Ever since Luther and the rise of Protestantism, Europe has gone through several periods of radicalism: religious, romantic or ideological radicalism that, unfortunately, each and every time went hand in hand with bloodshed. But the continent managed to survive each of these periods, often by transforming the innovating aspects of these radical waves into progress and refinement of society. The current religious freedom, the discursive democracy and the collaboration between employers and employees and, yes, even the entire welfare state – they are all the result of the ascendance of radical thoughts and movements that shocked society, causing it to be set in motion and be forced to face new challenges.

Anders Breivik

Undeniably, the current revival of national, religious and regional chauvinism is the new radical current in Europe. And, without a doubt, Geert Wilders of The Netherlands can be seen as the most important leader of the European radicals, which is confirmed by the content of Breivik’s video manifest. But neither should we underestimate the Christian-fundamentalist background of the Norwegian.

So will we now witness a massive plea for prohibiting the Bible because this book would lead to genocide, just like we witnessed what happened to Islam and Quran in many European countries after 9/11? Will the resentful sermons of Geert Wilders, who is the most outspoken Islamophobic European politicians, be banned from our television screens, and the writings of his ideologist Bosma from our bookstores? Should we now expect extensive criticism on the Christian religion in our newspapers? Will all Christians in Europe – and especially those from Norway – be called to account for this murderous deed, just like European intellectuals have regularly called Muslims to account for the terrorist deeds of Islamist extremists? And will those who have ‘freed’ themselves from Christianity be promoted to columnist, MP or professor – the reward that European ex-Muslims (like Ayaan Hirsi Ali) got for being prepared to call Islam and the Middle East dangerous and backward? Will from now on every criticism on multicultural society be looked upon as extremism and every person who is against multiculturalism as an ideologue of White Power terrorism?

No, all of this won’t happen, and that is a good thing. Adult democracies know how to make a distinction between the right to deviating ideas and radical expressions on the one hand, and extremist deeds on the other hand. To prevent violence between different social groups, a democracy has to channel the battle of ideas into a civil and balanced debate. This will lead to an isolation of the most extremist and violent stream within radical or deviating ideologies from the (usual) nonviolent supporters they have.

A proof of this is the successful experience Europe has had with left-wing extremism, which was the last extremist wave passing through Europe: the left-wing terrorist organizations from the sixties, seventies and eighties had no chance at success because nor the state nor the media nor society silenced leftist radicalism. Most young radical Marxists had no reason to go underground because they had all freedom to express themselves aboveground.

That is what should also happen with the current Islamophobic nationalism: give them the space and the right to speak and plead about how they think society should work; let them express themselves about their utopia. Or to be more precise: let them fill their websites with their nightmare scenarios, because they have more of those than they have utopian dreams. In short, give radical thinkers the space and by that cut off the path of extremist perpetrators.

The way in which our democracy dealt with Islam and Muslim immigrants after 9/11 is of course rather hypocrite and silly

All this being said, the way in which our democracy dealt with Islam and Muslim immigrants after 9/11 is of course rather hypocrite and silly. How many words have not been spoken in various European media (especially in North and Central Europe) about the essential danger of Islam? The entire Muslim part of the population was being generalized and criminalized, and this is a community that rarely had a leader who could retort. And if there indeed was such a leader, like Dyab Abou Jahjah, the media immediately harassed him as a potential terrorist. And do you remember the recent mudslinging at Tariq Ramadan in Dutch media that lead to his departure from Rotterdam University? It’s about time Europe starts reflecting on its double moral standard, in particular The Netherlands, the country of Geert Wilders.

Incorporating new radical currents into the organized social and political diversity of a democratic society is something else than being taken off guard by radical rhetoric. In The Netherlands, the country where I live, there is no one who dares to answer to Wilders and his sermons of fear. The centre parties, the Christian democrats and the conservatives (who are in a cabinet thanks to Wilders) copy his rhetoric; prime minister Rutte (VVD) wants ‘to give back The Netherlands to the Dutch people’ and vice-premier Verhagen (CDA) even shares the fear for Muslims with those who voted for Wilders.

The PvdA (social democrats), GroenLinks (Greens) and D66 (liberals) remain very silent about how the cabinet fell on its knees for Wilders’ rhetoric; there is no progressive political party that dares to stand up for the multicultural society. It is not a healthy development that the main European political-ideological currents of liberals, social democrats and social democrats either follow the rhetoric of the new radicals of Europe, or are take off guard by them. And in the long run, this is what should worry us even more than the gruesome act of terror of Anders Breivik.

Peterson was in Iran during the strange exciting days of the presidential elections and could witness and feel everything. Nevertheless, his book cannot be considered only as a simple report on Iranian protests. The writer has tried to find the origins of the events by searching the history of contemporary Iran and showing a future perspective by considering the present situation of the country; as the secondary title of the book, Iran – A Journey Behind the Headlines also shows.

Peterson has been engaged in the case of Iran since 1996 and has written many detailed reports and articles on the issue.

About two years ago, in your book Let the Swords Encircle Me, you discussed the start of an irreversible decline in Iran regime. Do you still think so? Or do you think that the regime has been able to overcome the post-election crises?

I think events of the last two years have only shown how the Islamic System in Iran is in great crisis, and since the 2009 an irreversible one. Though the hardliners and the ‘osulgaran’ or principalist faction, to which Ahmadinejad belongs, have declared victory of one kind or another virtually every day since that stolen vote, in fact even though they have succeeded in pushing the Green Movement and reformist leaders out of public view, they have demonstrated the deep divisions that exist among factions at the highest level of the political system. What struck me in 2009 during the street battles was the clear belief, among the enforcers, that old-school tactics work today as well as they did decades ago: truncheons, beatings, arrests. That belief told me that mindset of the enforcers was archaic and therefore, in this day and age, incomplete. It may have APPEARED to the enforcers that they “won,” by eventually snuffing out street protests. But do they really believe they also CONVINCED people of their cause?

You are among the journalists who witnessed the events after the 10th presidential election in Iran and praised the Green Movement. Now, it has been sometime since those large demonstrations last happened in Iran. Has the Green Movement been weakened? How do you totally consider its situation now that the election has just had its second anniversary?

The Green Movement has certainly been very weakened by the removal of many of its means of communication, and means of public demonstration of its strength and power. But the Green Movement – in all of its various shades and manifestations – still very much exists. And it exists very widely. As a proof, witness the fact that even two years after the vote, not a single day goes by without some senior official talking about it. They are obsessed. No one doubts the presence of the sun on a cloudy day; neither should anyone doubt the existence of the Greens.

It has been sometime since the Green Movement leaders, Mr. Mousavi, Mr. Karroubi and their wives have been under house arrest. What is its effect on the circumstances of struggles in Iran? May it cause the circumstances to go toward radicalism?

The fate of Mr. Moussavi and Mr. Karroubi tells us how weak and voiceless they have currently been forced to become, thanks to powerful anti-democratic, anti-republican forces in Iran. But it also demonstrates very clearly how important these men remain, as a perceived danger to Iran’s hardline factions – and the impossibility of erasing their ideas, complaints, and plans for reform of the political system. I think their house arrest has had a radicalizing influence on the pro-democracy movement, because instead of hearing the voices of these men for moderation and reform of the Islamic system – in a way that preserves that system – people now have every right to believe that it is impossible to reform that system from within. Therefore, only radical measures should be used – such as violence – to deal with radical aims like removing the velayat-e faqih.

The house arrest of Mousavi and Karroubi had a radicalizing influence on the pro-democracy movement

You wrote on the recent disagreements between Mr. Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei as the “worst storm” of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Do you think that Mr. Ahmadinejad and his supporters can resist against Iran’s supreme leader? Which group will benefit from balance of power in future?

I don’t believe that Mr. Ahmadinejad can prevail against the supreme leader, mostly because he has so little political support from the factions that these days matter most in Iran, and also because he has angered so many during his most divisive time as president. Both men have been diminished as leaders by this fight. Ahmadinejad has been shown to be petulant, and overly ambitious, and sometimes recklessly oblivious to the impact of his actions. Now his attackers feel free to criticize the “deviant trend” that they perceive among the president’s closest allies, and even describe it as the most “dangerous” threat to the political system since the Islamic Revolution – which is saying a lot, indeed. But at the same time, Khamenei has been shown to have misjudged mightily the man he backed for president as a “divine assessment.” He has stepped in to micro-manage this crisis, and found that his traditional role as the one above politics, who can balance competing factions, has been undermined. Because both camps have been diminished, this shows a fundamental weakness in an Islamic system that Khomeini once called the “Government of God.” The question people ask, of course, is: if this is God’s government, how could be possibly be so messy?

Throughout your book, you have shown that Iranian educated and young people’s desires and wishes differ from the ones of the regime. What are the roots of this division and the results it may cause?

There are many reasons for the gap between the desires of many Iranians – especially the young and educated – and those of the regime, which so often seems caught in a time warp, as if the clocks stopped during the Iran-Iraq war. Many of the early, strongest reformers were hardline radical supports of the Revolution in the early years, people who toppled the Shah and fought the “infidel” Saddam in Iraq, and believed in all the tenets of the Revolution that called for justice and freedom. Those reformers thought the Revolution needed to evolve, and thereby carry Iran’s huge youth population with it. But for those ideologues frozen in time – those were unwilling to see any change at all, and who prevailed in the late 1990s and ever since – they have lost huge portions of Iran’s population who want to engage with the outside world, and show Persia to still be a place of unique ideas and culture.
The fact that Iran’s cinema is regaled around the world – often using techniques that directors learned watching the war-time work of Morteza Avini and the Revayat-e Fath series of war films – tells much about what rich culture exists in Iran. And the fact that so many of Iran’s finest directors are now in exile, or jailed, or ordered not to make films for 20 years – says much about the decrepit thinking that prevails among Iran’s leadership today.

A chapter of your book has concentrated on the cultural approach of Mr. Khatami administration. How do you consider the function of his administration? What were the effects of his reforms on Iranian society?

There were no secrets about how Iranian culture blossomed during the Khatami era; it was enough to simply remove some of the government-imposed restrictions on people’s lives, and permit some freedoms. Iranians don’t need to be told what do to, and they grabbed that loosening very strongly. Of course, he was a man who adhered to the law, and many Iranians say he was too much of a gentleman to step into the rough-and-tumble of Iranian politics. And of course, his problem was that his opponents did not respect the law, and were happy to use violence and force to intimidate and kill, and to make their point.
Again we come back to this unsustainable calculation on the part of the hardliners and regime enforcers, like Ansar and other militant groups: a fundamental belief that you can beat people into submission; that you can “win” by using force, and make people change their minds and support you. But as we can so clearly see, in Iran this is no longer the case. And in fact, I think it is not wrong when Mr. Mousavi describes how the real lesson of Imam Hossein for Iranians is not for the most devout – who often wield the clubs and chains in God’s name – but is for the reform/Green Movement. Because it is all about resistance to tyranny, resistance to the use of force, resistance to being forced to believe anything that you know is not right.

You showed that in spite of Iran official propaganda, most of Iranians are pro-American people. Don’t you think that the U.S. sanctions against Iran may cause Iranian people to change their mind about America? Do such sanctions cause anything other than harms for Iranian people?

I am not sure how US sanctions against Iran affect views of Iranians toward the US. There are so many issues between these two countries, and yet Iranians respect very much the rhetoric of American democracy and freedom, if not how it has been practiced in recent decades in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other places. Many Iranians have been affected negatively by the sanctions on the personal level, which is a very big problem for the American policy-makers who say: “We are not targeting ordinary Iranians.” And yet, it is those very ordinary Iranians who have very limited opportunities for banking abroad, or even booking a holiday in another country. So the sanctions have had those drawbacks. They have also given the political system an excuse to blame the US and UN for their own economic problems, and have forced the Sepah (army) and other regime organs to become much more self-sufficient, on everything from defense manufacturing to the nuclear program. But on the other hand, the sanctions have also raised the pressure on the regime in many ways. Will that “change behavior” in Tehran, as Washington wants? I doubt it. But the strain has been great.

Iranians respect very much the rhetoric of American democracy and freedom

What could be the effect of the region developments on Iran? Will the results be for Iran’s regime or against it?

I believe that one of the biggest problems for the Iranian political system in the coming years will be the fallout from the anti-regime revolutions sweeping across the Arab world, the so-called “Arab Spring.” For three decades, Iranians boasted that it was they – the Persian, Shiite Iranians – who had the courage to topple their regime in a popular and total revolution, while the Sunni Arabs sat and did nothing against all the dictators, monarchs and autocrats who ruled for so long across the Arab world. Then we had the 2009 election and pro-democracy protests, which have so far failed to dislodge or improve the Islamic Republic. And now we have the Arab example of “uprising.” And not just one, but Tunisia, Egypt, and almost certainly soon Libya and Syria and Yemen, and possibly Bahrain. Will all these Arab activists not re-invest the Iranian street with a feeling of life and potential for change? Of course it will.
Which is why I think it has been so dangerous for the regime to embrace these changes as an “Islamic Awakening,” as Ayatollah Khamenei has done. Of course, he wants to appear to be on the right side of history, on the right side of “revolution.” But having reported on these revolutions in the Arab world, and knowing the divisions and hypocrisy in Iran that have diminished Iran’s reputation across the Arab world as a “model” of anything, I believe that the Islamic Republic will not be able to avoid the flow of change for long. I am not sure that this means that, five years from now, the Islamic Republic will have been “erased from the face of time,” but I expect that this system will no longer persist as it is currently configured. That won’t be the result of any definitive outside intervention, I believe, but from the mismanagement and misjudgment of Iran’s own hardline leadership.

This interview tries to offer an analysis on after-election events in Iran.

Let’s review the events from the first step. Two years ago, almost on the same date, Iran witnessed the largest street protests since the revolution. How could Mousavi, Karroubi and totally the reformists lead people to come to the streets?

Two years ago people came out, first to vote and then to protest, because they wanted change through the choices offered by the political system during the elections. It was not only the vote itself that mattered, but the whole electoral process that preceded the actual vote and started a lot of debate throughout society, in the media and even on television, about what kind of politics, freedoms, justice and political representatives that people want. Also, the sense of common solidarity energized especially the young and inexperienced people, who experienced a sense of collective power and dignity they had not experienced before.
In Iran since the revolution we have had a lot of accumulated experience about electoral politics. The Islamic Republic has never been a democracy, but it has always been, more or less, a republican system: on the one hand we have a small political elite who monopolize power, and rarely allow anyone else to join in. The political elite of Iran all know each other through the complicated networks of madressehs, Khomeinist political affiliations, military backgrounds, and even a lot of convoluted and semi hidden intermarriages. Many prominent political personalities are married to somebody else’s daughter or son, even if they come from very different political camps! But this elite has always been ideologically divided. To keep its hold on power it relies on unity. Khomeini’s constant slogan was ‘unity!’ (vahdat-e kalameh). This divided political elite distribute power among them, and maintain public support and political legitimacy by going to the population for votes. In that sense the Islamic Republic has always been a republican system, where the popular vote distributes political power among competing factions of the ruling elite. But it is not a democratic system, because the process is not open to all citizens, but only to those handpicked by the regime. Khatami tried to change that, at least at the local level, by the local council elections in 1999, when literally everyone could stand for elections, and win!
The rule of this game was, at least until two years ago, that if a faction lost in the elections, they would stand aside and wait for the next round. In that sense, by cheating in the elections, Khamenei & Ahmadinejad violated the rules of the system’s own game, which had been in place since 1979. This explains the unprecedented outrage which brought millions out in the streets and on the rooftops.

By cheating in the elections, Khamenei & Ahmadinejad violated the rules of the system’s own game

So, the Iranian population has had a long accumulated experience of the limits as well as the possibilities of electoral politics. I don’t think most Iranians have any illusions that elections by themselves will magically improve their lives. At the same time, they have learned that elections always do make a difference, at least in registering their voices. We have to remember, in modern complex societies, loyalty to the system comes through voice. In 2003 disgusted Tehranis boycotted local elections for the city council. The 11% of Tehranis who voted elected Abadgaran to the council, who in turn chose Ahamdinejad as the mayor. This prepared his path to the presidency in 2005, when a lot of people either abstained from voting or voted against Rafsanjani. Elections have consequences. We have learned that. In a complex society, with a closed system, no candidate is ideal. But the consequences of different choices are real. That is why people who boycotted elections two years ago, or many of the 30% of the electorate who had never voted since the revolution, came out to vote this time. I think the process was also very different this time. Mousavi had to interact with his public, and to adapt to the demands of a politically maturing civil society. For example, he had to listen to a coalition of 70 feminist and women’s groups, from across the ideological spectrum of religious/secular activists, who wanted to know what he was willing to do for women’s legal equality if they voted for him. In that sense, Mousavi and Karoubi had to become political representatives of their supporters, instead of appointed leaders. This give and take, which is the starting point of democratic politics, was the reason why the population was outraged at the electoral fraud of 2 years ago and came out in protest against the stolen elections.

Do you suppose that it was possible for the Green Movement to win during those days or not? How could it win on that time essentially?

It does not seem likely! The conservatives had a plan to steal the elections and use force if necessary. They were organized and had plans. The Greens did not. I think if there had been more planning and organizing, especially to spread the protests out of the streets and into workplaces – factories, offices, bazaars, – there would have been a good chance to make the reactionaries accept the result of people’s vote, or at least to allow an open recount of the vote. But the Green Movement is NOT a ‘movement’ in the strict sense of the term. Mousavi correctly called it a ‘wave’, and that’s what it really is. Social movements have a center, they have organizations, they strive to become institutionalized, even if they are clandestine and illegal. Trade unions, political parties, anti war movements, civil rights and feminist movements are good examples. The Greens never became ‘a movement’ in that sense, so it is difficult to imagine how they could have won in a sustained state of repression. This is a lesson we need to learn. Without organized and unified coalitions, leadership, and a clearly articulated common cause it is impossible to win against repressive forces.
I think autocrats can be overthrown by popular explosions of anger, but there is no guarantee that the aftermath will be better! The moment blind anger and violence become the means for political change anything can, and will happen. For the Greens to have created political coalitions to resist repression by taking the fight out of the streets and into workplaces they needed to have included workers and working people into their agenda. But the neoliberal policies since the end of Iran-Iraq war had targeted the working population. In that sense the working people – factory workers, teachers, farmers, nurses, office workers, etc. may have felt sympathy for the Greens, but only as individuals. However they had neither the ability, nor a reason to risk their own survival by organizing collectively in their workplace. This was the failure of the Greens, and I would say the reformers, not to have included the demands of the working people for social justice, into their agenda. What we saw was that street protests will not succeed by themselves in the absence of organized resistance, which can shift the place of resistance, out of the streets and into the workplaces.

This was the failure of the Greens, and I would say the reformers, not to have included the demands of the working people for social justice

The noticeable point is how the government has insisted obstinately on its word and decision that caused it not to take a step backward during two years. Until when can the government continue to do this? What consequences has the obstinacy caused for them?

None of us can predict how far things can go. The capacity for violence by the regime is immense, and it has not even started to tap into it! Look at Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, even Egypt; more people have been massacred in these Arab countries than Iran. By comparison the scale of repression in Iran has been more limited! Why is that? My feeling is that in Iran if violent repression, especially in large cities, goes beyond a certain point the main body of security forces may not hold together. But that is not necessarily better for the future of democracy. You can end up with smaller independent pockets of truly fascistic forces that will no longer be restrained by anything like loyalty to Vali-ye Faqih. Iran can very easily become a nightmare of violence and explosive anger, like Algeria in the 1990’s or Afghanistan. These are different societies, but the fearful violence there came because the political glue that was holding these societies together fell apart.
It is ironic that institutions like the Vali-ye Faqih, the Sepah, and Basij may be the main obstacles to democratic popular will, but at the same time they are like a glue that hold together a true nest of stinging bees. The fact that these ruling institutions no longer rely on negotiation or compromise with public opinion but only on brute force is a very dangerous sign. Obstinacy, inflexibility, and resorting to brute violence may signal the end of politics and of the possibility of negotiation. Democracy can only proceed through a gradual mobilization of society and the recognition and acknowledgment by all political players of the limits of their power. On the other hand, when brute violence rules anything can happen. We may think Russia, Algeria, Afghanistan in the 1990’s as very different from today’s Iran, but what is common to these disastrous cases is that their states failed to maintain a minimal degree of legitimacy by acting as a glue that holds society together. The moment you have a failed state only those who are able and willing to resort to violence will remain in the political arena: primarily young and angry men, willing to use the gun against anyone who disagrees with them, and people who see victory as the elimination of their rivals. In this kind of atmosphere women, older people, artists, intellectuals, ordinary people, i.e. the vast majority of the population, have no role to play in shaping the future, except as cannon fodder.

Studying the statements and words issued by the two Green Movement leaders, Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi, one can find that they have never decided to pass the system and change the structures fundamentally; it had been so at least before they were arrested. What possibilities does this reformist act cause them to gain and also to lose?

I think I partly answered this question. There are plenty of people who call for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, as if somehow, magically, this system will be replaced by a better alternative. This is what most of us Iranians believed in 1978 when we overthrew the monarchy! Experience showed that the revolutionary overthrow of a bad system does not necessarily mean you get something better. You can get war, chaos, ethnic violence and separatism, economic chaos and impoverishment of masses, etc. Democracy is build by organizing society from bottom up, so that even if you have an authoritarian state it feels powerless against an empowered society. This takes hard work and organizing, but the alternatives are not better.

You seem to be interested in class analysis of the Green Movement and after election events. Is such an analysis that powerful that it can explain such a movement comprised of different classes such as university students, employees, merchants, intellectuals, etc.?

To think otherwise would be naïve! Of course millions voted and then protested as individuals against the elections, but the deeper political discontent of this society are not the problems of individuals only, they are collective problems: those of ethnic and religious minorities, of women treated as second class citizens, of citizens wanting political liberties in a rigid ideological system, but also and especially of poverty, economic insecurity, and social justice. Class issues are not the only factor of discontent in Iran, but to not recognize that they are a vitally important element motivating political participation would be a mistake.

And the last question; how is the Green Movement going on in the absence of its two main leaders?

The strength of the Green movement comes from its limited common denominators: that the elections were stolen, that all political prisoners should be freed, that all those who broke the existing laws should be punished. These are the demands that hold us together and give coherence to the movement, whether its leaders are free or imprisoned. The moment we move beyond these common demands, and start claiming larger demands that have not been debated democratically, that most of us disagree over or are unclear about, this unified but limited movement can fall apart. We must not think the Green movement is the solution to Iran’s problems, it is just one step in a long process. We must first accept to hold together with a common platform we can all agree upon, whether leaders like Mousavi and Karroubi are there or not. Let us win this first victory, and then we can debate and propose all sorts of more radical solutions for the future of Iran.

However, the Islamic Republic regime managed to put an end to the protests by resorting to violence against the demonstrators, detaining the prominent figures of the two contending presidential candidates, establishing a security and military atmosphere and months of struggle with the protestors. What is for sure is that after two years since the Green Movement started, the deep dissatisfaction among people regarding the absence of citizenship rights has not faded away. On the other hand, the impressive actions of the activists of this movement such as their demonstrations, strikes and coherent organised political work has been reduced to the lowest minimum of what it could be.
What measures and strategies are there for the Green Movement to bring to fruition the hopes that this movement has created in the hearts of those who love freedom? On the occasion of the anniversary of the demonstration of millions of people of Iran to reclaim their citizenship and civil rights, TehranReview interviews Iranian theorists and scholars.

In the third episode of this series of interviews, we spoke with Mehdi Jami, Iranian journalist, blogger, photographer and filmmaker. He was the first director and editor in chief of Radio Zamaneh since it was established in June 2006 until October 2008. He worked with BBC Persian Service from May 1996 to May 2006. Before working for the BBC, he was mainly involved in teaching Persian language and literature and working with the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia.

Given the events of the past two years and what the Green Movement has experienced since its inception, what do you think is the importance of media for this popular movement?

Whatever the Green Movement has, it owes it to the media! Quite recently, the results of a research in Tehran showed that the Greens have used Facebook more than other users of this small media. I think they have also been ahead of others in the use of YouTube. Maybe only in the area of blogging they came across new contenders, but they were almost pioneers in every other social media. Of course, a great part of this is due to the fact that the Greens were deprived of having paper media. Therefore, they have used the online media. This, however, reveals their cultural preparedness to use the new media.
I think in terms of media, as far as it concerns individual behaviour and even network behaviour, they have really excelled themselves and they have truly proved that if there is a people in the Middle East who is prepared for citizen journalism, it is for sure Iranians. The Greens pushed the Persian media to a new age in which media shifts from informing to networking, deliberation and dialogue.

“The Greens pushed the Persian media to a new age”

However, as far as it concerns big media, except at times when they conquered the BBC, they almost had no success at all! This is an important point to ponder. Structurally, the Greens claimed a space that other rivals neither paid attention to nor were interested in. Or they were missing the expertise or media resilience for it. However, with mainstream media, the predominant structures did not allow the birth of an independent Green media. This remains to be a huge obstacle. Therefore, contrary to what was expected, televisions were launched which did not have any Green characteristic or were not even political in its common sense such as the Man-o-to, but a Green television was never launched: there was no real media with proper audience. We neither got a Green television nor a Green radio. What was launched was born out of the previous structures which were predominantly party-oriented ones. Just in the same manner that Kurdish parties have their own channel, a political party in Iran now had its own TV. However, whereas Kurdish televisions have their own audience among their party followers/members, its Iranian counterpart has no audience at all. The Iranian audience is not oriented to party politics and is frustrated with partisan behaviour.

In fact, in the world of television, no one managed to find the sensitive spot of the Green audience. BBC was voicing its own concerns. The VOA cannot even say what it wants to say. The new partisan television, Rasa, could not respond to the needs and demands of the market. The older media generation’s problem is being outdated and incapable of making connections. All in all, the Green media was left with personal media or social networks. In other words, what the Greens experienced with small media could not be transformed into a television model, which should be a television for informing combined with networking.

I think this discursive obstacle has been a serious one. However, one of its reasons has been political. The Green leaders were not active and motivating, in a broad sense, in the field of media making.

Following the beginning of protests, the motto of “every citizen is one media” was raised and many warmly received it. However, transforming ordinary citizens to journalists, regardless of the issue of information, seems to have created some sort of a chaos in the media career: just about anyone who had the material and profession wherewithal did not provide an acceptable standard of work, in terms of professional standards, under the influence of the dominant media atmosphere. How do you see the role of citizen-journalists in enhancement or undermining the professional information career?

Whatever the Green movement has, it owes it to its citizen-journalists! However, this is only one part of the issue. The other part is that both the regime and the anti-Green opposition created a massive amount of “counter-news” to fundamentally incapacitate this source of information and make it unimportant. On the other hand, lack of timely training, i.e. citizen-journalists being untrained, made the situation even worse. Nonetheless, some efforts were made to bring in an element of critique of news items and trainings for content production to find its way into social networks. I think a certain collective consciousness has been engendered in social networks which has given credit to citizen productions. However, saying that this has led to chaos, it seems like a defect from an ordinary eye. On the other hand, it is something quite normal. In the shift between one system or period of news and the next system or period, there is always an episode of chaos, confusion or even opportunism, and fake productions. This chaos is a sign of a new order. That is nothing to worry about. However, it requires management. One has to think about it, recognise the chaos so that it can be led to the next level of forming the new order. The next order will undoubtedly be influenced by citizen-journalists. We have to be ready for it. This is an experienced path that the Greens have taken so far and it is irreversible.

In my opinion, state media such as the BBC and the VOA must learn from the small media and move from informing to networking. Even in their current model and with the best renovations and reforms they will not be able to succeed in the new age of media.

That our professionals may still be confused is again nothing strange. Professionals need to refresh themselves and learn. They should acquaint themselves with new methods and improve their tone and language in choosing their topics and make them more popular. This has not happened yet, though. I can give dozens of examples in which professional media have ignored the news items that people were interested in. This is a gap that has to be bridged. People from both sides of the gap can contribute to bridging this gap. Citizen-journalists who have a tendency towards a professional/trained understanding of their work and the professionals who show awareness of understanding the new media atmosphere can work together.

Given the political divisions among Iranians and old differences among different groups, how can a relatively impartial and professional news network increase the solidarity among people and at the same time attract the attention of people from other countries to Iran?

This is a very difficult issue. I do not believe in impartiality and I find it misleading, but I do firmly believe in fairness and seeing both sides of the story in news. This is the basis for civil and media ethics. This is however not something that we can see today in the Persian media. And it seems far to have such an all-encompassing inclusive media to form without a shift in discourse, unless we can assume that a small consistent group with excellent media capabilities and enough financial strength can pioneer in this work. I do not know such a group with high political goals and standard avoiding constant internal conflicts and bashing others. Even if they exist, they do not generally have a vision of modern media. And of course the farthest groups to such modern approaches in media are the political parties and groups, because as we know them today, they have short-term goals and they are generally pursuing propaganda and whatever they wish to do, it is definitely not promotion of media work. Therefore, you cannot expect them to play a role in media progress. Whatever work they do is outdated or cliché. Even when it has new looks it is dealing with media with the same old methods and in any case it reveals their lack of media literacy. In other words, our political groups have not yet realised the value of media work and lack the competence to use it.

As regards solidarity, the issue should first happen outside the media and then the media can become an embodiment or reflection of it. If the idea of solidarity is weak in the outside or is shaky, then naturally no media would come into existence based on it. I think the more practical model for it is to seek the improvement and promotion of solidarity between those citizens who are ready for it and advance it to a higher level, then to think of a broad solidarity. Let us assume that we have ten media outlets by and for ten different social segments with proper media atmosphere. If we establish this phase, then we will be more successful in implementing wider solidarity. Given the natural plurality among Iranians, this model will work better.

From another perspective, even now one can find groups which have gathered around some online media outlets and they are somehow finding their identity there and the work of that media is their referent index. These can be foundations for transcending models. However, the major issue is whether those groups believe in media promotion as part of their goals or not. The presence of a powerful media rival may give these media-groups the motivation for growth.

Regarding how people of other countries view Iran, it is a very much connected with Iranian communities in Europe and America and it is not simply the issue of media; although the media can help significantly. In other words, we need a media which can bring together members from Iranian communities which are more homogenous and create a synergy among them. This media can attract the attention of non-Iranians. However, right now, every group is struggling for its own particular goals without necessarily having a network of connections or news or liaison among them. Will such a media come into existence? I am hopeful although we may not see it in a very near future on the horizon.

Let us consider media outlets such as the BBC or VOA which have more means than other Persian media. To what extent can we see them consistent and committed in the charter of a serious media to the issue of informing people? We can now see that the VOA is embracing a more popular attitude as opposed to the BBC which is somewhat elitist.

I think the BBC has played an important part. This is undeniable. However, I do not generally see the mandate of the BBC to be informing people in terms of, for instance, helping the ideas of Mir-Hossein Mousavi. BBC is following the British outlook in the world, our region and Iran. We must not expect the BBC to have this function, just as we should not expect Radio Farda to be like this. I have even told my friends that Radio Farda should not approach the Green Movement unless to a certain extent, because it might be seen as representing the movement and this is not something to accept from Radio Farda. Nor is it to the interest of the movement. In other words, it will just be artificial. If the BBC was influential in the 1979 revolution, it was probably because our people did not have media capacities themselves and consciously or unconsciously the BBC had become the voice of the revolution. However, one must not have such an expectation from any of the media outside the country because there is so much media diversity that people can have their own networks and cater for their needs of information now. And they are actually doing this. Just consider the issue of news gathering. If we did not have the citizens voluntarily filming from their protests, no formal journalist from the BBC or from any other media outlets in Tehran or other cities could get any news out. All formal channels were closed and it was only the people who could informally let the news out.

“In my opinion, these state media can learn from the Green small media and move from informing to networking”

The case of the VOA is different. I think we should differentiate between a small narrow media current there with the dominant voice. The Parazit programme has managed to make connections with a huge group of the younger generations. This was more than anything else due to the personal initiative of the producers of the programme rather than the general policy of the VOA, because if this policy was there, sings of it should have been reflected in its other programmes too.
The VOA is currently under renovation and change. However, until now, it has had no role but in the periphery of the events, particularly because it has been compared with the BBC. The BBC made the VOA market stagnant in the 2009 elections of Iran. Now, I hope that changes in this network can take it up to speed with the BBC or make it a popular media for the people. Being popular is not bad in itself, but the fact that the elite does not view VOA a professional outlet is of course bad. Obtaining a positive view of the elite is what should be added to the popularity of the VOA.
However, the VOA also has its own policy and its own media mission and one cannot expect the VOA to function as a Green media. Nonetheless, I think if the media policies of Obama regarding being in touch with the people and hearing their voice, which was recently announced, is followed in the VOA and gets implemented, then I think the VOA has taken a huge step forward. Its current condition, as its managers and broadcasters admit, is not desirable. In the two years of the life of the Green Movement, I do not naturally find a prominent place for it. But tomorrow can be another day. In my opinion, these state media can learn from the Green small media and move from informing to networking. I mean in their current model, even with the best of renovations and reforms, they will not be successful.

Among the roles of a journalist one can point out the “discovery of truth”, a most prominent example of which can be seen in the Watergate issue. Why is it that after two years since the problematic presidential elections, no media or journalist has managed to do anything serious in terms of discovering the truth? Can we say that thirty years of suppression by the Islamic Republic has managed to eradicate these activities from the media? If this is so, what is the solution?

Apart from the debates of the past two years, the idea of investigative journalism in search of truth did not have any precedent in Iranian media. In Iran, we do have whistle-blowing such as what the Salam newspaper used to do or what the newspapers of the early years of the revolution did or what recently the Alef website does, but we do not have investigative journalism. Apart from a few exceptions here and there, this style of journalism does not have deep roots for the simple reason that we do not have independent journalism. In the contemporary period, since before the revolution, the context of our journalism was different from that of western journalism. For example, even if a journalist got word of some secret affair, they did not have the legal and juridical support and they would be easily put in prison. Even apolitical dissent would cause trouble for the journalist, let alone struggling with the powerful.
In the past two years, severe suppression has been an obstacle for the formation of certain forms of investigative journalism, except when the journalist leaves the country and again it has taken the form of whistle-blowing.

Mainstream Persian media outside the country are generally disconnected from the issues of the Iranian society and cannot therefore support this kind of journalism. Therefore, the issue becomes this: either the people who have the knowledge and the clues do not have the power to express it, or if they say it nobody supports them. Essentially, they cannot enter the matrix of power and there is no tradition for this type of journalism. The journalist, who can easily be labelled as a spy for its simplest work, cannot subsequently go into investigative journalism or curiosity in recording and revealing corruption and mismanagement in all its forms. I think if the ordinary people get involved in the media, they can take on the role of discovering the truth themselves, but that requires a different mechanism to become practical.

Considering the launch of networks such as “Man-o-to” and “Farsi1”, it seems that the future of media becomes like separated islands. What impact can this have on liberation political movements?

I think these should be accepted as media realities. The media is not only about politics. But what is happening is depoliticizing the people and the TV audience. This is of course dangerous for the future of the media and it is exactly what the “holy regime” in Iran seeks. The regime would warmly welcome any means to harness the politicization of the people and I believe they have no serious qualms with Farsi1 or Man-o-to.

As regards the current which is now influencing the Persian audience beyond our control, we should naturally be active and plan for it to bring in new media or renovate older media and overhaul them to revive a wave of countering depoliticizing. If news based media cannot go beyond this pitfall, they will lose the ground. Consequently, any voice seeking democratic developments would fade out or weaken. Using your terms, they become like islands and no one can hear their voice anymore. In the way of renovation or change, if these media fall in the trap of becoming like Man-o-to or Farsi1, it is another threat. However, if a more comprehensive outlook is adopted, there is a hope that changes may be in the right direction, so it can make the regime a little agitated and the audience would fall from the heaven of fake comfort in which they see the world as nothing is happening! To adopt that outlook is a delicate matter and it is necessary for media designers to talk about it at length.

Should liberation movements try to have their own media or should they have their share in every media?

It is practically so. The movement which does not have media is a dead movement. Of course, I said that the Green Movement has had its own media and particularly in the field of small citizen oriented media it has been successful and even pioneering from a modern media perspective. However, it has not created big comprehensive media outlets and we have not done so either. I mean neither the leaders have taken this matter seriously, nor the followers, the people, the investors and those who see the opportunities, have opened new paths. This worries me. However, this feeling and this demand is out there and it is strong and I believe it is like the beauty which does not bear remaining in concealment. It is no inconceivable that these satellites open some space in Iran for private televisions. These televisions will rapidly find their counterparts outside Iran among Iranians. Behind this dam, there is a massive force building up. I don’t know how but I know that certainly there are new and wonderful events in the field of television which are in the making. Television is the media of the future. Or I had better say televisions. Developments are not in the direction of creating “one” network. It will have diversity for the simple reason that future televisions depend on the audience. This makes them diverse.

“The movement which does not have media is a dead movement”

Most state media in the world are focussing on social issues. Should the Green Movement media behave like this or should it, in the absence of an independent Persian media, be more comprehensive?

I think after the Jomhouriyyat newspaper of Emad Baghi which was short-lived and after the Radio Zamaneh which was specifically focussed on social issues, the Persian media has now gone beyond a frontier which is in my opinion the frontier of future media. The more the media think about the audience and the audience takes a more active role in it, they become more social. Being politics-oriented is a flaw for media work and right now, media such as the BBC and the VOA are damaged because of this flaw. The media which primarily deals with politics will not be a comprehensive media and will be circling in the boring cycle of politics. If we want politics to find its right place, we must not let it take the place of everything else. Mainstream media are designed based on a discourse that narrates as if only politics is effective element in the world’s affairs. That is not so. In the real world, there are myriads of other factors which are impacting our life apart from politics and a comprehensive media must address all these issues to give us a balanced view of the world in which we live.

It is my conviction that for the Green media of any kind, issues related to the society, ideas, culture, the environment, education and school should be more important than for any other media outlet. This is how I understand “comprehensive media” in your question and not necessarily more political. Green media are also media and should not make the mistake that in order to take root, they should follow the model of older media. They should follow their pioneering path and always remain in tune with modern outlooks of media. If the world goes towards more social media further depending on the audience, then the Greens should follow suit with its Iranian flavour and carry on. This requires the Green media to be active in the debates on modern media. This would help them to avoid the pitfall of clichés and declining discourses and lets their initiatives have a theoretical media justification. A theoretical understanding will naturally give them confidence and they can have an impact on mainstream media too. The Greens should keep the media advantages that they have gained by experience and develop them.

Popular movements in the Middle East are not the hot topics of the world media. What can be seen in these movements is the strong and undeniable role of a media called Aljazeera, to the extent that this media has been transmitting even the tiniest pieces of news with the least of facilities despite the banning of its activities in the midst of most of these movements. Other Arab countries have struggled to imitate each other. If we had such a media network in Iran, would it be possible to have further success?

If we had an Aljazeera in Iran, there would be no need for protest or revolution! We want to reach a society in which networks such as Aljazeera are not taboos in the country or exceptions and they become the general model and an acceptable level for news media. Now, let us assume that in Afghanistan you had a Persian Aljazeera. Or, for example, the Tolo TV, which is their best television network, was taking on the role of Aljazeera and continuously covered the news of Iranian protests and its global credit attracted the attention of Persian speaking people and the rest of the world. I think the Iranian protests would seem different and it would have different outcomes and the pace of developments would be different. In response to earlier questions, I said that the absence of supporting structures has been a cause for investigative journalism not to take root in Iran. Having a Persian Aljazeera in a neighbouring country would give the protests a supporting media structure. This would naturally change the situation.

“If we had an Aljazeera in Iran, there would be no need for protest or revolution!”

A glance at the contemporary history of Arab countries shows that every media which has been established outside the Arab environment have eventually failed until the Aljazeera network and then Alarabiyya were established. This somehow shows that the people trust their own indigenous media more than media which are run from abroad. Can we extend this model for Iran or other Persian speaking countries? Can we say that until a media from inside Persian speaking countries is established, it cannot find the all-encompassing aspect or the impact of Aljazeera or Alarabiyya?

Let us address the issue based on the same idea of supporting means. Persian media abroad is based on supporting and highlighting issues or problems which are not raised inside the country, or domestic media do not have the power to raise them, or because domestic interests do not necessitate raising them. Now consider the point that for the past three decades, the media outside the country have been continuously talking about human rights violations in Iran and they have published news, reports or analysis on it. However, serious human rights movement in Iran started when domestic civil forces inside the country started their activity to tackle them. For example, in the past two years debates about issues such as constant references to the massacre of prisoners in the 80’s have been unprecedented. Even Amnesty International has not made a significant movement in this regard until after 20 years, and, for example, has had no role in annual commemorations of the victims of these massacres. However, in the past two years debates about the issue have been so widespread that we can say it has become part of the collective conscience of Iranians. What has changed? I think social sensitivities have changed, as we have a huge number of individuals active in small personal media. People have found each other in the network of newly established social media, weblogs and audience-oriented media and they have shared their memories, questions and common grievances with others.

Three decades of foreign media reporting and talking all about these issues, was never as influential as when people have been re-reading the post-revolution history. Just like the case of recent years when people constantly asking the question of why Khorramshahr was liberated but never properly rebuilt. And there are dozens of other new questions and debates small parts of which had been reflected in mainstream media.

In other words, it is not just the issue of trust. People should have reached a level of recognition of their own identity and an understanding of their social and political issues for these debates to enter thousands of other circles of debate. I think it is only people-based and audience-oriented media that can sense the sensitivities in their right time and react to them and push them to media debate circles and in their own turn impact these debates. This constant contact with people is what happened in the Aljazeera and Al-arabiyya and changed them into two powerful media network. Therefore, we can say that the media which lose their contact with the people in one way or another lose their impact too. This is what you describe as “trust”. If they are in touch with the grassroots and maintain this connection in different ways and continue it, they will be influential and win the trust of people.

Our current condition is that we neither trust the domestic media nor the foreign Persian-speaking televisions outside Iran. What we want and has strategic importance is connecting the people with the media. Their being domestic or foreign is a secondary issue, but it is natural that it would be preferable if a domestic media can make this connection. However, the problem is that our domestic media, inside and outside the country, are still running according to orders and they do not get their agenda from the people. Examples of the sport programme called 90 in Iran and satirical Parazit abroad tell us that when you take your agenda from the people, the result will be remarkably different. The fact that we have reached this connection in satire and in sport is quite meaningful. These two areas are where people have been most engaged with the media. Our main issue is then finding this link and connection in other areas of daily life. This is a modern media principle.

In this piece, I would like to argue that Obama’s failure to attract the attention of Middle-Easterners is not necessarily a bad thing for those people; in point of fact, it does bode well for them on a plane unheard of in recent memory, i.e., the plane of action. In what follows, I will unpack why that is.

I. The Negatives

As was easily predictable, the speech was full of vacuous rhetorical truisms, selective praises and rebukes or what have you, which is expected from politicians generally and more so from Obama who is a very glib one at that.
It praised the ‘brave freedom-loving people of Tunisia and Egypt’, but failed to admit that the US and its allies supported those dictators against those very brave people until the tides had turned against the dictators and their deposition was a matter of hours or days only, and that one of the reasons why such dictatorships survived so long in the first place was the regular financial and military support of the US and its allies (such as France) for the Egyptian and Tunisian dictators.

It selectively (but rightfully) reproached in very harsh terms ‘unfriendly dictators’ of Libya, Iran, and Syria who brutalize their people, but failed to address the Bahraini and Yemeni ‘friendly dictators’ in equally critical terms. What is more, it failed to even mention the Saudi and Kuwaiti situations where dissenters and democratic activists were crushed down savagely.

It talked of the lack of economic neoliberalization as one of the reasons that had instigated the uprisings and revolutions in the region, but willfully ignored the fact that one of the major reasons why Egyptians and Tunisians got fed up with their situation and took to the streets was the devastating consequences of neoliberal economic policies in those countries implemented by those dictators, policies that had not only loaded the dictators’ pockets and brought the workers down to a slavish status but had actually caused poverty and unemployment rates to go through the ceiling in the long run.

In terms of the Palestine-Israel issue, the speech made an apparently controversial and promising remark by saying that a return to the 1967 border is the solution to the problem; but the promise faded away when Obama added the clause ‘with mutually agreed borders and land swaps’, which means Israel has a veto on Palestinian ‘rights’ and on whatever agreement deal the Palestinians and the overwhelming majority of the international community strive toward.
In other words, the implication was that things can go on as they have for decades with Israel and the US unilaterally vetoing all the legitimate rights of the Palestinians and demands of the international community. This implication was not comprehended by some lobbyists; Obama had therefore to clear things up in his address to AIPAC three days after the speech, and say explicitly what he had implicated in the Mid-East speech: ‘there was nothing original in my proposal’ and that the return to 1967 was not what he had meant.

Along the same lines, Obama legitimized once more the new discourse that is being propagated by Israel that it is a ‘Jewish’ state and Israel is ‘the homeland of the Jewish people’, deliberately not taking stock of more than one million non-Jewish citizens in Israel (more or less 20% of the whole population) who would be relegated to the status of second class citizens by this discourse.

Could anyone in their right minds possibly imagine a state such as the American state itself claiming to be a “Christian state” and America being “the homeland of the Christians”? Probably not! Not even in the theocracies of the Middle East can you find a dictator who would claim his country to be one for the Muslim population alone, not in rhetoric certainly.

People fully understood what was missing in the speech and what it means to have friendly rhetoric and do the opposite in practice

And the negative list could, to one’s chagrin, go on and on. People fully understood what was missing in the speech and what it means to have friendly rhetoric and do the opposite in practice, which is why the speech fell on deaf ears for good reasons. But, so much for the negative!

II. The Positive

There was one tremendously positive aspect to the cold reception the speech met with. People in that region have ‘acted’ on their own, and have achieved considerable results, and can afford to ignore empty rhetoric, be it from their dictators or Obama. They have taken the active role in the still unfolding scenarios that are taking place. Politicians, including Obama, are forced to ‘react’ to what they do. This is a major achievement.

This confession in Obama’s speech was explicit when he had to emphasize one factor that was predominant in the recent events in the region: ‘self-determination.’ We can’t judge whether Obama enjoyed or detested this confession. One thing is however clear: it was unprecedented.

For decades the dominant discourse of the American administrations has been centered on the question ‘how should we influence or change the politics of the region?’, i.e., the active stance that included invading countries, regime change, nation-building, and such. Obama was the first American president in recent memory who was effectively forced to change the discourse and say “the question before us is what role America will play as this story unfolds’, i.e., the reactive stance. Things are happening there and America should react to them.

The Middle Eastern masses have paid a huge price to impose this change of tone and discourse on the American administration. For decades, many Middle-Easterners were quick to blame others especially the West and more so the US (not without some legitimate reasons) for the miseries that had befallen them. It was a mournful passive/reactive stance. But the tides have turned.

The new uprisings and revolutions have for the first time given the people of the region the active stance of those who by themselves and against overwhelming odds bring down despotic regimes (some of which supported by superpowers such as the US) and force those very superpowers to step back and reflect upon the question as to how to respond and ‘react’ to how those people ‘act’. This is the positive news ‘for the people’ in the nonevent that was Obama’s speech.

There is however a long way to go. The majority of the countries in that region are still under dictatorial conditions. But the trend has been set. If there is anything to be had from the recent revolutions, it is the lesson that people can set out to ‘act’ and bring about real change, and when they succeed in doing that, they don’t need to be particularly interested in reactive clichés and empty rhetoric from anyone. It is a legitimate luxury for the people to be able to ignore a speech like that by the most powerful man in the world (militarily speaking), and they deserve to be congratulated for that.

Up until then, Bahrain was part of the territories of Iran and the Persian-installed ruler of Bahrain was its governor. As the movement of the people of Bahrai for independence began, the international community joined them in their cause, and in practice the Shah was not faced with a dilemma but with the only choice left for him: agreeing to the independence of Bahrain. Perhaps, what made the Shah think long and hard was how he could in the course of accepting this independence get something in return from the West. It was agreed that a referendum must be held under the supervision of the UN for the people of Bahrain to vote for independence or remaining under the sovereignty of Iran. This is how the referendum was held in Iran and the Shah of Iran had to submit to an outcome which was all too clear in advance in a democratic gesture.

However, on the other hand, the Shah had become rich with the colossal oil revenues and he had given loans to great countries such as the UK and was thus holding them in debt to himself. Thus he had gained the privilege of full control over the Persian Gulf as the oil vein of the planet. During this phase, Iran interfered in the affairs of the countries of the Persian Gulf to the extent that with its direct military intervention, the coup d’état of Oman was defeated. In this military campaign, Iran did not find it necessary to liaise with the US – its closest ally.

In order to grasp the importance of this critical event, it would be useful to look at the process of independence in southern Sudan. Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese leader, was under heavy pressure from the international community because of the Darfur crisis, and The Hague had declared him as a criminal. Under these pressures, he had to agree to a referendum to decide about the fate of southern Sudan. The outcome of this referendum was clear right before it. Southern Sudan became independent and pressures on al-Bashir became less, to the extent that his case in the International Criminal Court has been put aside for a while and European countries and the US do not speak much about the need for the arrest of al-Bashir by Interpol.

However, for some time now, Bahrain has been witness to the uprising of the people of this country against the Al Khalifa dynasty and the violent crackdown on this movement. What is interesting here is the level of intervention by Iran in Bahrain. This interference reached a point that Hossein Shariatmadari, the license holder of Kayhan newspaper and close ally of the Supreme Leader in Iran, asked for the direct military intervention of Iran in Bahrain to support the cause of its people; he also mentioned the example of Iranian intervention in the case of Oman during the Shah’s time.

Such activities of the Iranian regime do not go unnoticed by the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf and they make an effort to confront this; however, the question is why has Iran not considered the revolution of the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and even Syria as important but deals with the issue of Bahrain as a matter of utmost importance? The rulers of the Islamic Republic certainly have their own reasons for this level of intervention in an independent country in such an overt manner.

Why does Iran deal with the issue of Bahrain as a matter of utmost importance?

The ruling regime in Bahrain

The government of Bahrain resembles the Syrian regime in many ways. In Syria, which is a country with a Sunni majority, it is now over half a century that the Asad family, which belongs to the Alavi minority, runs the state. The foundations of this regime are based on the full support of Iran on the one hand and the occupation of certain parts of the Syrian territories by Israel on the other. When such a regime faces a revolt of people, it quickly realises that it has no popular grounds and no backing in the grassroots and thus it should either continue its hold on power with violent suppression or step down from power like the Shah of Iran or Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the former President of Tunisia, before much bloodshed (like the case of Libya).

Iran is very well aware of the fact that there is a Shia majority in Bahrain and supporting them can guarantee a good foot hold for Iran in this strategic region in case of the collapse of the regime in Bahrain. This is what happened in Iraq. However, Syria is not a similar case because once Asad is removed from power, one of the most important (if not the most important) pillars of the foreign policy of Iran would be severely shaken or destroyed.

The Islamic Republic has an extremely weak foreign diplomacy and operates in an isolated space. Iran does not have the necessary means for putting diplomatic pressure on the international atmosphere (even in terms of propaganda). Thus, going back to its old habit, it tries to have an influence on the fate of Bahrain through public support for the revolutionaries in Bahrain and also covert operations there.

The Iranian regime has a long record of creating discord among one nation and then creating smaller groups among them and then raising one group to power. The case of Lebanon on the 1980s and then Iraq in recent years are good examples of this policy. The tense atmosphere in Lebanon, which was struggling with war in the 1980s, allowed Iran to first create smaller groups in this country and then support Hizbullah to come into full military confrontation with the other Shii group (the Amal movement) so that Lebanon eventually comes to a point that its fate rests in the hands of the Hizbullah. The same atmosphere came into being in Iraq in a different way and this scenario is now happening in Bahrain.

Nonetheless, the global atmosphere is not the same as during those years and at least the active media may cause obstacles for this strategy to bear fruit. A glance at the recent statement of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (CCAG) and the reproachful attitude of these countries towards Iran, beside the impressive move of Kuwait against Iran in the case of arresting some people on charges of espionage and then as this confrontation spread across other Arab countries, shows that these countries are trying to take action against Iran now so that they would not have to be in a passive and reactionary position towards Iran in a not too far future.

The Oil Highway

Geopolitically, Bahrain is located in a point in the Persian Gulf which is a critical passage for the transport of oil in a region which provides the greatest part of the world’s oil. In circumstances where the Hormuz strait is pretty much controlled by Iran, Bahrain can easily become a location which can be a manoeuvring area for the forces opposing Iran before Iran takes control of the area. It is exactly for this reason that the US has chosen this small country as the site for building one of its biggest military bases in the world and has concentrated a large number of its military force there. Beside a military base, the US has established its largest marine patrol outside the US territories in the US: the US Marines in this country are from 53 different nationalities and they serve their military service in this area. Every now and then, senior intelligence authorities of the US visit them. Michael Chertoff, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, was visiting this military base in Bahrain in 2007 and said that the very powerful presence of the US in Bahrain is a clear message to supporters of terrorism proving that this strategic region cannot become a battle ground for them to show their power with the US remaining indifferent to it.

It is clear that as much as the tensions in Bahrain are a valuable gift to Iran, the US and its allies are greatly concerned, to the point that they completely ignore the suppression in Bahrain and even move further than this to send the Saudi Arabian Army to Bahrain to assist the government in crackdowns.
On the other hand, Iran has no intention of ignoring the situation in Bahrain and there is every chance that if the situation goes on for a while, it may send forces of the Revolutionary Guards from Lebanon to engage in military action. This kind of engagement is quite possible if the Shia groups in Bahrain ask for the full support of the Supreme Leader of Iran and then if voices are heard in Iran that it is a religious duty to support the people of Bahrain. The government of Bahrain has immediately sensed this threat and dismantled all Shia political parties in Bahrain so that at least they are deprived of any legal protection and they can be suppressed much easier.

Iran has no intention of ignoring the situation in Bahrain

Bahrain: the espionage centre in the Persian Gulf

Many years ago, the lifestyle and the demography of the Lebanese society allowed the powerful countries of the world to establish their intelligence bases in these countries. Lebanon has always been one of the most important areas in the world for security and intelligence activities. However, since civil war started in Lebanon and it continued for a while, the space for any kind of reconnaissance work became very much limited. It is quite natural that when streets of a country turn into a shooting field and setting up check points, and kidnapping becomes the rule and the means of fighting, any kind of intelligence and reconnaissance work is disrupted. Therefore, this reconnaissance centre was gradually dismantled and it was replaced by Cyprus.

In the Persian Gulf, though, a similar location is neither Kuwait nor Saudi Arabia or Qatar: it is Bahrain which is the host of the bigger intelligence and security services in the world, thus making this small country an important strategic point. If we put together the military and intelligence elements, these two are sufficient to turn the disruption of the security of a country into a threat. The people of Bahrain are pursuing their demands of freedom and they may not clearly realise that their movement has pushed the world to stop the downfall of the Bahrain regime and prevent the sliding of all the huge assets of the Persian Gulf directly towards Iran.

Bahrain and its impact on the Saudi Arabia

Bahrain is located near the al-Qatif area in the East of Saudi Arabia. This area has the largest number of Shias as a minority which is under pressure in Saudi Arabi. Immediately following the tensions in Bahrain, the people of al-Qatif started similar movements. One can imagine that if the Bahrain regime collapses and the Shias in Bahrain rise to power, the Shia minority of al-Qatif will not remain silent and will start movements against the central government.
This situation becomes even further complicated when we see that the Shias in the north of Yemen (the al-Houthi group) have been fighting Saudi Arabia and causing problems on behalf of Iran. Now, after the situation in Yemen, the space for the resumption of their activities after a period of an iron fist rule becomes much opener.

Since the Arab countries have no considerable popular grounding, they are faced with this real threat that if the Shia minorities who make up the minority in most of these countries start an uprising, people from other tribes and clans may join them, thus making the control and suppression of this uprising extremely difficult for the central government. The victory of the Bahrain movement can become a starting point in the countries of the Persian Gulf encouraging the Shias in the East of Saudi Arabia to make a move. At the same time the Shias in the South of Saudia Arabia may put pressure on the government in the border areas with Yemen. In other countries like Kuwait, the Shia can become united with the Bedouins and follow up on these movements and eventually make the entire region unstable.

When Iran finds a strong foothold in Iraq, it is most wise if Tehran looks for bases in Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and start a full fight with the governments of these countries. Whether the Islamic Republic’s dream of monopolising the Persian Gulf and defeating the US and its allies is realised or whether the West can manage these events in the Persian Gulf relying on the Saudi Arabia, is an issue which eventually depends on the fate of Bahrain. Bahrain has an area of over 700 square kilometres of which only 400 square kilometres are desert land. This country has now become a battlefield for the influential countries of the world to flex their muscles. In this muscle-flexing, the people of Bahrain are used as the fighting gloves.

Buruma is a Dutch writer and academic who studied Chinese and Japanese literature and arts, through which he became familiar with Asian culture and soul. It caused him to author numerous articles and books such as Tokyo: Form and Spirit (1986) and God’s Dust: A Modern Asian Journey (1989) trying to create understanding and peace between Eastern and Western cultures. But maybe his most important book is Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies, co-authored with Avishai Margalit. Though the book was first published in 2004, it is still being considered as a notable work. The book discusses an ill mind that imagines the West to be devoid of any virtues, believes that it is the symbol of sins and corruptions and must be destroyed. The point is that the term “Occidentalism” itself doesn’t refer to such a meaning. It is used as an inversion of Orientalism and means the knowledge of Western cultures and traditions, but Buruma regards both terms as negative concepts, as Edward Said did decades ago by his book Orientalism, challenging the concept and regarding it as something derived from Western imperialistic views on the East. Said’s 1978 book can be considered as a motivation for Ian Buruma to write Occidentalism, the fact that caused us to interview him.

Why do you regard the term “Occidentalism” as a negative concept?

The way I used the term does not refer to criticism of American or European policies, or even cultures. ‘Occidentalism’ is a violent fantasy that imagines the West to be so wicked that it must be destroyed. This is a symbolic West, of course, a demonic image associated with sin, greed, corruption, sexual depravity, etcetera. It is a form of dehumanization, because it holds that Westerners have no souls, just base appetites.

Do you think that “Orientalism” is used in the same way?

In the sense that ‘Orientalism’ also dehumanizes people from the Orient, yes. In the case of Orientalism, people of the East are considered to be like children, who need to be mastered by the ‘adult’ West.

What are the roots of Occidentalism? Colonization and Imperialism? Which period does Occidentalism refer to? And what is the relationship between Occidentalism and Modernity?

The demonic image of civilization that is so corrupted by sensuality and material greed that it must be destroyed goes back to the biblical story of the Tower of Babylon. The Twin Towers of New York were the modern version of Babylon.

Do you regard Occidentalism as an illusion or a type of paranoia?

Both.

Which nations or countries have such a view about the West more than the others? Are the Muslims more predisposed to have such a view?

No, they are not. Avishai Margalit and I argued in our book, Occidentalism, that the demonic idea of Western depravity actually originated in the West itself, specifically in 19th century Germany, as well as Russia. Japanese ultra-nationalists in the 1920s and 30s, who were in fact much influenced by the West, particularly by German ideas about the West, often became Occidentalists.

The demonic idea of Western depravity actually originated in the West itself

What is the effect of religion on developing the “Occidentalism”? Can we regard Occidentalism as something such as a clash of religions?

No, not necessarily. Radical versions of Islam can lend themselves to demonic images of the West, but so can radical versions of Christianity. The Russian ‘Slavophiles’* of the 19th century were Russian Orthodox. And the people who denounced wicked Babylon were Jews.

Can we explain terrorism and the reasons behind it through knowing the concept of Occidentalism? Or do you think them to be related to religion?

This depends on which version of terrorism you mean. Terrorism is a tactic used in many different places under very different circumstances. Islamist terrorism is a form of revolutionary religion, which is a political as much as a religious ideology.

Which factors develop Occidentalism nowadays? Let’s suppose that the East would modify all its views about the West and the western phenomena. If so, are the policies and the acts of western states going toward making the Occidentalism abate?

This question still suggests that Occidentalism is a clash between a geographical West and East, or between Westerners and Orientals. This misses the point. It is a clash of ideologies, not civilizations, or different cultures. To an Occidentalist, many people in the East, especially if they are secular liberals, should be denounced just as much as Westerners. So Western policies are not the crucial factor.

What is the role of both western and eastern intellectuals in reproducing the Orientalism and the Occidentalism? How can an intellectual keep away from these powerful stereotypes?

Western and Eastern intellectuals, who share similar ideas about the desirability of individual freedom and democratic institutions, have more in common with each other than they do with people who are opposed to such ideas, wherever they may live. Western intellectuals who prize political liberties will be on the side of the Iranian Green movement. And Middle Eastern liberals will surely be receptive to liberal ideas in the West.

What is the alternative discourse on describing and expounding the world?

The alternative is not to be enslaved by dogmas, wherever they originate, and to see societies as collections of individuals, who must build institutions to solve conflicts peacefully, and create laws to guarantee civic liberties. Again, in this respect, liberal-minded people, whether they come from Tehran or New York, should be on the same side.

* Slavophilia was an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to the influences of Western Europe in Russia. There were also similar movements in Poland, Hungary and Greece. (Wikipedia)

Keshavarzian is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University and former editor of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP). He is the author of Bazaar and State in Iran: the Politics of the Tehran Marketplace (2007) in which he compared the economics and politics of the marketplace under the Pahlavis and under the Islamic Republic regime. Keshavarzian has also published articles on clergy-state relations and authoritarian survival in Iran.

Which step has the Green Movement reached? What difficulties can the fact – that Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi have been arrested or under house arrest – cause for the opposition and even the government?

The imprisonment of Mousavi and Karoubi is obviously of symbolic importance and illustrates the confidence of the Ahmadinejad government and regime at this moment. It would be interesting to know what exact calculations and tactical discussions have been taking place among the decision makers since the 2009 elections. Why did they not arrest them earlier? Why did they arrest them now? Yet, I don’t believe that the Green Movement can be ended by arresting these people, who themselves have shied away from being “leaders.” By the Green Movement, I mean both those who self-identify as its members and those who are sympathetic to aspects of its demand for transforming the regime in ways that make it more transparent and accountable.

However, from my vantage point, the Green Movement faced profound challenges and shortcomings for many months before these recent events. The rallies and protests in the summer of 2009 were important events that demonstrated a new political language or “discourse” around individual rights, procedural transparency, equality before the law, and responsibilities of rulers to ensure accountability and participation of citizens. These conceptions of politics and relations between the governed and the governors obviously emerged out of a longer tradition that goes back to the Mashruteh, but it really was a crystallization of the agenda of the reformist movement of the 1990s (1370s) and larger socioeconomic changes of the last three decades.

While the large rallies exhibited enormous bravery, they also had limits

Yet, while the large rallies and other forms of civil disobedience exhibited enormous bravery and a will to express unity despite diversity, it also had limits. By the autumn of 2009, the street, university campus, and blogosphere were no longer safe and effective places for mobilizing against the state. This had at least two implications. First, in order to generate new spheres for political action, the Green Movement, which has been restricted to university activists, organizations tied to reformist parties and civil society organizations, and women’s groups, needed to establish alliances with pre-existing movements and social groups. The obvious one is the labor movement, but even some factions among the rural population, merchants, and state employees could have been identified. Of course the interaction between the Greens and these other groups would have required negotiation and compromise and would have transformed the nature of the movement and its demands. Second, the increasingly harsh clampdown was a clear indication that the regime was willing and able to unify around Ahmadinejad and would not tolerate public dissent even by former regime elites.

In the beginning days of last year, Iranian people hoped and believed that some changes would happen in 1389. Now, 89 has passed and no changes have happened yet. What do you think the reason is?

As I mentioned above, I feel there was a lot of wishful thinking that colored analysis of the severe limits of the movement. The Green Movement was both repressed by an institutionally robust state and held back by an opposition that spoke on behalf of a broad spectrum but was unable or unwilling to actually engage with more diverse constituencies. 1389 was a time when many analysts and pundits could have taken time for reflection, self-criticism, and re-formulation of the movement. This is true for those inside of Iran; but I hesitate to emphasize this because these people are living and working in highly restricted conditions. Thus, I think the onus for self-criticism is mostly for those outside of the country who spent much of the fall and winter of 1388 (especially around Ashura) presenting a triumphalist message that the Greens were going to out-maneuver the state. Not only did these pundits over-estimate the organizational breadth and coherence of the Green Movement, but they downplayed the agency of the regime. Many analysts outside of Iran seemed to underestimate the ability of the rulers in the Islamic Republic to use various political, economic, and social welfare intuitions to mobilize resources and support, distribute patronage, and offer avenues to reproduce regime elites. For instance, there seemed to be an implicit assumption that the Islamic Republic needed Hashemi-Rafsanjani more than he needed his levers of powers. Also, almost all of the analysis of the subsidy reforms predicted that this economic restructuring would result in economic crisis and political upheaval. I have to admit that I too thought the subsidy reforms that began last year were politically very risky and could bring a wider spectrum of Iranians involved in the protests. It is unclear what will happen in the coming months, but it is noteworthy that the subsidy reforms have proceeded extremely smoothly—there have been almost no riots or major immediate economic crises. However, Ahmadinjead’s administration has demonstrated that it is able to marshal the banking system as well as the radio and TV to implement these reforms that may have negative consequences for domestic productivity and equality in the long-run, but in the short term have been presented as a national necessity and empowering for “the consumer.” This reality should call on people and strategists to acknowledge the weakness of their predictions and begin to understand the institutional capacities of the regime. It is only after self-critique that new and more effective strategies can be formulated.

The Arab Spring will probably have consequences for politics in Iran, but it is too soon and difficult to know what the consequences will be

An analysis to forecast the fate of Iran democratic movement has been created considering the revolutions and uprisings that have covered all the Middle East nowadays. Can the fate of dictator governments of the region affect an isolated government such as Islamic Republic of Iran?

The Arab Spring will probably have consequences for politics in Iran, but it is too soon and difficult to know what the consequences will be. The protests in the region are evolving and highly unpredictable. On the one hand, those who would like to reform and change the Islamic Republic may learn from their counterparts in the region. For instance, it is clear that the cooperation and coordination between labor activists and youth groups in Tunisia and Egypt were critical in challenging the leadership of the regimes. The international alignments in the Iran case are quite different and work against rather than in favor of a peaceful transformation. On the other hand, the regime has been wary that these uprisings may prove inspirational to Iranians, but also threaten allies such as Syria and open the door to US intervention as in the case of Libya. Having said that, I suspect that the Islamic Republic’s position in the regional order will not be hurt by a change in the leadership in Egypt or the added pressure on Saudi Arabia by events in Bahrain and Yemen. In fact, it is Israel and the US who will have more difficulty adjusting to the emerging regional order.

Some consider Iran’s economy to be the Achilles’ heel of its state and believe that the state or even the government would finally fall through the economical problems; the same thing that happened to the Soviet Union. Do you consider economy to be a proper motive for change in Iran?

The economy has been the Achilles’ heel of this regime for over three decades, no? When we look at the rebellions in the Arab World in the last few months, it is striking that two of the economies that had the steadiest growth rates and allegedly most dynamic economies in the region were Tunisia and Egypt. What this tells me is that what is important is how economic grievances, about unemployment or inflation or inequality, are translated into political demands against the political establishment. There is enormous potential for this in the Iranian case, but I have not seen this take place. For instance, the plight of industrial workers is intimately tied to the political decision to privatize firms and change the legal status of workers to contract workers with little access to job protection or social welfare. These demands should resonate with the larger concerns of the Green Movement because they are based on notions of equality and social as well as civil rights. Simultaneously, we have seen merchants and shopkeepers protesting Ahmadinejad’s taxation policies and attempts to open up the accounting books of the commercial sector. The merchants’ concerns stemmed from their lack of trust of state tax collectors and can be framed around the issue of the absence of transparency in state’s own budget and accounting. Iran’s rich history of dissent has many examples of economic grievances being interpreted and presented as political challenges to the state; just think of the Mashruteh, the oil nationalization movement, or the numerous workers actions and bazaar closures in 1357.

About two years have passed since the Green Movement was born. Now, what do you think its achievements are?

I think the Green Movement has had a number of achievements and I hope my critical tone does not imply that I think that the struggles in Iran are in vain and that it was doomed from the outset. The movement has deepened the language of rights, notions of diversity in unity, the centrality of the plight of women and how it has ramifications for all of society, and the belief that political agency belongs to all and power must not be exercised by only a few. Meanwhile, while the regime has been able to present a unified block against the Greens, it is clear that even among the so-called conservatives, there are rivalries and ideological disputes that need to be processed sooner rather than later. The parliamentary elections thus will reveal conflicts that the regime has tried to keep under wraps. Finally, key groups in producing the state’s hegemony – politicians, journalists, filmmakers, and professors have defected since 2009. The regime will have to invest in reproducing new agents that it will never be able to fully control. Thus, there will be other opportunities for those struggling to make Iran more politically and socially democratic. When these opportunities arise, the inspirational, foolhardy, and tragic experiences of the Green movement should not be forgotten.

I have always had a problem with the word ‘stress’. I am a writer so I like words to be picked carefully, and stress is a word that is simply being used too much – just like the very fashionable ‘burn-out’. Some people have stress when they go out to buy bread, have a workout at the gym or enjoy a relaxed evening at home with their lover. They have stress because the bread might be sold out, or because they might not have burnt enough calories on that damn cross-trainer, or because the candles they have romantically put on the floor might fall over and put the house on fire.

But these days, I can truthfully use the word ‘stress’ to describe my state of mind. Let me inhale deeply, then breathe out calmly and tell you why: I am stressed about the 25th of Bahman, the day on which a protest march will be held in Tehran in solidarity with the people of Egypt. Last week, Iran’s opposition leaders Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have asked a permit for the march, perfectly well knowing that the regime would not grant them one – and on Wednesday, it was announced that they wouldn’t. Nevertheless, it is a very smart move. First (something which Karroubi has pointed out in a rare interview), as Khamenei and his allies have called the revolt in Egypt and Arab countries a sign of an ‘Islamic awakening’, denying a permit for a solidarity march would mean that the support for their Arab ‘friends’ is fake. Second, the Green Movement leaders knew that they probably wouldn’t get a permit but now the people of Tehran (and Iran) have a fixed date and time on which they can show both their solidarity with the Egyptian people and their own indignation about their corrupt and incompetent leaders.

When I heard about the upcoming march and noticed now how my friends in Tehran are getting increasingly excited and nervous, my throat started feeling sore. My protesting throat is not a symptom of a winter cold, but simply a sign of stress.

I have stress for several reasons, the first one being that I cannot physically be in Iran on 25 Bahman. I have been denied a visa for Iran since I have critically covered the 2009 presidential elections, so I will have to watch the events behind my computer. This angers and frustrates me, just as it has frustrated me that over the past two years I could net set foot on Iranian soil. When last week I heard a Belgian reporter in Cairo saying that he was sad to have to leave because protesters considered him as their voice and eyes, I perfectly knew what he was talking about, because people in Iran had told me the same. I could be their voice up to June 20th but then had to leave the country. While hiding in a taxi that was taking me from Ferdousi Square to Imam Khomeini Airport, I dried my tears with my scarf – the one and only time that this damn thing on my head had some usefulness. I cried because I could no longer be the voice and eyes of the brave Iranian people. I now feel the same stress, caused by the frustration of having to watch things from a distance.

I have stress because I cannot physically be in Iran on 25 Bahman

Another reason why I have stress for 25 Bahman is probably the reason why many Iranians are nervous these days: what will happen? It has been quite a while since the people of Tehran have taken to the streets to show the regime that they are angry about the state their country is in – because that is of course what 25 Bahman has come to be about. It might have started as a solidarity march, but it is by now much more seen as a new chance for loud protest against the regime. And indeed, what will happen? Will the regime react just as harshly as during the protests of 2009? Ayatollah Khamenei & Co are obviously very afraid since the protests in Egypt and Arab states have erupted. Khamenei himself addressing ‘his’ people during the Friday prayer of February 4th was a mere sign of fear, just as there was a great deal of fear in Ahmadinejad’s boastful announcement this week that Iran will launch ‘many home-built satellites in 2012’ – ‘news’ that is only a way of trying to divert attention from the upcoming street rally. We all know that when the regime is afraid, they resort to scaring tactics and violence. On the other hand, the hardliners know that the international community is watching them more than ever, as Egypt and more and more countries in the Middle East are showing the world that they are sick of their dictators.

Not knowing what will happen is exactly what is causing a big part of my stress. Also, not knowing how the people of Tehran will react on 25 Bahman makes my throat become sore. How energetic is the Green Movement? I believe it is still very much alive in the hearts and minds of people, but it has not taken to the streets for a long time. A friend in Tehran told me how much he hoped that the people would stay on their squares for a couple of days, just like the protesters in Egypt. I could sense his stress and as jokes often discharge tension, I told him that surely they would stay for a long time because Persians always want to perform better than Arabs.

But now to be serious: the situation in Iran is of course different than in Egypt. The struggle of the people for freedom and their use of the powerful social media in doing so is the same, but the people of Iran have to fight an enemy which is much more evil than Mubarak. They have to fight Khamenei, who has a powerful stick to hit ‘his’ people with: Allah. Also, the Egyptian demonstrators are using the word ‘revolution’ to describe their uprising, whereas Iranians are not aiming at a revolution, having witnessed that 1979 has not brought them what they had hoped for.

The rally of 25 Bahman is a serious test for both the Green Movement and the regime. I suspect that these days, Khamenei also feels stressed, but the good news is that his stress is rising purely from fear, whereas mine and that of many Iranians all over the world is also a sign of hope. I have the same kind of stress I had as a student right before an exam: it is stress which first and foremost expresses the hope that your hard work will not have been in vain.

We do not know what will happen on Monday. But we do know that it will be a Green Valentine’s Day, and I do know that as soon as Khamenei will run out of Iran, I will sit upfront in a taxi that is bringing me from Imam Khomeni Airport to Ferdowsi Square. I will bring along my scarf, not to dry my tears but to wave at Mr. Ferdowsi and shout these words from his Shahnameh: ‘And despair filled all hearts, for it was as though mankind must perish to still the appetite of those snakes sprung from Evil.’

And I will keep waving my scarf until Ferdowsi arises from his statue and I will embrace him and tell him that, my beloved poet, things have changed and despair has finally left our hearts.

Now, during the Friday prayer of February 4, 2011, Khamenei again knew how to pick his moment. It is again about the fight of citizens for free elections, this time not in Iran but in Egypt, and an uprising against another leader, Hosni Mubarak, a secular dictator. Khamenei called the revolt in Egypt a sign of ‘Islamic awakening’ in Egypt and calls on the Egyptian people to follow in the footsteps of the Iranians of 1979 and found an Islamic Republic.
By putting the revolt in Egypt on a par with Iran 1979, Khamenei ironically associates himself with a large group of politicians you would at first sight not associate him with. Taking the lead in this comparison is Israel’s president Netanyahu, followed by the mouthpieces of the Israeli stance in Europe and the United States, like Holland’s Islamophobic Geert Wilders, who warned for the danger of Islamism when protests in Egypt started erupting. Of course Netanyahu & co do not have the same motives as Khamenei. I will come back to this later. But why should many independent Western intellectuals and commentators like Timothy Garton Ash woud choose for the same set of arguments and alarming for the possibility of a second Iran 1979 events? I believe that Garton Ash and the like are not known with the dynamics and the processes of the street-politics of Tehran then nor they have a clear picture of what happening on the street-levels of Cairo today. So, let’s take a look at the facts.

What is striking when comparing the Egyptian revolt with the Islamic Revolution are exactly the great contrasts between both. One of the first things Egyptian people are telling western cameras in their streets is that ‘they do not want to become a second Iran’. The slogans and demands of the street are about free elections, economic rights and civil rights. They are directed at state corruption and not against the West. They do not rule in favor of an Islamic state, nor is the name of one particular leader being chanted or can you notice a sea of posters of one absolute, let alone that Cairo is full of portraits of a religious leader. This of course hardly looks like the Islamic Revolution of 33 years ago. The Iranian Revolution had one undisputed charismatic leader, ayatollah Khomeini. The slogans pleading for an Islamic Republic turned up rather early on in the chants of the larger part of the demonstrators, and radical anti-Americanism was what united Islamists and secular protesters. Moreover, the few specialists who both know the Iranian Revolution and have followed from close-by the development of the Muslim Brotherhood, like American-Iranian Asef Bayat (professor at Illinois University and the author of Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (2010)), repeatedly stress in their conclusions that the Muslim Brotherhood is glancing at Turkey and is charmed by the AK Party’s successful participation in the democratic process rather than by the ayatollahs’ bloody regime in Iran.

Netanyahu’s supposed ‘Islamic’ aspect of the revolt in Egypt is an argument to temper the support of western states and civil society for the uprising, because Israel is afraid a state would emerge that is just like Turkey critical about the Palestinian settlements and Israel’s Gaza policy. And even worse: that the Egypt front would arise again and that the hostile war years between Egypt and Israel would return. That would cause the military authority of Israel at the Lebanon and Syria front to go down and would force Israel to make concessions to Arab and Palestinian neighbors. Our Dutch Geert Wilders shares Netanyahu’s concern about a weakened Israeli position in the region, and apart from that, he’s of course worried about the danger of his ideological core statement being falsified. Muslims who are prepared to sacrifice their own lives to achieve democracy and human rights is of course something that goes against his ‘Eurabia’ scenario of Islam and democracy being incompatible, and the danger of Muslim barbarism.

What causes Khamenei to make this misplaced statement? Old age? Ignorance?

So for the main motive of Netanyahu & co for using Iran 1979 as a specter to make a distorted view what is happening in Egypt. But what causes Khamenei to make this misplaced statement? Old age? Ignorance? It is in this case useful to know that only a couple of hours after his sermon, Khamenei was hit hard in the face from a corner you would as an outsider expect the least: the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Their message to Khamenei was on their website exactly two hours after his sermon and was loud and clear: the Egyptian Revolution does not aim at founding an Islamic state like Iran.

Why, as a Supreme Leader, would you ventilate such bold statements when the facts, the relevant sources and the people involved immediately make you fall flat on your face? Also this time, the truth is that Khamenei was driven by fear in his Friday prayer sermon. In June 2009, it was the fear that without his approval, the Revolutionary Guards and the militias would not dare to shoot at those masses that caused him to act and stand and preach in spite of his painful prostate. Now, it is above all the fear that the determination, inventiveness and courage of the Egyptian people will inspire the citizens of Iran to regain their courage to populate the streets of Tehran and other places and put Khamenei once and for all in the dustbin of history, alongside Ben Ali and Mubarak.

Because if there is one sensible comparison that can be made, it is between the protesters in Egypt today and the Iranian Green Movement of 2009 – in their democratic motives, peaceful procedure and inventive use of social media. The fire might suddenly flare up again in the streets of Tehran, inspired by the struggle for democracy in Egypt.

The Jasmine Revolution blossomed in Tunisia. Another revolution is taking root in Egypt. The routinized horror and humiliation for Tunisians has been disrupted, at least temporarily. The specter of this revolution has overflowed Tunisian territories and is haunting other countries in the region, setting in motion waves of mass protests in Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, etc. Questions arise. What is a revolution about? What caused the Tunisian revolution? Why is this spirit contagious? Why is it instilling fear in the hearts of the dictators in the region? Do we (the non-Tunisians, non-Egyptians) have a duty to care about what’s happening in those countries? If so, what can we do to help those people? What to do after a revolution succeeds? I will address some of these questions in what follows.

What is a revolution? Albert Camus, the philosopher of rebellion, detects in any revolutionary act in the realm of politics, a reaffirmation of something beyond the individual, and nicely distorts the Cartesian principle: “I rebel – therefore we exist”. (2) “We” is the human. Revolution, even if carried out by one individual, is a collective act and has a collective dream. Even if you revolt individually against a tyrannical boss, you are performing a collective act, an act that completes your individuality; you demand respect for your ‘human’ dignity, and with that you are automatically in the domain of the collective. A Revolution comes into being by individuals, in individual countries (say, in Tunisia), against a tyrannical system embodied by an individual (say, Ben Ali or Mubarak) or an oligarchy (i.e. body of individuals, say, those governing Saudi Arabia or Iran), but it goes beyond that; it represents a value or a ‘something’ that is indeed higher than the revolutionary person, which completes her individuality, and which though not clearly determined, redefines personhood, redefines humanity, thereby relating all freedom-loving humans to one another.

Revolution, even if carried out by one individual, is a collective act and has a collective dream

What is that something, ideal, value, or belief behind a revolution? It is an affirmative NO, a NO to humiliation, enslavement, oppression, a NO that says YES to freedom and life, a life that defies enslavement of lives, of humans. Revolution bespeaks an ideal destiny, evokes a higher value, and undertakes the task of mapping out a country yet to come, in point of fact, countries yet to come. (3) This is why the revolutionary spirit is contagious. It’s a wake-up call to other peoples (e.g. Egyptians and Yemenis) telling them that that ideal concerns not only ‘them’ (the Tunisians) but ‘us’ as well, that in the large scheme of things there is no ‘them’, and we all belong to a big ‘us’, the human realm. In this sense, ‘we are all Tunisians,’ ‘we are all Egyptians.’ And the petty dictators understand this, which is why they are scared.

If the preceding is true, it follows that not only are the Tunisian, Egyptian, Yemeni, and Iranian revolutions (or any revolution against tyranny, for that matter) relevant to us but they touch on the very core of our lives and our politics. To be more precise, we can say that revolutions are political; politics is by definition the domain of the collective. Revolutions, being political, are therefore collective. Collectivity, being a human concept, cannot be confined to territorial (e.g. national) boundaries. A revolution summons forth a new and free country. A free country cannot be so in an enslaved world. It therefore summons forth a new world. A new world entails a new people. The new people (that are yet to come, that may never come) cannot be myopic “individuals” (as most of us are), but are humans who see their very individuality as simultaneously conditioning and conditioned by the existence of a true and free collectivity, a true and free world, in which as long as there is one oppressed individual in the world, none of us is truly free. The formula is therefore right: the Tunisians rebelled, therefore the Egyptians are, Yemenis are, therefore we all are.

In this light, we should be concerned about oppressed people, respond to their call. How? The most general answer would be ‘start from whatever civil you can do, wherever you can do it.’ Some suggestions: we need to spread the word in the media and among the people around us, and take part in rallies in support of those people. Academics should write and talk about it. We must demand that our politicians not support “friendly dictators” (Mubarak, Saudi family, etc.), and teach them that the idea of ‘friendly dictators’ is (oxy)moronic! That the enemy to a free world is not only Ahmadinejad and Bashar Asad (“unfriendly dictators”), but every dictator in every oppressed country.

The Egyptians, Algerians, Yemenis, and Jordanians are already on the street. Iranians for a long while now. But instead of supporting such people, many Western governments secretly support those dictators, providing them with “military and security assistance”. The French government stood behind Ben Ali until the last moment. U.S. has been providing financial and military assistance to Mubarak for decades. IMF diktats wreak havoc to the lives of those people. Secret operations, international sanctions, and threats of war are making life and rebellion against those tyrants doubly difficult for the people. This is what politicians do here. Even if that human ideal is not morally compelling for some of us to be concerned about oppressed people, the very fact that our own Western societies vote for politicians who support such dictators makes us, the citizens, partially responsible for the miseries of those people. We need to change this trend; start from ourselves and our politicians, that is.

What’s next after a revolution? Allow me a serious caveat here. Revolutions, history has taught us, are pregnant with dictatorial potentials. The French (1789), Bolshevik (1917), and Iranian (1979) revolutions are the most obvious cases in point. The best way to avoid such a turn of events is to think of a revolution not as an event but a process and keep the revolutionary spirit alive. If Tunisians want to steer clear of this danger they need to learn from history, and put in place systems of check and control that are not prone to totalitarian tendencies, depose those from the previous system in a civil fashion, keep a vigilant eye on the new politicians, and react civilly to any sign of political misconduct. A revolution is a beginning not an end. It is a work in progress. It takes self-criticism for it to survive. If followed self-critically, revolutions have emancipatory potentials too: The American Revolution, India’s experience with Ghandi (1947), South Africa’s with Mandela (1994) are famous cases in point. There is, therefore, hope in revolutions.

Throughout history many a revolution has been hijacked by vindictive revolutionaries

Another way to stop a revolution from turning into despotism is to not let vengefulness and thirst for blood be the driving forces behind it, especially after it succeeds. Throughout history many a revolution has been hijacked by vindictive revolutionaries, who started to execute those from the previous political system and then opponents in the new system. The French revolution with its Reign of Terror and the infamous ‘guillotine’ is an obvious instance of an ideal gone horribly awry. Similar was the Iranian revolution (1979) with all the brutal executions of those from the previous regime and the political dissidents in the new system. Vengefulness and obsession with the past, if taken as the defining trait of a revolutionary movement, become its future modus operandi.

A revolution is a departure from the past and looking forward to future. Instead of vengeance, Hannah Arendt’s idea of ‘forgiveness’ (and I would add ‘hope’) should be the driving force of any successful revolution. Having fled the Nazi Germany as a Jew, upon returning she came to forgive her teacher, Martin Heidegger, who was a registered Nazi. What is more, she introduced the concept of ‘forgiveness’ to political philosophy, the idea being that we can (and should) forgive the person (but not the act), that forgiveness is in fact a ‘duty’. So, the Tunisians and all of us should be wary of this danger. Justice should be carried out civilly, but the point is that vengeance and death should not provide the fuel for a revolutionary machine. The earth cannot become ‘la nouvelle terre’ with more blood. Nor can a people become the promised ‘nouveau peuple’ if vengeful.

There is a lot more to say about a lot more, especially what caused the Tunisian revolution or what started those in Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, etc. But suffice it for the moment to quote Victor Hugo, himself a political exile during the French dictatorship of his time, who wrote: “When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.” This can explain the cause of almost all revolutions. If revolution in its different forms is a right in the face of tyranny (and I can’t see why it should not be), Egyptians, Yemenis, Kurds, Algerians, Iranians, and all other oppressed people should and will repeat the Tunisian experience, hopefully soon, hopefully as ‘a work in progress’, and hopefully with ‘forgiveness’, and ‘hope’.

(1) “Revolution …. summons forth a new earth, and a new people” (Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What Is Philosophy?)
(2) “Dans l’épreuve quotidienne qui est la nôtre, la révolte joue le même rôle que le ‘cogito’ dans l’ordre de la pensée: elle est la première évidence. Mais cette évidence tire l’individu de sa solitude. Elle est un lien commun qui fonde sur tous les hommes la première valeur. Je me révolte, donc nous sommes” (Albert Camus, L’Homme révolté)
(3) Inspired by “Écrire n’a rien à voir avec signifier, mais avec arpenter, cartographier, même des contrées à venir.” (Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Mille Plateaux)

Nevertheless, the case of Zahra Bahrami, a Dutch woman of Iranian descent, is very remarkable. On January 2th, she was sentenced to death in Tehran. She is accused of having been in the possession of cocaine. It was also announced that a second trial against her would follow, concerning her activities for a royalist organization that is accused by Iran of organizing bomb attacks. Third, Bahrami is accused of having taken part in a Green Movement demonstration in December 2009 – the nonviolent protest movement that came to life after Iran’s presidential elections of June 2009.

Zahra Bahrami

The prosecutor has turned Zahra Bahrami, mother and nightclub dancer, into a sort of number one enemy of the state. The accusations she is faced with call to life the bad scenario of a Hollywood movie. Nightclub dancer with mafia contacts gets triple assignment: spread destruction in Iran by smuggling cocaine, shed blood with bomb attacks and challenge the state by demonstrating with the Green Movement. Even for Iran, such an absurd stack of accusations is remarkable. This messy scenario gives the Netherlands every right to protest violently against this judgment.

The Bahrami case is not an isolated one. Tehran wants to put pressure on Iranians who are living in diaspora, especially in Europe, and wants to block their contribution to the democratization of Iran. Why would the Iranian regime to that? Well, an estimated 2,5 million Iranians are living in Europe, Turkey included. Contrary to their compatriots in the United States, Canada and Australia, where socio-economic immigrants and richer Iranians have moved to and where they mainly make themselves known as economic immigrants, the majority of the Iranian-European immigrants are here because of their political past.

Tehran wants to put pressure on Iranians who are living in diaspora, especially in Europe

After having disappeared from the scene for two decades, a large group has already had the opportunity to visit their home country. During the presidency of the reformist president Khatami (1997-2005), they massively started visiting friends and family. For those who could not go back, email, Skype, Facebook and Twitter were ways out to renew their ties with Iran. The involvement of European Iranians and their chance to again get in touch with their motherland has undoubtedly contributed to the political awareness of Iranian citizens. That is why the Bahrami case is certainly part of the Iranian wish to frighten European Iranians who want to visit Iran. The regime does this in several ways.

Turning the political activism of the Iranian diaspora into a criminal act.
If it is true that Zahra Bahrami took part in the political demonstrations of 2009, then she is not the only Iranian. Thousands of people from the Iranian diaspora have gone to Iran in 2009. Undoubtedly, many of them have taken to the streets during the demonstrations of the Green Movement. The aim of linking participation in demonstrations to drugs and terrorism is to make black sheep of Bahrami and other people like her.

Intimidating the Iranian diaspora.
The death sentence against Bahrami is a threatening letter directed at the Iranian diaspora. If those people do come to Iran, they should keep quiet. This intimidation also wants to force activists to stop their virtual activities with Iran. Since the Green Movement has originated, there is a real revival of solidarity and activism among Iranians in Europe and Iran. It has now become common practice to interrogate European Iranians as they enter Tehran’s airport and to claim access to their Facebook and emails.

Legitimizing violence against political activists.
The accusation of terrorism is aimed at making a harsh crackdown on Green Movement activists possible. Since 9/11, terrorism has become the universal key word for states to legitimize the suppression of their own citizens. The whole of democratic Europe, the Netherlands in the lead, has to be vigilant when faced with the tyrants of Tehran, who are using with this triple strategy the case of Zahra Bahrami to silence Iranian-European citizens who are showing solidarity with their brothers and sisters of the Green Movement.

As we are only a couple of days past the previous decade, let us look at the political currents which shaped its politics, and which, if looked into properly, could tell us a thing or two about what is up with us in the decade(s) to come. The landscape is far too large; I will therefore paint the picture with very broad strokes by enumerating very succinctly the major undercurrents that are the signatures of the past decade. My approach would be relational,that is to say, there’s neither a logical, chronological, nor indeed a causal necessity in the order of the presentation of the items below, the idea being that each process meshes into other processes, simultaneously influencing and being influenced by other flows in a co-evolutionary sort of way. Here we go:

1. Economic shifts (or ‘crises’?)

First off, the economy! The historian Niall Fergusen rightly argues that ‘the study of modern history is simply inseparable from the study of the economic history’, so let us begin with that. In the past decade, we witnessed major transformations in the economic landscape of the world, which many around here called the economic ‘crisis’, but I would prefer terms such as economic ‘shift’ rather than ‘crisis’, because crisis, like beauty, is always in the eye (or the pocket) of the beholder! It’s a ‘crisis’ (as for the US and some EU members) only if you lose (some of) your stakes in the game, and a ‘boom’ (as for China, India, etc.) if your stakes are increased.
The climax occurred with the 2008 financial crisis actuated by the collapse of the Wall Street banking system, which led to austerity measures being implemented in many Western countries. This has made plausible (even palpable) the prospect, for the first time in the modern history of the world, of the West losing its economic (and political) hegemony over the world. During the past centuries the West has consistently possessed more than two-thirds of the world’s wealth. If things go as they have, it will be in possession of about one-third of the world’s wealth in a matter of decades. This has generated unease.

2. Rise of a multilayered, multipolar world

During the Cold War, the world was bipolar; after that, it was unipolar with the US as the sole hegemon. The last decade witnessed the emergence of new economic and political powers in the world, especially those referred to as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) that demand a bigger say in international affairs. The US can no longer call the shots unilaterally but should negotiate its position with the rest of the world. Apart from the BRIC countries, local powers (such as Turkey, Mexico, Israel, Iran, etc.) have come to consciousness about the significance of their positions and influence the politics of their regions. Regional coalitions and unions are getting more and more powerful; some of them include The Union of South American Nations, The African Union, The Arab League, SAARC in south Asia, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, etc. There are also private actors whose operations are more significant than ever, including (but not limited to) INGOs, bankers, entrepreneurs, private militaries, terrorist groups, etc. All these changes have provoked jittery feelings across the board especially in Europe and the US, which used to have the final say in world politics. These feelings of insecurity have had negative aftermaths, such as the resurgence of religion, nationalism, xenophobia, etc.

3. Rise and problematization of EU(ro)

The beginning of the past decade brought about the greatest collective European project ever, the EU and its Eurozone, which was meant among other things to counter the tremendous leverage the US and its dollar held economically and politically. It got off to a flying start, but towards the end of the decade and the troubles the Eurozone faced in the aftermath of the financial shifts, the idea of European Union in general and the very idea of Euro in particular have been cast under severe doubt and scrutiny. Greece and Ireland have already caved in economically and have been bailed out by the richer nations such as Germany in the face of popular discontent. Next in line are Portugal, Spain, and Italy and later on Belgium. One of the serious problems facing Europe is birth-rates lower than the replacement level. The only viable solution to this problem is indeed wise immigration policies. Not only has Europe not shown that wisdom recently, but it is experiencing a one-eighty process of scapegoating the immigrant as the root of all evils. Some of the most serious challenges of the next decade(s) for Europe will be to deal with such political and economic crises as Eurozone, bankrupt EU members, austerity measures, nationalist and xenophobic tendencies at the same time as it needs more immigrants, etc.

4. Resurgence of religion

Not long ago, religion was pronounced dead. Some countries even called themselves “post-religious”. In the past decade due to the feelings of insecurity all over the place, we witnessed a dramatic revival of religion or at least religious vocabulary. There are two scholarly positions with respect to this phenomenon: a) it’s a revival of religion, plain and simple, and b) it’s the death throes of religion, taking its last noisy gasps. I personally would like to sympathize with the latter, while being afraid of the possibility of the former being true. Be the accuracy of either position as it may, we can definitely say that religion made a lot of noise in the decade and religious vocabulary became part of the mainstream political discourse especially after 9/11 when Bush divided the world into good and evil camps, with no differential sensitivity, as it were, to the nuances of reality (‘you are either with us or against us’).

In the past decade due to the feelings of insecurity all over the place, we witnessed a dramatic revival of religion

The same holds true for other regions, such as the Middle East, where different grievances (social, political, economic, etc.) were and are expressed via the language of religion. The reason is rather obvious; religion, as scholars such as Reza Aslan have argued, is a ‘language’ through which the masses can make sense of the world and communicate with one another about it, thereby cohering and expressing their diverse collective identities and projects. I quite agree that religion is a language, but would add the qualification that it is a simplistic and dangerous language via which to express collective concerns. It is not for nothing that most (if not all) of the wars in human history have been waged in the name of religion and nationalism (in the broad sense of territorialism) or a combination of both.

5. Resurgence of Nationalism

Towards the end of the 20th century, there were calls to celebrate the erosion of boundaries on many planes of life and politics with the advent of “turbo-capitalism” or “rapid globalization” and its offshoots such as advanced transportation and communications technologies. This rapid erosion, together with financial uncertainties and other reasons, dealt a severe blow to territorial (e.g. local, national, regional) identities, which in the past decade backfired as a frighteningly rapid rise of territorialism in general (e.g. the so-called “clash of civilizations”) and nationalism in particular, as evident in the epidemic rise of nationalist parties (especially in EU and US) that got unprecedented popular momentum, unprecedented in recent memory, that is. Another flow concomitant to this one has been the rise to power of many right-wing conservative governments in the world, again especially in Europe, which has made the left ask itself the painful question ‘is there anything left of the left?!’

6. Rise of xenophobia

Quite obvious in the decade was the popping up of xenophobic, Islamophobic, and Arabophobic tendencies. This xenophobic tide was and is quite ironically strongest in Europe (a continent which more than any other place on the planet is in need of immigrants) and the US (which enjoyed its superior position because of the fact that it was and is an immigrant society). Brimful of such xenophobic sentiments, the Tea Party and Republicans in the US bemoan the loss of ‘real America’, whatever that may mean. The same is true about populist xenophobic parties that are plunging Europe into yet another dark chapter in its history.

7. Decline of American Empire

Also outstanding in the decade was the process of the US showing a combination of symptoms that many historians, such as Niall Fergusen (from Harvard) and Amy Chua (from Yale), argue most declining empires show when they are on the brink of collapse. Fergusen argues that ‘most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises;’ the US experienced it in 2008. It has also shown the other symptoms: currency debasements and engaging in desperate and costly wars thereby overstretching its military capabilities (in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the prospect of war with Iran). Persian, Roman, French, British, Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish empires all engaged in desperate, bloodthirsty wars when they were in a state of decline and military overextension, and the defeats thereof precipitated their falls. The US did also up the ante in immigration policies and rhetoric, which is another sign of declining empires according to Amy Chua, who argues that empires can survive only as long as they let different people(s) live, plain and simple! The reason? To be an empire = to rule over different people(s)!

8. The Internet and Social Networks

The decade also witnessed the widespread popularization of the Internet-related phenomena such as email systems, YouTube videos, blogging, virtual social networks, Whistle-blowing websites such as WikiLeaks, etc., all of which played major roles in the politics of the decade. There are roughly speaking three camps with regard to the role of the Internet in politics: a): The happy-happy camp that argues that the Internet has made it possible for everyone to tap into new political possibilities and horizons, and that it is a more readily available space for political news, campaigning, advertising, opposition, etc. b): The unhappy camp that argues that the Internet operates as a safety valve for people who vent off their anger in a blissful isolation from reality (with a couple of clicks and dislikes!), thus dissipating the galvanizing effect that is the true spirit of collective activism in politics. This has made people take to the streets, make a presence, and act publicly and civicly less and less. c): The camp with mixed feelings that sees both emancipatory and repressive possibilities in the Internet. They argue that it is a perfect tool for reaching across the aisle and opening up new horizons, but is simultaneously a perfect repressive tool for surveillance and control, in the sense that online privacy is at the end of the day an illusion rather than a reality. I tend to sympathize with the third camp, and would also add that politics is in the final analysis a real struggle of toils and tears and blood and not a virtual struggle of likes, dislikes, and blogs.

9. Etc.

Needless to say, the list is not exhaustive. The preceding was just a rough sketch, a partial interactive meteorological map which aimed at capturing some of the intensive flows that were behind the political make-up of the past decade, which if comprehended scientifically, would help us forecast the political weather of the decade(s) to come.

The mass media here in the West cherry-picked and produced a huge pile of hooey regarding those cables about the Arab regimes’ perceived threats of the Iranian nuclear ambitions and their urging of the US to attack Iran preemptively. Some sound-bites that they brought to limelight are as follows: one cable tells us that the Saudi King ‘implored’ [mind the word] Washington to ‘cut off the head of the snake’, that is, to attack Iran before it’s too late. Another document tells us that the Bahraini King told Gen. Patraeus, then the top US commander in the region, that the US should stop Iran’s nuclear program ‘by whatever means necessary’, i.e. militarily. Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi told the U.S. that he believed that Ahmadinejad was ‘going to take us to war’ and that ‘Ahmadinejad is Hitler’. In 2005, he had told Americans that they needed to take action ‘this year or next.’ And so forth and so on. The so-called ‘independent’ media dedicated their headlines solely to these highlights, and largely ignored or mentioned only en passant those documents that go against this narrative, consciously trying to manipulate their audiences into believing there is little or nothing against their simple good/evil narrative! Israeli officials and obviously their media (1) embraced these highlights, hoping to convince the world that they are not alone in fearing the ‘the new Hitler’.

The so-called ‘independent’ media dedicated their headlines solely to the highlights of WikiLeaks

Now, let’s approach the issue from two different perspectives: first, a realist political scientist’s standpoint. Well, the realist and neo-realist approaches in political sciences (crudely defined) tell us that the interstate relations (i.e. world politics) constitute a ‘state of anarchy’ (a ‘jungle’) with no really effective moral principles or legal systems regulating the behavior of the actors (states). From this outlook, it is completely normal for states and their media to lie and manipulate people and go to wars (just or unjust) with nothing but acquisition of ‘power’ and ‘self-interest’ regulating their policies. For starters, I should add that this is the standpoint of the majority of those in politics all around the world: ‘left’, right, ‘democratic’ and dictatorial alike. From this viewpoint, it is much more reasonable to engage with Iran than to attack it, as I showed in a previous article in TehranReview (2), and as many realist political scientists and politicians have already argued (3). Even from this amoral realistic perspective and even in cables that WikiLeaks released you can see this realist approach given voice to by many of those in power. Many a political analyst (e.g. Robert Dreyfus and Gareth Porter (4) ) has also made arguments for the necessity of engaging with Iran.

Let’s check some marginalized new items: a 2007 document of the then-British ambassador in Tehran, Geoffrey Adams, recommended ‘being steady and firm, tough but not aggressive, and at the same time, seeking to engage’ with Iran. Even the officials in the foreign ministry of Saudi Arabia (who rarely dare to oppose their King’s opinions) called for ‘more severe sanctions’ as a more reasonable and realistic way of dealing with Iran. Another cable shows Oman’s ‘preference for a non-military solution’. Some documents relating to UAE say that although they regard Iran as a threat to their national security, ‘they are reluctant to take actions that could provoke their neighbor’ (Iran), and ‘compromise their extensive trading relationship’ with Iran. As you can see, even in UAE and Saudi Arabia, there are top official voices opposed to war or consequences of war for realistic reasons. Another document concerns the Egyptian Mubarak advising American officials to talk to Iran as long as ‘you don’t believe a word they say’. Yet, he does not advocate war. Another cable tells that the Qatari prime minister said ‘we lie to them [Iranians] and they lie to us,’ which basically means they are both realists and maybe you should be realists too. The logical challenge in this scenario for us and Americans is to decide whether or not they are lying in this statement too – the famous logical ‘liar paradox’.

One aspect of the story the mass media rarely mention is the fact that among all Middle Eastern governments only four of them (Saudis, Bahrain, Jordan, UAE) somehow urged Washington to attack Iran and not the rest of the Arab or non-Arab countries in the region (with the obvious exception of Israel). Even in these four countries there are top officials opposing war. These facts show, as Dreyfus argues, that Arab dictators are worried about Iran but ‘uncertain at best about what action to take, precisely because they fear instability and war’, which could lead to the collapse of their shaky and unpopular regimes. Other countries either oppose war, advocating diplomacy, or align themselves with Iran (again except Israel). Another document said: ‘Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like al Qaeda’. This outstandingly important news item that should have shaken the foundation of the Western/Saudi relations was covered only in one line in the middle of an article in NYTimes (5), and that was that. No further elaboration, no impact. Another point worth mentioning is the fact that despite the purchase of hundreds and hundreds of billions of sophisticated weaponry from the US and other suppliers, the Arab governments feel so intimidated by Iran that they have to beg and ‘implore’ the US (only privately) to stop Iran. They do not even dare to make their position public, even while aligning themselves with the US and Israel. It is ‘sad, shocking, even pitiful’, according to Rami George Khouri (6), to see such miserable behavior from Arab governments.

The second perspective that I would like to take is the ‘naïve’ standpoint of a citizen of the world who, following Abraham Lincoln, ‘naively’ believes that ‘democracy is the government of the people, for the people, and by the people’. So, let us take a look at Arab governments and their peoples. The three muddled cases of Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq aside, all other Arab countries are ruled by petty dictators: either dictatorial kings or life-time presidents (read potentates) untrammeled by any functioning parliaments or judiciaries and the possibility of people democratically deciding to remove them from power. The Western mass media portray these governments as representing the peoples of the region and use expressions such as ‘Arab contempt’, ‘Arab concerns’, or ‘Arab fears’; but in point of fact, they are talking about Arab dictators’ fears, in countries with more political and religious extremism and corruption than imaginable in Iran. In some of them, women are not allowed to vote, or get any political or managerial positions or even drive a car. There is no freedom of press in these countries just like Iran and even worse; take a look at how they have covered the recent WikiLeaks spate of documents, and you see nothing. Even Al Jazeera, the so-called ‘independent’ Middle Eastern media organization, has completely buried its head in the sand because of the pressure from Arab regimes and has not said a word about WikiLeaks revelations. In case that’s not enough proof, let me acquaint you with an academic research as to what Arab concerns really are, supposing (still ‘naively’) that democracy is about people not dictators.

A 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll (7) , conducted by the University of Maryland, covering Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and UAE (mind the fact that all of these governments are ‘friends’ of the US and Israel), shows that that 88% of people in these countries (almost 9 out of every 10 Arabs) consider Israel to be threat number 1 to the region, 77% of people consider the US to be threat number 2, while in general only 10% mention Iran as a threat. One key finding of the poll is that ‘a majority of the Arab public now see a nuclear-armed Iran as being better for the Middle East’. The reason for this fact is not that Arabs are apocalyptic people, or they think nuclear weapons are naturally good, but that from the daily sufferings they incur, even average people have turned into political realists, bad political realists: they have come to think that when the two biggest threats to their region (that effectively introduce death and suffering to their lives on a daily basis) have nuclear weapons, it would not be a bad thing if Iran could stop or reduce this daily dose of misery should it come to acquire nuclear weapons. Now, this is realism, but it is really bad realism. They don’t know that Iran, a regime merciless even to its own people, will add its own daily dose of death and agony in the neighborhood if it gets to become a regional superpower with nuclear capabilities, which, like it or not, it is in the process of becoming. Be that as it may, the fact is Iran is not perceived as a threat by the people of the region.

The presence of people like Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, should give us pause and hope for the future of world politics

To do justice to the issues raised by WikiLeaks is beyond the scope of this article, but the preceding has hopefully shown that the situation is not as black and white as the good/evil scenarios in the Western and Middle-Eastern media have it. If there were any scenario at all, it would be an all-evil scenario. But the presence of people like Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, should give us pause and hope for the future of world politics. The documents depict the profound level of duplicity and deception that is rampant in undemocratic practices of both Western and (Middle) Eastern countries. It is no wonder that China has filtered the website and Iran has rejected all the documents as fabrications and Arab regimes have censored all the news about it. Nor is it a wonder that some congressmen and Fox News in the US are trying to declare WikiLeaks a ‘terrorist organization’, (8) in the same way they declared Nelson Mandela and his party (ANC) ‘a terrorist organization’ decades ago. But at the end of the day, it was Mandela and his people who prevailed.

(1) See Jerusalem Post on this issue: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=197319
(2) How/Should/Will Israel Attack Iran? http://tehranreview.net/articles/5326
(3) Including Brzezinski, and many Obama officials such as Kaplan
(4) For Porter’s views visit: http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=5935
(5) See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html
(6) R. G. Khouri: The internationally syndicated American-Palestinian columnist. See The Sad Loss of National Dignity http://www.agenceglobal.com/article.asp?id=2457
(7) For the full report, visit: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2010/08_arab_opinion_poll_telhami/08_arab_opinion_poll_telhami.pdf
(8) See http://theweek.com/article/index/209848/is-wikileaks-a-terrorist-group

1. Despite US claims to the contrary, the leaked documents show the Pentagon kept tallies of all casualties (including civilians) in Iraq. According to WikiLeaks, “the reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 ‘civilians’; 23,984 ‘enemy’ (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 ‘host nation’ (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 ‘friendly’ (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six year period.”

The mainstream media in the US in large part ignored the revelations by WikiLeaks

2. The documents also show that 15,000 cases of civilian casualties were secretly recorded by the US administration but were nowhere reported in the administration’s public announcements or the mainstream media. The US administration previously claimed they don’t record civilian deaths. But now we know they do. Among the 15000 unreported civilians killed, there are over 600 civilians killed at checkpoints, among whom 30 were children.

3. The most controversial insight that the documents give us is that the US and its allies ignored and in some cases ‘encouraged’ and ‘facilitated’ (or if you will, ‘outsourced’) torture. The logs reveal that the US enforced a new formal policy to ignore human rights abuses committed by the Iraqi military and Special Forces. Under an order, known as Frago 242, the US administration instituted a policy of turning a blind eye to ‘Iraqi on Iraqi abuses’. A ‘Frago’ is an order which summarizes a complex order. It is actually the simplified bottom line of a complex military policy. Hundreds of cases of torture, rape, and killing at the hands of Iraqi military or Special Forces were ignored. That is the ignoring part. As for the encouragement and outsourcing of torture, The Guardian, after investigating some war logs covering 2004 and 2005 describe ‘repeated raids by US infantry, who then handed their captives over to the Wolf Brigade [a unit of Iraqi Special Forces, notorious for abuse and torture] for “further questioning”. It is rather clear from the documents that the US military role in this regard was more than just ignoring the torture. It was in fact what Julian Assange, the Founder of WikiLeaks, calls ‘torture-laundering’.

4. Among the 400,000 war logs, 284 of them show cases of torture and prisoner abuse perpetrated by coalition forces, which involved 300 hundred different people. That’s another new piece of evidence never previously reported. We also see in these documents over a thousand war logs covering cases of torture and prisoner abuse by the Iraqi forces.

5. The leaked documents also depict how roguishly and unaccountably the private security contractors (especially the infamous Blackwater) are operating in Iraq, killing not only Iraqi civilians but also US military soldiers. No charges have ever been brought against them.

6. One of the highlights of the released cache of documents (which made it to the front page of The New York Times) is the heavy involvement of Iran in Iraqi affairs and the Iraq war, with various forms of support (cash, basic and sophisticated weapons, training, etc.) given generously to the Shia militia groups in Iraq and the Iranian close relations with and influence on Al Maliki’s government.

7. The documents reveal the corruption in the Al Maliki government as well. We see some units of the Iraqi Special forces directly responsible to Al Maliki himself and not to the military or the parliament. These forces have been going around intimidating, raping, and possibly assassinating opponents. This is what I already referred to as the Salvadoran Option in a previous article in TehranReview last September, an idea which was once rejected by American officials as a baseless conspiracy theory.

When a country occupies another country, the one responsible for any wrongdoing is the occupier

The US officials have said if there is any wrongdoing it is the Iraqi government which is responsible. But the truth is, in terms of international law, when a country occupies another country and has effective control over it, the one responsible for any wrongdoing is the occupier with the effective control. It was the US which effectively controlled everything in Iraq during most of the events touched upon in the documents.

But we should not forget that this is not the whole tragic picture; this collection of leaked classified documents are just a snapshot of the reality on the ground in Iraq: we don’t have the American military’s top classified documents, the CIA documents, the military contractors’ files, the NATO’s documents, the European intelligence services’ documents, etc. The picture, in a word, could be tremendously grimmer than this. There is a lot more to say about the 400,000 documents; the preceding hopefully covered the basic highlights of the story. The courageous outing of the war logs by WikiLeaks group compensates to a considerable degree for the unfortunate lack of transparency of the governments and the craven servitude of the majority of the mainstream media in many countries, and gives one hope for a new dawn in independent journalism. Ellen Knickmeyer, former Washington Post Bureau chief in Baghdad during much of the Iraq War, wrote in the Daily Beast that “recent revelations by WikiLeaks show how top American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to American troops, and to the world.”

France has recently been slammed for controversially expelling the Roma. The Roma are nomadic ethnic groups, rooting back to South Asia, who are now dispersed around Europe and the rest of the world. They have faced horrific atrocities in their history. In WWII, they were, along with the Jews, the main targets of the Nazi extermination policies. This fact has to do mainly with their nomadic way of life. They have always been deemed an instance of ‘the Other’. In this piece, I will try to address the question of the Roma in Europe with a focus on France, with some dispersed philosophical inroads into the more general question of ‘the Other’.

‘I think I’ve found a concept of the Other,’ says Gilles Deleuze, the French philosopher, ‘by defining it as neither an object nor a subject but the expression of a possible world. Someone with a toothache, and a Japanese man walking in the road, express possible worlds.’ The Roma, the nomads, remain open to all such worlds; whereas, we, the sedentary, the citizens, have become light years removed from such new forms of expression and space of possibilities, so much so, in fact, that not only do “We” find the Other(s), the Roma, the non-“We” alien to our state of being but oftentimes the very menace to it, hence, the desire to punish them. “We” see them as “criminals” (mind Sarkozy’s “war on crime”), the cause of our downturns, economic and otherwise (mind the rhetoric in Italy and the U.S. against “immigrant workers” and Wilders on Immigrants destroying “the Dutch culture” or Thilo Sarrazin on immigrants destroying “the German culture”). “We” expel them; and all of us (right, center, left) are complicit in this crime: the right for having done it, the majority of the left for neither stopping it nor even post facto protesting against it, and the center for being, as is its custom, cold and confused spectators.

As for the recent French case with the Roma, there are some questions that pop up right away in one’s mind: Why the Roma? Why in France? Why now? As a matter of fact, the Roma have been consistently ousted from France. Last year alone, 10,000 of them were sent back “home” (whatever ‘home’ means to a nomad!). It is unfortunately old and marginalized news. But this time it was a conscious political decision made by the Sarkozy administration to accelerate the pace and incite ubiquitous media hype around it. He wants to ingratiate himself with the populist xenophobic trend that is rampant in the air in France, and generally in Europe nowadays. Viviane Redding, the head of European Commission, called it an ‘outrage’ which is ‘unprecedented in Europe since WWII’. But that is obviously not true; in point of fact, there are too many precedents in Europe only from recent years (see below). As I said before, France has been doing this for years. The Roma are just the latest scapegoats in a series of farcical propaganda scenarios that Sarkozy‘s administration has resorted to to detract attention from its real problems: Sarkozy’s all-time record-low popularity, the wide-ranging opposition to the austerity measures his administration is trying to implement (such as raising the retirement age), the nationwide demonstrations and strikes that are going on these days in France, the recent financial scandals that his party has been involved in, the economic stagnation, etc.

The Roma are just the latest scapegoats in a series of farcical propaganda of Sarkozy‘s administration

But how long, if at all, such strategies can keep on hiding the obvious? Won’t they backfire? I would argue that this policy has indeed redounded to Sarkozy’s discredit. Many European heads of state and top officials reprimanded it (although most of their states quietly do the same with the Roma). It was the first time in the history of EU that a high-ranking European commissioner, such as Viviane Redding, lambasted France, one of the major founders of the EU, in such harsh terms. The most important European ally of France, Germany, condemned Sarkozy, when he, under severe criticism and in order to create some space to breathe in, said at a press conference that ‘Madame Merkel indicated to me her desire to proceed with the evacuation of camps in Germany.’ Germany categorically denied the existence of such camps, but did not obviously mention that this year they had put into effect a plan to oust 14,000 Roma and some other ethnic minorities from Germany, and send them back to Kosovo. The socialist opposition in France went amuck and hoped to gain some political ground from this story. Even some of Sarkozy’s long-time allies and fellow party members voiced discord and condemned the policy. These strategies are simply too superficial, not to mention outrageous, to hide what is happening on the ground in France. There are some surveys according to Spiegel which point to the problematic times Sarkozy is facing: two-thirds of the French population are determined that Sarkozy should not stay in the Elysee Palace for a second term. 55% of the French population, again according to Spiegel, want the center-left Socialist Party back in the saddle again.

But unfortunately this is not limited to France alone. Germany, as was mentioned above, is sending the Roma back to Kosovo where they risk facing severe persecution and discrimination. Berlusconi cracked down on the Roma in 2008. Belgium was found guilty of violating key provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights when it collectively expelled the Roma in 1999. Finland has already removed the Roma camps. Sweden deported the Roma and was accused of discrimination by Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. Denmark had a more severe scenario with the collective deportation of the “criminal Roma,” as some top Danish officials used the expression (mind the similarity in the choice of words to Sarkozy’s “war on crime”). In Hungary and Romania, discriminating against and attacking the Roma appear to be old news. Discrimination in the Czech educational system against Roma children is widespread: ‘Romani children are regularly segregated,’ according to Amnesty International, ‘in schools and classes as pupils with “mild mental disabilities”, where they receive an inferior education based on a limited curriculum’. And so forth and so on, with some other European countries.

The discrimination against the Roma should be addressed with immediate urgency

The discrimination against the Roma and such-like minorities is certainly a serious European human rights problem, and one that should be addressed with immediate urgency. And this is not only at the governmental level. People should wake up too. The very fact that there have been so few voices raised in opposition (and even those voices are nowhere near consistent) to the incessant discrimination against the Roma in Europe is yet another proof to the sad fact that Europe is experiencing yet once more a strong tide of xenophobia. The epidemic rise of far-right populist political parties in Europe (e.g., The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, England,…) which are glidingly surfing this xenophobic tide is only explicable, and indeed possible¬, at a time when such outrageous acts go almost unnoticed.

Our “We-ness” and “one-ness” are founded on a negativity: ‘I am whatever you are not;’ ‘I am French’ [a sedentary citizen with very healthy teeth, etc.], ergo, the Roma [who are homeless and who probably have toothaches] are to be expelled. Frenchness, Dutchness, or whateverness is this and that; whoever does not fall in the procrustean strata between this and that, is the Alien, the Enemy, the Punishable! In fact, with very few sparse and sporadic exceptions, the overwhelming majority of Western thought and philosophy (and more intensely so after the Enlightenment era) has been formed on and informed by the myths of ‘order’, ‘stability’, ‘eternity’, ‘reason’, etc. Whatever does not conform to the rigid requirements of these congealed mythological constructs is deemed ‘insane,’ ‘instable’, ‘transient’, ‘deviant’, etc. It follows, those with the latter attributes are to be expelled or scapegoated for not being ‘Us’, hence, the phenomena of ‘nationalism’, ‘esprit de corps,’ ‘racism’, ‘Apartheid,’ ‘Lebensraum,’ etc. which account for myriad horrendous crimes in human history.

We do need to wake up and remain open to other beings (human and otherwise) and new possibilities of becoming.

Today, you have a visitor to your country who not only has not brought peace, tranquillity and welfare for Iran, but does not even think about peace, tranquillity and the welfare of Lebanon either. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the one who hijacked the 2009 elections in Iran and represented himself as the true elected President of Iran, but he is not a representation of the people of Iran. The people of Iran have great respect for Lebanese people and the Lebanese people have also extended their respect to the true representatives of Iranians with utmost dignity and honour, just like we witnessed in 2003 during the visit of Mohammad Khatami. Khatamis and Mousavis are the true representatives of the Iranian people. Even if Ahmadinejad had actually won the election, we would still consider him to be our representative even though we would not agree with his policies.

However, the policies of Ahmadinejad are more dangerous than ever, as he attempts to cover up the rigging of the election and the great scandal of betraying a people’s trust in their vote. On top of that, there are all the other disgraceful bloodsheds that followed the rigged elections, with his ever more radical and controversial policies. His support of one particular group in Lebanon as opposed to other political groups would both lead to further tension in Lebanon and would also be a cover-up for his failures and exhausting opportunities which have now led to extensive and massive sanctions for Iran and a threat of war against Iran. By trying to create more tension in Lebanon and the region, he is trying to cover up his domestic failures and use Lebanon as a bargaining chip in his deal with the US and other world powers.

Ahmadinejad might make promises of alluring financial helps, but the economic and financial conditions of Iran under his government and the political situation of his administration is far worse to accommodate such promises and bring them to action. He is merely using his trip to Lebanon as a political display and he does not have the least regard for the people of Lebanon or Iran and their destiny now or in the future.

We, signatories of this statement, acknowledge the richness of the culture of Lebanon and celebrate the common bonds between Iran and Lebanon and think that in order to defend peace, tranquillity and the welfare of our people, it is the responsibility of writers, journalists and authors of both countries to speak up against impostors such as Ahmadinejad. Let us not allow Ahmadinejad to deceive the Iranian and Lebanese people and play with our destiny.
Despite all the respect we have for those who have welcomed him in the Dahiya in Beirut and the south of Lebanon, we believe he is not worthy of a country which is the cradle of faith, freedom and pluralism. He has no resemblance to the cultural and historical symbols and aspirations of Lebanon and Iran and he is but a populist showman whose game must not fool us.

Peace and welfare can only be protected and defended by those who have already shown a commitment to it. Ahmadinejad only seeks to create war, tension and provocation. He will not be of any service to the people of Lebanon just as he has not been of service to the people of Iran.

The signatories of this letter are: Kazem Alamdari
, Hamid Dabashi, Mahmoud Farjami
, Fatemeh Haghighatjou, Nader Hashemi
, Bijan Hekmat
, Mehdi Jami, Mohammad Javad Akbarin, Abdi Kalantari, Azadeh Kian, Guissou Jahangiri,Ramin Jahanbegloo, Nooshabeh Amiri, Ali Akbar Mahdi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Yaser Mirdamadi
, Ali Mohtadi, Ebrahim Nabavi
, Shervin Nekuee, Shahrnush Parsipour, Ahmad Rafat, Ardavan Ruzbeh
, Mohamad Taaj Dolat, Nayereh Tohidi, Saeed Valadbeigi, Aida Qajar

I would like here to sidestep the implicit assumption(s) of the article and address two basic questions: the should-question and the will-question, from a purely geopolitical standpoint, setting aside all ethical and moral aspects of the issue for the purposes of this inquiry. The first and foremost question is whether Israel or the U.S. should attack Iran. My answer, from a geopolitical perspective, would be an unequivocal “No,” and that for the following reasons:

1. In line with Chomsky’s comments on the issue, I would like to argue that even if we assume, for argument’s sake, that Iran comes to acquire nuclear weapons someday, the Iranian administration would not be insane enough to launch any atomic attack against anyone in the world, knowing that they would be ‘vaporized’ (by the U.S.) the moment they kick off the most dangerous game. However, they would use their nuclear card as a bargaining chip in the international political arena. That’s unavoidable, but containable.

2. After all, no nuclear power or threat would ever outstrip (in scale and proportion) the atomic threat the Soviet Union once posed to the West and Israel, and the West managed to contain it. Why lose one’s composure over Iran?Kaplan and some other Obama officials have already argued that it would be less costly to contain Iran than to fight it.

3. The how-question is not that easy to answer; it conditions the possibilities of the should- and the will- questions. Israeli jets have to fly over either Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Syria to reach Iran. Turkey would not allow its airspace to be used, not certainly after the recent serious diplomatic conflicts with Israel. Syria would never allow it for known historical reasons. The Iraq option would involve the U.S. as it controls the airspace there, and the Saudi option would escalate the ever tense relations between Iran and Saudis and can cause another war. The jets should refuel on the way to Iran and the way back. This means a total and direct American or Saudi involvement in the whole process, and a new chapter to the war.

4. Brzezinski, foreign policy advisor to several American presidents, has noted that an Israeli attack would inevitably drag America into the war. The public and media pressure for any administration would be too unbearable to stay calm and not get entangled. The Iranian government would automatically see Israel incapable of committing such an act without an American involvement or blessing. It will hold America accountable in its own peculiar ways.

5. America has overstretched itself militarily in two warfronts and would be absolutely disinclined to enter a new battlefield, whose complexity would pale Iraq and Afghanistan into insignificance. To join an unpredictable war or even not to do so for America in the Israeli war scenario would be a lose-lose situation.

6. The unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have emboldened and convinced the Iranian government, among others, that the U.S. is not invincible, and is already too strained. Europeans wouldn’t be dragged that easily to another American or Israeli war. The American public would not want another war. The U.S. economy cannot afford a new war that readily. If the U.S. got involved in a war in Iran and it turned out to be another Afghanistan or something worse and they had to leave (and there’s a good chance they would), it would be the end of the already tainted image of America as the superpower controlling the region, and would further embolden its enemies.

7. The largest and most consistent population in the region in terms of being favorable to the U.S. are in fact average Iranians inside and outside Iran. There are around two million Iranian-Americans in the U.S. alone. A war with Iran should address these people too. There’s an open and universal hatred towards the U.S. and a closeted hatred towards Israel in the region, especially among Arabs. You wouldn’t want to stir those baleful compound emotions. It could turn too dangerous and unstable. It has already shown itself negatively in Iraq and Afghanistan in different ways.

8. A failed attack against Iran would give the current Iranian regime the full-blown legitimacy it is losing bit by bit nowadays, especially since the last presidential election, and the post-election protests which shook the foundation of the regime to its core. In the event of a war, they would throw themselves on the scene as the only true defenders of the nation, and could mobilize all the forces willing to get on board, and crush (maybe permanently) all civil opposition inside the country, and turn it into a North Korea.

9. It is universally acknowledged that Israel can carry out the attacks technically and militarily. Its military is simply too good. BUT, could it handle the consequences of such an attack on its own? Brzezinski, among many others, thinks not, especially in a case where the US having got involved would have to withdraw. He asks ‘how long do you think Israel would be able to survive the consequences of such an action in the region on its own?’ A very legitimate question to address. He predicts five up to ten years.

10. Israel has successfully carried out such attacks in Iraq (1981) and in Syria (2007). But the problem (again the how-question) would be that Iranian nuclear plants are too dispersed around the large country and too buried and hidden, not to mention that there could be too many plants not yet known to the outside world. An attack has to simultaneously target different parts of Iran and many bunker-like structures. The outcome would be very tricky to determine. It’s not clear how even an apparently successful attack against Iran can really deter them in the short or long run. In Syria and Iraq, the nuclear plants were on the ground and concentrated on one identifiable spot, hence, susceptible to air strikes.

11. As many analysts have already pointed out, Iran can take significant retaliatory measures against Israel and Israelis, if not by direct confrontations, via its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. It can also intensify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by covertly helping American enemies (Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc.) in the region. Goldberg mentions that oil prices could reach cataclysmic highs and that the Iranian government would target Jews and the Jewish diaspora, again via its proxies, all over the world. This would make Israel, Goldberg further argues, which is now a safe haven for a persecuted people, a very unsafe and unattractive place to be.

12. Iran is a major supplier of crude oil to China (whose huge economy depends on it) and a big business partner of Russia. These two powerful countries wouldn’t be particularly happy if their interests were threatened by a war and would act covertly in any way possible to fish in troubled waters and contribute to another potential American failure, as they are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq right now.

13. Even in the case of a full-scale war involving the US (which Iran would not at first want), an Iranian defeat is not a foregone conclusion. Iran can turn the Persian Gulf into a mess, which would introduce chaos to the oil industry, enough for the oil-dependent world to panic once more. The plethora of Iranian speedboats can swarm and damage (even destroy) gigantic American warships in the region. The 2000 case of USS Cole which was seriously damaged by small boats laden with explosives in a suicide attack has proved the vulnerability of big warships. Iran has produced and bought far too many speedboats in recent years and is prepared for such a turn of events. The Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988) has proved that Iran is nowhere short of suicide attackers in the event of a war. The incident with American warships in January 2008, initiated boldly by some Iranian military speedboats, is testimony to how the Iranian regime counts on suchlike strategies.

14. etc.!

The preceding was just a partial snapshot of a situation too complex to fully cover in the scope available here. Still geopolitically speaking, I reckon open and backdoor diplomacy and international pressure, along with covert intelligence actions (e.g., the disappearance of Iranian nuclear scientists and the recent highly sophisticated virus attacking Iranian nuclear systems) could do the job in a less costly and more fathomable fashion. But let’s not forget the will-question. Will there be a military attack? There’s simply no one who can answer this question definitively. My hunch is ‘no’, in large part because of the reasons mentioned earlier. But again, that’s only a guess. Not always reason reigns in politics. There were so many such reasons against the invasion of Iraq and it did come to happen.

It is very safe to assume that the fifty thousand remaining troops in Iraq under Operation New Dawn are as much about a new dawn in Iraq as the previous Operation Iraqi Freedom was about the freedom of Iraq. The name has changed, but the strategy remains the same. The troops that remain in Iraq have two official functions: (a) to go around the country with a Kill or Capture List to do, well, what the name of the list tells them to do; and (b) to train Iraqi special forces to do the same job when the Americans leave the country. This strategy is called the Salvadoran Option. It refers to the “assistance military program” in the mid-80s, which Jimmy Carter initiated and Reagan carried out in full capacity, in which “special forces” (aka ‘death squads’) of the Salvadoran military, who were trained and equipped by the US military, horrendously murdered and brutalized the popular movement of FLMN guerillas and their supporters. The same was done in Columbia. Among the 50,000 American troops currently in Iraq, there are 4500 Special Forces whose job it is to “train” Iraqi special forces known as ‘Special Police Commandos’ (also around 4500), who are only directly accountable to the Prime Minister, Al-Maliki, not to the parliament, nor the military. The man who is in charge of the training and supervising this process is Col. James Steele, who masterminded and led the Salvadoran Option in the mid-80s. He has said that the Salvadoran experience is something he is proud of and one that is easily transferable to Iraq. The same sort of experience was successfully carried out in Honduras and Nicaragua, albeit in different ways. Who was in charge of the whole process there? John Negroponte, now the American ambassador to Iraq.

The Middle East is not Latin America, again plain and simple

The plan which these two men – among others – are to carry out is to set up a puppet dictator and give him well-trained death squads to quell all opposition as in Latin America. This strategy is doomed to fail, and has already shown signs of failure for so many reasons, some of which I will briefly touch upon below:

1. Iraq is not El Salvador, plain and simple. The situation in Iraq is pretty much different and much more complex than the Salvadoran context back then, especially in terms of demographics, religious sects, ethnic groups, historical identity and background of the country, geopolitical situation, etc.
2. The Salvadoran Option was carried out in a bipolar world with two superpowers, which understood each other rather well. Now we live in a multipolar world, where a plethora of interested parties in and outside Iraq are to be considered and negotiated with before making any decisions. Such powers that are interested and/or involved in Iraq are: China, Europe, India, Russian, Brazil, Israel, Iran, Turkey, etc.
3. The Middle East is not Latin America, again plain and simple. It hosts two-third of the oil resources of the world and all the above-mentioned parties have a wary eye on (if not an involved hand in) it. Latin America is geographically rather isolated from the rest of the world, and is closest to the U.S. in terms of diversity in so many regards. The Middle East is not comparable to Latin America, which is more consistent and therefore more comprehensible.
4. There are a number of other official and unofficial wars and conflicts going on in the region. The Afghan War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are in full gear; Hamas is very interested (and involved) in all this. Pakistan is in a state of turmoil with occasional skirmishes with India, which adds to the malleability of the situation in the region, and which makes India very involved in the region. The wars and struggles in the region touch upon border conflicts, nationalist sentiments, linguistic and religious differences, ethnic clashes, drug-related crimes, anti-colonial/imperialist sentiments, oil, etc.
5. All these reasons (and many more) make the Middle East much more complex and less decipherable a situation in the multipolar world today than the isolated case of Latin America in the bipolar world of yesterday! The area is simply too porous for anyone to think they can implement the Salvadoran Option in it.
6. One big elephant in the room is Iran, which due to its proximity to Iraq and the danger it feels, not without good reasons, about a full-fledged American domination in the region, is actively involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc. In the case of Iraq, there is more than enough evidence to show that Iran exerts more influence on Al-Maliki than the U.S. does.
7. The biggest elephant in the room is indeed Al-Maliki, not as the person he is but as the prime minister of Iraq, who by no stretch of imagination could be analogized to a Latin American puppet dictator. This fact came to be rather known in the 2005 Iraqi election, when the Iranian-backed Shi’ite bloc, aligned with the Kurds, formed a government, and the American-backed Ayad Allawi was nowhere near being a serious contender. It came to be fully known in 2008, when the Iranian-backed Iraqi government forced the American administration to sign a withdrawal agreement that they were absolutely reluctant to sign.
8. The very fact that no government in Iraq has been established (despite the persistent American wheedling of Iraqi politicians) more than half a year after the latest Iraqi parliamentary elections is another piece of evidence on the now acknowledged fact that the U.S. does not have the leverage to mold the country as it wishes in the way they did with the Latin American client states.

There is much more that could be said about the differences between the two contexts at stake here, but suffice it for the moment just the eight reasons mentioned above to argue that the Salvadoran Option (or anything similar to that) is unimaginable in the case of Iraq. But the consequences of even an unsuccessful attempt (and it has been unsuccessful) in implementing such a strategy in Iraq will be (and have already been) calamitous for Iraqis, the whole region, and even for the American economy and/or hegemonic ambitions. Look at the death tolls in Iraq and Obama’s mournful tone about the one trillion dollars already spent in Iraq.

Perhaps he should have. But what would that have achieved, besides making Americans feel more righteous? The US government, with all its military might, has no authority in Iran, and can do little to influence the politics there. More sanctions can be threatened, or even imposed, but there is little prospect of that loosening the clerical dictatorship’s grip. Besides, the US government must balance its diplomatic efforts to dissuade Iran from developing a nuclear bomb with its disapproval of Iran’s domestic politics. These two goals are not necessarily in sync.
The other issue, often overlooked by Obama’s righteous critics, is that overt American support is not necessarily an advantage to dissidents in Iran. On the contrary, it allows the regime to paint its opponents as stooges of US imperialism.

In short, President Obama was probably right to maintain a degree of discretion, and leave the protests to the Iranians.

The other issue, often overlooked by Obama’s righteous critics, is that overt American support is not necessarily an advantage to dissidents in Iran. On the contrary, it allows the regime to paint its opponents as stooges of US imperialism

However much we might like the greatest democratic power to intervene in other countries to help people get rid of dictators, interventions are rarely effective. There are exceptions, to be sure. Democracy in Japan and West Germany after World War II was greatly assisted by the US. But those nations lost a catastrophic war, and Germans and Japanese were more than eager to have Americans help them bring freedom and prosperity to their ruined countries.

Then there were the so-called democratic revolutions on the 1980s, in Asia and central Europe. In the European case, there was actually no US intervention. The Velvet Revolutions, in Warsaw, Berlin, and Budapest (the Rumanian case was not entirely clothed in velvet), came about through local rebellions and the Soviet unwillingness to maintain its informal empire by force. President George H. W. Bush was in fact alarmed at first by the revolts in central Europe, and hoped that they could be contained. If anyone was responsible for the collapse of European dictatorships, it was Mikhail Gorbachev.
The US had more to do with the end of dictatorships in Asia. The death of the Marcos regime in the Philippines was clear as soon as the Reagan administration stopped supporting it. But this was a coup de grace, and a belated one at that. At first Ronald Reagan was reluctant to challenge the results of a rigged election in 1986.

The military dictatorship in South Korea also knew its days were numbered when the US supported Korean demands for a free election. And the same was true of Taiwan. But these were somewhat special cases. The US had great clout in these countries, because the dictators were essentially clients of US military largesse during the Cold War. They were supported, as long as the Communist powers posed a credible threat. When the Cold War petered out in the 1980s, the anti-Communist strongmen could no longer count on American support, and without it, they were unable to resist the demands for democracy from their own people.
Iran is not a client state of the US. If the Shah had still been in power in the 1980s, it is possible that his country would have gone the same way as South Korea, The Philippines or Taiwan. The Shah was a client and had to take note of Washington’s views. Alas, however, Iran did not have a Velvet Revolution, but got the Ayatollah Khomeini instead. His successors, Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad have no reason to listen to the US.

And so the democratic opposition in Iran will have to cope without the benefit of US pressure. On the one hand this will make their task more difficult. But if eventually they succeed, their position will be all the stronger, for no one will be able say that the road to Iranian liberty was paved by foreigners.