The Iranian middle class and most of the urban younger generation are about as pro-American, pro-Western group as exist on earth. Some their elders remember the days, back in the 1960s and 70s, when Israel had an embassy in Tehran, bought Israeli military hardware and was squarely in the U.S. sphere of influence. But the king – the Shah – of the Pahlavi family was brutal in his own way. Savak – his dreaded secret police – was notorious in its repression of dissent, and his press to bring Iran into the modern technological world, in a Western mold, rubbed too many conservative Muslims the wrong way. When the Islamic revolution toppled the Shah and moved Shiite Iran into an ultra-conservative theocracy under the bearded and black-robed Ayatollah Khomeini, Western alliances and values were crushed out of existence. Israel became that nation’s biggest pariah.
The hope for an open and free Islamic society died almost instantly… and as time passed, another layer of brutal secret police (including intolerant religious police enforcing fundamental Shiite values though prison and violent retaliation) and the hugely powerful, Revolutionary Guards... made daily life in Iran bleak and austere. At first radio and then popping through the cracks of government controls, the Web and mobile access, brought the stark contrast between the freedom “out there” and the repression “in here” became painfully obvious. Unfortunately for progressive Iranians, the repressive forces were totally in control, a situation that endures powerfully into the present.
But those younger and middle class elements still look longingly at the west, praying for liberalization, in a world where the “democracy” permitted in Iran is completely subservient to the theocracy atop the nation… and most notably to the Supreme Lead, now the Ayatollah Khamenei. The candidates for the less-than-powerful-but-somewhat-influential presidency are all filtered by the theocracy, with true reformers and liberal culled completely from the list of acceptable alternatives. Don’t expect this to change anytime soon.
When former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was cut from the list of acceptable candidates for the recent election – he was too reform-minded – the only “moderate” candidate on the list was a cleric and former nuclear-program negotiator for Iran, 64-year-old Hassan Rowhani. His picture above pretty much tells you how “liberal” he really is… or will looks and his rank as a cleric fool everybody? sIran’s economy is mired deeply in the doldrums, significantly linked to the panoply of Western economic and financial sanctions imposed against Iran by reason of its obsessive commitment to develop a nuclear capacity that most outside governments believe has weapons as its ultimate goal. Rowhani knows “it’s the economy stupid.” And without some rapprochement with the West, the regime could only become even more unpopular than it already is. Somehow, he believes, Iran could maintain a nuclear program while building at least a few bridges back over to the West.
Rowhani blasted his way to the presidency with a 50.7% majority, avoiding a runoff. Doesn’t sound like much of a victory until you know that the first runner-up, the mayor of Tehran, pulled a meager 18%. The hardliner most associated with following the Supreme Leader’s ultimate conservative line finished dead last. Rowhani is the best in moderation that Iran could produce. Will he have real power? Not in any way in contravention in anything the Ayatollah Khamenei will allow, and he won’t allow much. It is a western policy-maker’s worst nightmare. If we attack or support an attack on Iran’s widely dispersed nuclear facilities, many located in urban areas with lots of people forming a de facto human shield, so many of our most committed supporters will die in the effort.
Rowhani’s ascension to power is further complicated by the deep commitment of Iran, its forces and its lackey “foreign legion,” Hezbollah, in support of the poison-gas-against-his-own-people-deploying Bashir Assad regime in Syria. He steps into the swamp of global unpopularity for that commitment, staggers under the load of economic collapse and stares into the angry eyes of Western and nearby Sunni powers that have stated a flat determination not to allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. He is limited by the repressive conservative mandate of his absolute boss, Khamenei, and lifted by the hopes of his people, most of which are yearning for change. He’s not the lunatic, Holocaust-denying, Israel-baiting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but exactly how can he function to improve the lot of his people and relations with the West with the limits imposed on his power? Can he walk that line? Time will tell.
I’m Peter Dekom, and exactly when are we going to be pleasantly surprised by a moderate and pragmatic turn in Iran’s leadership and its policies.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment