Archive for June, 2009
The dream of Teheran : nightmare for Iran
So at last we see the real reason behind getting B. Hussein Obama elected US president – the calculation by the power elite of USA was to use Obama to try and divide the Muslim world into as many fractures as possible. Construct “moderate” versus “extremist”, “modernizing” versus “retrogressive”, etc. Iran is the first gamble after the “coming out” debutante speech of extending a warm handshake to “Islam”. But the Iranian attempt was too quick. Is Obama in a hurry? Or is the US power elite in too much of a hurry? The danger is the possibility of a wave of reaction that the US simply cannot fathom, and will escape from as quickly as possible leaving the hapless neighbours and caught-in-betweens who cannot jump on to the evacuation flight.
In countries like Iran, urban “revolutions” against religious or theological establishment cannot sustain themselves at this stage of economic organization, unless these are staged and led by the armed forces. The rural Iran is still solidly behind the Ayatollahs. If Mousavi and Khatami are not careful they will simply serve as agents for liquidation of a generation of urban youth.
If we go back to Napoleon’s period, then there would be many examples – for example all the urban uprisings in Europe in the 1830’s and the widespread ones of 1848 – all of which failed or actually led to being defeated and creating conditions for more despotic or dictatorial regimes. The Chinese communist uprising is another example whose urban uprising phase failed horribly with the spectacular example of the Shanghai massacre. The crucial factor in urban uprisings is whether the army joins in or stays neutral or not. Consider the Afghan “revolutions”, the Iraqi -earlier Marxist revolution and then the Baathist “revolution”, same for the Iranian ones. Significantly, in Afghan, Iran, Iraq, no revolution/palace coup/ urban putsch succeeded without backing and involvement from the clergy and rural theologian networks.
Iran is no longer going to be pro-west. What the younger Iranians are looking for is a greater freedom to pursue modern “happinesses”. They will remain strongly nationalistic and in fact any overthrow of the Ayatollahs will lead to a stronger nationalistic reconstruction of the foundational values of Iran as a replacement for the “binder” of Ayatollahaic Islamic authority.
The Islamic clergy already senses the change in the mood of the younger generations and they have begun to hedge their bets as Islamic theologians always do historically. They try to dissociate in factions away from established but doomed or unpopular Islamic regimes so that the theologians ultimate hold on the population does not come under attack. In time they will grow back again in military and political power if they manage to survive with their ideological “sanctity” undamaged.
The pivotal changing years in Iranian history in the modern period have been 1919 (post WWI British+US penetration and disruption of Ahmad Shah’s hold – leading to the Pahlavi coup in 21-25), 1949 – the post WWII start of the replacement by a younger Pahlavi more likely to be open to western manipulation – leading to the upheaval of 51-53, 1979 – the Iranian “revolution” led again by “modernizers” and “leftists” giving vent to popular generational anger against the Shah’s regime and its western counterparts but taken over by the Ayatollahs because of their wider support base in the countryside and among rural populations. This was followed by the typical period of crisis from 1981-1983 when Iran won the psychological warfare with USA with perhaps secret Reagan help but forced to compromise and get mauled by Iraq. This 30 year generational cycle comes back in 2009. So the processes that started post WWI will start unravelling in the next 30 years.
Countries in the region like India should cultivate “nationalism” in Iran, and be firmly on the side of democracy. They should look for future populations who are going to increasingly take over the country and not bank calculations solely on the short term adhoc approaches so typical of the regimes in Indian politics. The US influence in the Caspian region is on the wane. Does the “West” want Russia and China to step in completely and fill in the blanks? A cautious but firm ideological commitment to see democracy in Iran cannot harm the “western” or Indian interests. It holds out hopes to the future generations, but it does not immediately threaten the Ayatollahs. But any country in the region or in Europe should be very very careful about being seen by the Iranians to be dealing with the “devil” – that is something that will be remembered.
As I have mentioned before, when popular support indicates anger turning against state authority which in classical Islamic terms is a fusion of theologian+military+executive, then the theologians typically split themselves into factions. One or more factions then disassociate themselves from the existing setup, and allow a change of faces. This is done so that the basic image of the theologians and the theology itself is not delegitimized. In time, when heads cool, the theologians can crawl back to their supreme seats of power.
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