waiting so much for something that makes you happy, you hold your breath, you make less noise in order not to affect the outcome,” said Randa Habib, a political analyst and columnist in Amman, Jordan… Iran’s allies, on the other hand, are restive. Emad Gad, an Egyptian expert in international affairs, said that he saw evidence of Iran’s allies, especially in Syria, trying to hedge their bet on Tehran. He said that Syria had in recent days been more willing to help Egypt press for reconciliation between Palestinian factions.”

Politics is complex, never linear and never without backlash or side-effects. Change explodes, contracts, shrivels, expands, backtracks, affirms and contradicts. When we see simple paths to complex problems, perhaps we don’t see the path at all.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.