Eight years later, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 caused the friendly relationship of Europe and Iran to cool off. Contrary to the United States, which broke all diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic after the seizure of the U.S. embassy, Europe kept talking and trading with Iran. Still, relations between Europe and Iran have never really gone back to ‘normal’. Especially since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005, Europe often seems at a loss in how to handle the fanatic regime in Tehran. The European Union acknowledges the problem on its website: “There is great potential for deeper relations between Iran and the EU. Whilst practical cooperation between the EU and Iran already exists, the scope is currently well below potential.” Recently, on March 22, the European Union issued a statement calling for Iran to stop censoring the Internet and jamming European satellite broadcasts, but it has not said whether it will take punitive action if Tehran refuses. Faced with the political turmoil in Iran after the rigged elections of June 12, 2009, the European Union seems to be very careful in acting tough on Tehran – an attitude that is partly prompted by the fear that this might add fuel to the regime’s rhetoric that ‘foreign enemies’ want to overthrow the Islamic Republic and harm the legacy of Imam Khomeini.

I do however not want to judge whether the policy of the European Union toward Iran is the ‘right one’. I simply do not know myself – sometimes wisdom resides in knowing that you do not know. Also: before we start criticizing someone else, we should first think about how we can try to make things better ourselves. As European citizens, we cannot actively define and shape the policy of European leaders, but we can take a stance towards the problems in Iran.

One thing that is very clear to me, both as a journalist specialized in Iran and as a world citizen, is that the political rift between Iran and Europe caused by the Islamic Revolution has had its repercussions on the European mindset. After thirty years of cool relations, Europeans seem to have forgotten about Iran. Before 1979, the friendly contact between Iran and Europe – which of course also had its dark side, but that is another discussion – almost made it seem as if it that Middle Eastern country was part of Europe and the West. Today, Iran has become another world for the majority of Europeans: it is now mostly seen as a gloomy place full of bearded ayatollahs and women in black chador. After the elections of June 12, 2009, media coverage of Iranian youth fighting for their rights in blue jeans and green shirts somewhat changed this perception, but all in all, Europeans generally feel that Iran is a country that has nothing to do with Europe and never really had in the past.

The contrary however is true. Europe and Iran have a long shared history. A lot has been written about the recent European (British) interference in Iran, but I want to focus on the beauty that our shared past has brought about.

Words are the only power we have as European citizens to help Iranian citizens in their struggle for freedom

We flash back to 2,500 years ago. Probably the most defining exchange between our cultures took place at the time of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and the Hellenic world, which led to a massive cross-cultural influence. Greek influence on the East has been thoroughly researched, but it is about time to analyze the other direction of exchange – a subject that British historian Tom Holland has dealt with in his masterpiece Persian Fire (2005). When we say that Greece is the cradle of western civilization, we should also mention that the Greeks are indebted to the Persian Empire for many of their great achievements – from economy and culture to politics. To cite only one example: when the famous Odeon of Pericles was excavated, it turned out to have almost the exact same dimensions as the Hall of the Hundred Columns at Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire.

We flash forward to the 17th century. The Dutch East India Company has a trading post in the port of Bandar Abbas, and the intense commerce between Iran and the Netherlands leads to intense cultural exchange: Persian people and Persian costumes become a motif in the Dutch paintings of the Golden Age. European art was also very much in demand at the courts of the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736). On January 3rd, 1608, a delegation of Discalced Carmelite monks, arriving in Esfahan from Rome via Kraków, presented to Shah Abbas I one of the most precious treasures of medieval European Christianity. It was an illuminated manuscript with hundreds of large miniatures of scenes and stories from the Pentateuch and the books of Judges and Kings. Shah Abbas was entranced by the book. He spent a long time examining it and ordered that it be provided with captions in Persian to better understand it.

Persian literature as well left its marks on European literature. Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s passion for Hafez inspired him to write his famous West-Eastern Divan (1814-1819), which has been very influential for religious and literary syntheses between the ‘occident’ and the ‘orient’ in the 19th century. Examples of admiration for Persian poetry abound: there is of course the famous translation of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat by Edward Fitzgerald (1859), which was the most frequently read of Victorian poetry. Last but not least, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885), referring to the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra as the prophet of his philosophy.

In our short walk through Iranian-European history, we have now arrived in the 20th century. The Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906 led to a constitution and a system of constitutional monarchy that were a ‘copy’ of the Belgian ones. Recent European literature plays its part in Iranian culture as well: the famous writer Sadegh Hedayat (1903-1951), who was very much influenced by European writings and lived in Paris, introduced modernism in Persian literature.

We have to tell these stories about our shared past, because words are the only power we have as European citizens to help Iranian citizens in their struggle for freedom. Exactly: words. In the West, we may have lost our belief in the defining power of words, but in Iran, no one has. The constant efforts of the regime to shut down websites and censor the media are a clear proof of the power of words. Censorship makes it difficult for our words to reach Iran, but it is not impossible. Even if our words cannot flow to Iranians in their home country, we have to keep talking about our shared past and dreams, because Europe is the new home of a large community of Iranian exiles. They too are fighting for their home country to become a better place, and they need and deserve our support.

The current crisis in Iran adds a new element to our shared past, because Iranians are now struggling for those things our European ancestors struggled for at the time of the French Revolution: liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity). As ‘ordinary’ European citizens, we cannot define the policy towards the Islamic Republic, but we can do what Iranians are forbidden to do: talk openly. If we truly take pride in our European culture and institutions, we should emphasize that what binds us instead of what separates us, and talk instead of keeping silence.

I want to bring in mind the famous words of the Persian poet Saadi that adorn the entrance to the Hall of Nations of the United Nations building in New York:

Of One Essence is the Human Race,
Thusly has Creation put the Base.
One Limb impacted is sufficient,
For all Others to feel the Mace.
The Unconcern’d with Others’ Plight,
Are but Brutes with Human Face

Anyone who is European today feels concerned with the plight of Iran, and feels the urge to speak against brutes with only a human face.

In the long run, however, propaganda cannot be an alternative for diplomacy. State propaganda is usually an addendum to diplomacy and not its main principle. The real decisive factor in relations between states has always been diplomacy, not the kind of propaganda a country uses to influence and engage the public. Iran’s relations with Russia and China are an example. Neither of these two countries have any real propaganda for Iran. The Iranian youth have always favored the West to Russia and China, but the very deep relation Iran has with these countries has brought their interests together. On the other hand, the Islamic regime’s propaganda against the US has not been effective on a national level: Iranian people are often said to be the most ‘Americaphile’ of all nations in the Middle East, after Israel.

Public Diplomacy: an Old ‘Novelty’

In a meeting with Iranian diplomats on March 3rd, 2010, Supreme Leader ayatollah Khamenei talked about “powerful diplomacy” and added: “Public diplomacy is a novelty of the Islamic Republic and should be better acknowledged.”
“Public diplomacy” instead of “state propaganda” is a phrase that has been adopted by some of Iran’s politicians and government-affiliated institutes. As the phrase came to be used more often, there was also the claim that “public diplomacy” was one the inventions of ayatollah Khomeini. Hamid Molana, an advisor to president Ahmadinejad in US affairs, said: ”Our best diplomats, who have excelled in public diplomacy, are the Supreme Leader and Mr. President.’’ He added that ”diplomacy in the West is still the Cold War.” It is not really clear how someone like Mr. Molana, who thinks “public diplomacy” is one of ayatollah Khomeini’s inventions, understands the concept. However, it is very unlikely that those who are making such claims about the origins of the phrase are not aware of its American origins in the 1960s – years before the Islamic Revolution.

It seems such claims are in fact themselves part of the Islamic regime’s “public diplomacy.” The Islamic Republic is built on a limited and dogmatic ideology, which, like those adhering to it, tries to prove it is the source of all good, whereas all that is bad stems from its enemies. If “public diplomacy” is indeed a good thing, it cannot possibly be the result of someone else’s mind, especially not an American one, and it definitely must have its roots in Islamic traditions or in the words or conduct of the leaders of the Islamic regime. In such an ideology, being “native” is being right and true.

In the same speech about powerful diplomacy, ayatollah Khamenei pointed out “some misconceptions in adapting and using Western concepts, ways and manners, in order to get closer to them” and added: “These people thought that by repeating Western concepts and surrendering to them, we would gain more respect. However, the Western concepts and ideas are old, dating back to two hundred years ago, whereas the words and politics of the Islamic Republic are new and influential.’’

Making such a claim puts ayatollah Khamenei in a difficult position. First, ideas such as constitution, referendum, parliament, judiciary and presidency all have European origins. Second, an old idea is not an extinct one; religions and their practitioners cannot possibly make such a claim. Third, are not the old Islamic traditions and religious principles the basis of the Islamic regime’s authority and policy? How can such principles be “new”? How can the Islamic regime proudly affiliate itself with Islam and then invite people to practice rules from fourteen hundred years ago?

This obsession with the “originality” of ideas and concepts is yet more proof of the regime’s rigid ideology. In open and critical ideologies, the origin of a thought is never a criterion for judging its truth or usefulness. Dogmatic ideologies, with their emphasis on “originality”, are heading for their own demise.

American Exceptionalism Turned Upside Down

If we look at the same speech, we might possibly understand this passion for originality. Iran’s Supreme Leader is proud that the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy is an “anti-hegemonic-system” and stresses that “true execution of these kinds of anti-hegemonic-system policies belongs only to the Islamic Republic.’’ In his opinion, “a condition for fully executing this policy is to be firm about the principals of the Revolution and Islamic law (Sharia) and not to be shy about them.”
In the language of Iranian leaders, the “anti-hegemonic system” policy, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, equals an anti-American policy. Among the left-wing activists and so-called “post-colonialists”, there are many people who share ayatollah Khamenei’s understanding of the world hegemonic system. Mr. Khamenei, like other state officials, has always talked about “the Western capitalist system,” “liberal democracy” or the “global capitalist octopus,” but in doing so, he has overlooked great economic and political powers such as China, Japan, Russia and even Europe.
What is interesting in this perception of world affairs is that it considers the US to be the most important country in the world in determining global politics, economy and culture. Ayatollah Khamenei may be dissatisfied with why this is the case but does not have any doubts about whether the US is actually the most important country.

As Iran’s leaders see it, the formation of the Islamic Republic was the first step in gaining dominance of the entire world

Ayatollah Khamenei says the Islamic Republic is striving for a “new and just world order”
Khamenei’s views are “American exceptionalist” in reverse. In American exceptionalism, a theory whose roots are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), America, as the first modern democracy, is the most important country in the world. It has duties and responsibilities when it comes to global affairs. In some Christian fundamentalist versions of this kind of exceptionalism, America is chosen by God and has a religious mission to intervene in international affairs and direct the world towards democracy. Iranian leaders do not doubt about the truth of this matter but feel that it is not America but Iran that should be taking on this role. Ayatollah Khamenei clearly thinks that the Islamic Republic is following a divine pattern and that, at the end of history, the victory of the Islamic Regime will be inevitable.

As Iran’s leaders see it, the formation of the Islamic Republic was the first step in gaining dominance of the entire world. Ayatollah Khamenei says the Islamic Republic is striving for a “new and just world order” and hopes to “raise the flag of justice, and gather many under it.” In this respect, the two main goals would be ”to create and construct an example of a just state’’ and “to show and present it to the world’’ (Dec. 30th, 2009). Mr. Ahmadinejad also says that “the final point of our diplomacy is based on creating a global state … and our foreign policy should move in such a way that all humanity will come under divine power.’’ He adds that “the creation of the world without a final global state is meaningless, and all the prophets have pointed out the final revolution and state. Today, we are in the midst of that final revolution.’’ After the Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini also talked about exporting it.
The Islamic Regime, just like other totalitarian states in the 20th century ‒ think of the communist Soviet Union and Germany’s Nazi Regime ‒ has a world vision. In the words of Iranian leaders, the real competitor of the Islamic Republic is the US itself. In a meeting with the leaders of some Palestinian armed groups, Mr. Khamenei said that “we are more powerful than the US’’ and “Israel will be annihilated.” He talks as if the immediate result of Israel’s demise or of Iran being more powerful than America is that Iran will gain control over the world. No wonder he is designated “the leader of all Muslims in the world’’ in the state media. He thinks of Iran as the substitute for the USSR during the Cold War and tries to learn lessons from the fallen Eastern bloc in defeating America. In his view, it was not the economy or dictatorship that brought about the demise of the communist empire but the Cold War that America waged against it.
In fact, the Iranian leaders’ discovery of the “public diplomacy” phenomenon and its importance also has its roots in their competition with the US. The amateurish and ludicrous use of the phrase is just another propaganda tool against America. In truth, they do not really need to use the phrase, neither in words nor in actions. What they are looking for in this new-found expression is their own old ways of disseminating state propaganda.
To understand what the Western notion of public diplomacy really is, we need to look at all the books and essays published about the subject in America. The Iranian government’s interpretation of propaganda, however, is something quite different. The Iranian state has made a great mistake in assuming that propaganda could even partly substitute diplomacy. The Iranian regime’s propaganda is most successful in dictator-led countries in the Arab world, especially among groups that have set their goals on destroying Israel and religious competitors. It has little effect in Iran and almost none in the West.
There are overtones of Intelligence and military force in Iranian government propaganda, and even issues of culture and diplomacy are dealt with by the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. In such a mindset, the media, art, literature, universities, the educational system, religious hawzahs, etc., are all propaganda tools. This makes independent media, cultural work, universities , etc meaningless. To be independent of the state is to serve the enemy: “being the infantry in the West’s soft war against the Islamic Republic.’’ Without cultural and social freedom, it is very difficult to be publicly influential. This is why the regime has always added suppression to its governmental propaganda within its borders and terror outside them.
On the other hand, the Islamic Regime has an instrumentalist view on just about anything. New technology is just another tool serving the old propaganda techniques. However, modern technology has not had a substantial effect on the content and the medium of the propaganda, at least not noticeably. Look at the blogs and websites associated with the government, and the point is proven. There is an uncompromising fight against the outside world. Sometimes this aggression takes really shameless forms. The difference between lying and committing a shameless act is that a lie is something the speaker does not believe in but hopes the audience does; a shameless speech is something the speaker knows is wrong; he even knows that the audience will not believe it, but says it anyway because to keep it to himself would be to accept a fact that is not of great advantage to him.
Dogmatic ideologies are full of extremism, bragging and paradoxes. The fate of public diplomacy in Iran is yet another example of such kinds of extremisms. No state should be blamed for investing money and resources in state propaganda. If that government is democratic, its propaganda will be beneficial to its national interests. However, propaganda in a tyrannical state will only enforce radicalism and other crude political acts.
Keywords: America, Ahmadinejad, Public, Iran, Propaganda, Khamenei, Diplomacy

The polemic voice of Hirsi Ali sounds like that of a defeatist. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a post-9/11 product. She is the ‘hands-on’ expert who is emerging straight from the camp of the ‘new enemy’: imaginary ‘Islamistan’

In the United States, Barack Obama is trying to use reconciliatory words when addressing Muslim countries, and in the Netherlands – Hirsi Ali’s former home country – Job Cohen (former mayor of Amsterdam and the leader of Social Democrats in upcoming national election this June) is trying to cool down the heated political climate created by Geert Wilders, a populist politician who loves making highly controversial statements about Islam and Muslims. Hirsi Ali – now working for the conservative think thank ‘American Enterprise Institute’ – does however not seem to have any confidence in the efforts of Barack Obama or Job Cohen.
Not that this surprises me: the polemic voice of Hirsi Ali sounds like that of a defeatist. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a post-9/11 product. She is the ‘hands-on’ expert who is emerging straight from the camp of the ‘new enemy’: imaginary ‘Islamistan’. The bloodshed in New York on September 11, 2001 made the world suddenly a dark place for the West, but Hirsi Ali switched on the lights again. The western audience had believed the end of the Cold War to be the end of direct confrontation with acts of war, but the close confrontation with Osama bin Laden as evil incarnated turned their perceptions and worldview upside down.
In this context, she suddenly appeared on the world stage: our charming witness Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Soon, some other heroes and heroines accompanied her, from Norway and France to Canada and the United States. Just like Hirsi Ali herself, they apply the same kind of rhetoric and they are all ‘freed’ and ‘converted’ to secularism. Thanks to these people, the darkest western perceptions of those bearded men from the Orient – which one day were banished to the garbage dump of a not-so-honorable western canon – were suddenly no longer shameful. Relieved and freed from any sense of subtlety, we could again talk about ‘those Muslims’ (one and a half billion people), their ‘backward culture’ and the clash of civilizations.
9/11, the neoconservative rhetoric of the clash of civilizations – with Ayaan Hirsi Ali as its most visible exponent – and creating the image of ‘islamic danger’: all in all, this made some immigrant representatives, who up till then had chosen to stay on the sideline, step to the fore. Moreover, the up-and-coming second generation of immigrants, who has had a better education than the first generation, has given up on the illusion that individual success is a guarantee for being accepted in the Netherlands or elsewhere in the western world. Without Hirsi Ali, people like Tariq Ramadan would never had felt such a deep urge to speak, nor would they have gotten this much media attention.
In the Netherlands and other western countries with a large Muslim community (like France, Germany and England), the better educated second generation of Muslims has embarked on a journey of serious self-examination. They have started to make themselves known as those people expressing the desires and thoughts of Muslim immigrants. This much credit we have to give the Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s of our day and age. Still, the mistaken belief in the necessity of waging a liberal jihad against Islam – think of Geert Wilders and other western politicians – would have gained less prominence without the ‘testimonies’ of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her intellectual lookalikes.
Eight years after 9/11, the election of Barack Obama (who was against the war in Iraq) was a clear sign that American people were sick and tired of following the neoconservative warpath of their government. Both fear as a motive and the idea of permanent war against anyone who is neither audibly nor visibly ‘with us’, made room for the new hope of a universal desire for peace.

The most striking news from the Middle East at this moment in time is the internal developments in Iran, where the Green Movement has managed to unite a broad coalition of supporters – from deeply religious Iranians to hardcore atheists, who are all fighting for their civil rights

While there is life, there is hope, but hope did not suddenly change the political volcanic landscape of the Middle East. That is one of the conclusions we can arrive at now that Barack Obama been in office for a year already. America is still knee-deep in the mud of Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is also the political unrest in Somalia (where Hirsi Ali has her cultural roots) and Yemen. Obama’s reconciling words are also not ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of hope in the Middle East. Last year, Barack Obama used reconciling words when addressing both the Iranian people and their leaders, and he did the same this year. From a historic point of view, it was a very important move. With the presidential elections ahead, it helped the reformist candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi to free themselves from the most efficient moral blackmail of the regime: ‘the threat of the foreign enemies’.

When George W. Bush was still in office, the Iranian regime had systematically (mis)used his threatening language against the Islamic Republic to keep Iranians quiet. The population was to some extent susceptible to this, and so were the reformers. People who belonged to the inner circle of Mousavi and Karroubi have regularly told me off the record that Obama’s message of reconciliation and peace had a very positive influence on the Iranian opposition. The determination of opposition leaders to openly criticize the regime before the elections of June 12, 2009, and their unanimity to continue their protest afterwards would have been unthinkable if a hawkish neoconservative had been in power in America – someone from the political circle where Hirsi Ali has found a new home. Karroubi mentioned it some weeks ago: it is useless to keep pointing at ‘the foreigners’ as the source of our internal crisis; we should look at the shortcomings of our own state. Such a statement would not be possible in Iran if America would be ruled by neocons and if ‘the clash of civilizations’ would still be the guiding principle of foreign policy.
This year again, President Obama kindly addressed Iranians on the occasion of Noruz. He praised them for their courage to stand up for their rights, but he also emphasized that America does not want to interfere in the internal politics of Iran. Still, he kept underlining the efforts of the US to find a political solution for the nuclear problem of Iran. But it takes two to tango: what does the Iranian regime want? It remains an open question how the nuclear problem will evolve. A short or maybe even an enduring military conflict would be a nightmare for the Iranian opposition: the regime could silence patriotic Iranians by openly pointing at ‘foreign danger’. That is something President Ahmadinejad is very well aware of. Given his waning popularity and his disastrous social and economical policies, it is not unthinkable that he would opt for a collision course.
Still, the most striking aspect of what is going on in Islam’s heartland is not fear neither the prospect of total war in the Middle East, with Iran and the US as the leading actors. The most striking news from the Middle East at this moment in time is the internal developments in Iran, where the Green Movement has managed to unite a broad coalition of supporters – from deeply religious Iranians to hardcore atheists, who are all fighting for their civil rights.
These days, the icon of the Islamic world in the western press is not Ayaan, but Neda. Neda Agha Soltan, the girl who was shot during a demonstration in Tehran on June 20, 2009, was a supporter of the deeply religious reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi. He is the undisputed leader of the Green Movement, together with his wife Zahra Rahnavard, who is very popular with Iranian youth because of her knowledge of art and popular culture, and her courage and independence. Mir-Hossein and Zahra are two Muslims who seem to find a way to remain loyal to their background but still manage to unite a large group of Iranians – whether religious, not so religious or secular. They both offer the hope of a pluralistic future for Iran, where no one feels the urge to strip someone else from his or her beliefs, thoughts or convictions. And indeed: their movement is appropriately called ‘the Green Way of Hope’.
This politics of hope goes against Hirsi Ali’s defeatism and her mantra of clash between the West and the world of islam. It is a political course that does not match with a total war in the Middle East between Islamists and the West. Neda Agha Soltan, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard are bad news for Hirsi Ali, and that is why she keeps ignoring them when commenting on Islam and the West.
But there is hope for peace and a pluralistic civilization. In America and Iran, but also in the Netherlands.

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.

Gandhi’s mission was not to politicize religion, but to spiritualize politics, meaning to bind up everyday action in the public sphere with morality. Gandhi believed religion and politics should creatively co-mingle and not be separate entities. He believed that ethical and spiritual values must underlie daily politics. In other words, it was Gandhi’s moral and spiritual convictions that drew him into politics. Actually, one can say that Gandhi’s primary contribution to spirituality is nonviolence. Gandhi had the good fortune to have as his companions people belonging to different religions.

Truth, for Azad, was one and the same everywhere. The mistake was to equate particular forms of Truth with Truth itself

Two important among his Muslim colleagues were Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Very few religious individuals show the daring and courage to criticize their own minds and to fight a battle against their own prejudices. Of the leading tolerant Muslims who have left a deep impact on the idea of pluralism in Islam, Maulana Azad stands out unique. He will not only be remembered in the history of India for the role he played in the national liberation movement of the country, but will also be considered as a Muslim leader who stood for a dialogue among Muslims and Hindus. Azad started his career in politics and activism as a revivalist Muslim and as an upholder of pure Islam. His early career from 1906 to 1920 was influenced by his religious teachings. During this period, Azad firmly believed that the Muslims were the leaders of the world. In his early writings and speeches, which appeared in his journal Al-Hilal, Azad talked about the superiority of Muslims over the followers of other religions and called for an ‘Islamic Way’ to independence. After 1920, a radical change appeared in the views of Maulana Azad and he ceased to be a revivalist Muslim and embraced Indian secular nationalism as a political philosophy.

Without a doubt the evolution of Azad’s outlook from Pan-Islamic to secular nationalist was determined by his friendship and collaboration with Mahatma Gandhi and by the rise of the communal problems in the Indian liberation movement. Through Gandhi, Azad learned that communal harmony played an important role in the future of India and that in spite of religious, ethnic and linguistic differences, India was one nation. Like Gandhi, Azad considered Hindu-Muslim unity as a necessary principle for the national reconstruction of India. The entire argument of Azad was to present Muslims with the fact that the fundamental teaching of the Qur’an is mercy and forgiveness (rahmat). Therefore, it followed for him that these attributes of God should also be uncalculated in humans. Azad’s faith in the essential unity of humanity and in the oneness of all religions stemmed essentially from the Sufi concept of ‘the unity of existence’ (wahdat-i-wujud).

Truth, for Azad, was one and the same everywhere. The mistake was to equate particular forms of Truth with Truth itself. Read from this angle, Azad’s most important book, Tarjuman-ul-Qur’an, illustrates Azad’s firm beliefs in tolerance and dialogue. It is in this book that Azad’s idea of religious pluralism is expressed powerfully by the concept of oneness of faiths (wahdat-i-Din). If, at root, all religions reflected the same message, then, for Azad, there was no room for Hindu as well as Muslim communalism. As a champion of Indian nationalism and democracy, Azad sought a synthesis of modern secularism and spiritual traditionalism. He took his stand upon Truth by unifying the soul of Islam with the glory of his nation. For Azad, secular nationalism could be an effective antidote to religious fanaticism in India if Indian political processes were guided and controlled by the political philosophy of secularism. Azad held that the conviction of dialogue among faiths and the spirit of peace characterized Islam. According to him, nonviolence provided an effective strategy in the struggle for independence. In light of his religious humanism, Azad stated that there was no justification whatsoever for imposing one religion on another because the fundamentals of religion (Din) were one. Therefore, according to him, every individual had a right to follow his own religious path.

In other words, Azad viewed religion from the wider perspective of a universal humanist and his entire philosophy was free from any form of religious narrowness and dogma. It is in relation with this aspect of Azad’s thought that the comment of India’s President Zakir Husain, finds all its relevance. “In my opinion,” says Zakir Husain, “the greatest service which the Maulana did was to teach people of every religion that there are two aspects of religion. One separates and creates hatred. This is the false aspect. The other, the true spirit of religion, brings people together; it creates understanding. It lies in the spirit of service, in sacrificing self for others. It implies belief in unity, in the essential unity of things.” Azad owed his political inspiration to his knowledge of Islam. But as a defender of shared common values, he believed that religions were the common heritage of all mankind. His increasing receptivity to the message of other faiths led him to the recognition of the humanist element in religion.

What is Hezbollah? What is its organic connection to Iran? What role has it played in the recent events? What is the kind of bond it has with the Iranian regime? Answering such questions might give a better understanding of the nature of this organization and its relation to Iran.

Iran as the master

Hezbollah was established in 1982, originating from the Amal Movement, a Shi’a political movement founded by Musa al-Sadr. Ali-Akbar Mohtashamipour – then the Iranian ambassador in Damascus – could be called its godfather. Although Hezbollah’s activities were in the beginning limited and more directed towards Israel, its role has changed from a national Lebanese party to an independent semi-government with interests, strategies, military force and financial resources.

Not long after its establishment, the financial and logistical help of the Iranian regime to this group caused a division between Hezbollah and the Shiites who did not want to depend on Iran. With the appearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr in the 1970s and after years of oppression, the Lebanese Shiites were given an opportunity to come out of their seclusion and be involved socially and politically in Lebanon. Musa al-Sadr, who moved to Lebanon from Iran in the 1960s, was able to become of one of Lebanon’s most loved public figures and his charisma and activities brought about many privileges to the deprived Lebanese Shiite. The establishment of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, the first official Shiite organization, was the first of these benefits. However, Musa al-Sadr’s disappearance (just before the Islamic Revolution in Iran) and later the Iranian’s regime strategy to attach as many Shiites as possible to itself resulted in a different fate for Lebanon. Amal Movement, which was established by Musa al-Sadr, had been the most important Lebanese party contributing to the Shiite uprising. It was thought that the formation of Hezbollah would strengthen the Shiite groups even more, an end that was fulfilled with Hezbollah’s confiscation of all power and becoming a despotic group.

The Islamic Republic – which thought of itself not only as the leader of the Shiites, but all the Muslims in the world – was pursuing two things in helping Hezbollah: first establishing another Islamic republic in Lebanon and second the control over a country so close to Israel. For that reason, it only gave support in exchange for unquestioned and complete commitment to its Velayat-e-Faghih (Guardianship of the Jurisconsult) principle. Amal Movement’s opposition to this condition cut off the Islamic regime’s support from the group and ended up in a bloody battle between Amal and Hezbollah.

The Supreme Leader is the main decision-maker when it comes to three things: first the relations with the US and second the nuclear program. The third is Lebanon. He personally sets Iran’s policies towards the country and he lets Hezbollah make all the decisions

A change in the balance of power

Hezbollah’s real rise to power happened after the Lebanese civil war in 1990s. After the war, almost all of the fighting Lebanese groups were officially disarmed and become a part of the Lebanese political system, except Hezbollah, who with the support of the Iranian regime and Syria managed to keep its arms for fighting against Israel under the name of ‘Lebanon’s Resistance’. It is obvious that with its huge arsenal, unprecedented support from the Iranian regime and its new extensive Shiite recruits, Hezbollah became a state within the Lebanese government. As they say, ‘power lies with whom that has arms and riches and the key to the dungeons.’

Lebanon, with its history of wars and the continuous assaults from Israel, was the perfect ground for the formation of a fighting and resistance culture. Meanwhile, the fight with Israel and Lebanon constantly in danger of being attacked were the perfect excuse allowing Hezbollah to extend its presence everywhere in Lebanon (even in northern regions – with no Shiite population and no border with Israel), using its special phone network and becoming allies with its former competitive and opposing groups. At the same time, the one financially supporting Hezbollah’s programs in Lebanon was Iran, for example in paying millions of dollars to Michel Aoun (Hezbollah’s Christian ally) to start a big satellite network called Orange TV, and other massive assistance to similar groups.

What happened at this stage was a change of relation between father and son. If Hezbollah’s policies were decided in Tehran before and the group was a mere executioner, now the page had turned and it was Hezbollah that made all the decisions. Contrary to common beliefs, all the decisions are now made in Beirut and it is always Hezbollah that has the final word, Iran being only a financial and logistical support. The group’s connection to Iran is predefined at all levels and starts with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader. That means if there would a problem between Hezbollah and Iranian institutions and organizations, it would be the Supreme Leader’s office that will facilitate and take care of everything.

Therefore, Lebanon clearly is an exception in Iranian foreign policies. It is not the Iranian foreign ministry who makes decisions when it comes to Lebanon, but Iran’s relation (as an independent state) to the country is being dictated by a Lebanese party/organization, Hezbollah. Whenever it comes to sending off an Iranian ambassador to Beirut, it is the group that has to confirm and approve of the choice. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon is officially a member of Hezbollah and the Lebanese ambassador in Tehran is also officially a member of Hezbollah. In the same way, the Iranian ambassador (being the official representative of the Iranian president) is not even a part of Hezbollah’s central and deciding core, but is merely a member of their political office.

The Supreme Leader is the main decision-maker when it comes to three things: first the relations with the US and second the nuclear program. The third is Lebanon. He personally sets Iran’s policies towards the country and he lets Hezbollah make all the decisions. The fact that Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah (the Secretary General of the group) is ayatollah Khamenei’s official representative in Lebanon can help understanding the kind of relation between Hezobllah and Iran.

Another example shows this kind of strange relationship. During Hezbollah’s conflicts with the Lebanese government in 2009 (which resulted in a sit-in of the group in central Beirut from October 2006 to June 2008 and the eventual seize of the capital), Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki was sent to Beirut. This trip was very important because there were talks of ending the conflict and on the other hand there was the possibility of Lebanon’s nomination to become a member of the United Nation’s Security Council. The Iranian embassy in Beirut made the announcement in a rush, but then Hezbollah showed disapproval of this journey, because the foreign minister was bound to have a meeting with Fouad Siniora, and such a meeting wasn’t in the interests of the group in that time. Iran became a laughing stock in Lebanese media, needing permission from Hezbollah for its foreign minister to travel to Lebanon.

How Hezbollah’s decisions are dictated to Iran, who makes up the body of this organization and the kind of Iranian financial aid to the group are some other important aspects in better understanding this party-government that will follow in future articles.

Dear Shervin,

Our conversation left me a little depressed, because the more I learn of the Iranian situation the more I fear a western compromise with the “least Islamic” part of the authoritarian regime. It is clear that, given Obama’s impossible dilemma in Afghanistan and Pakistan (impossible because of the domestic political costs of telling the truth or changing strategy), an accommodating Iranian regime ought to be very welcome to Washington. I assume this message is not completely inaudible in Tehran as well.

Tony Judt

There are many partial precedents. Eastern Europe is an interesting one. There, the internal opposition to communist dictatorship and repression remained loyal to the ideological principles of the regime at least until 1968, accusing it above all of betraying its own ideals. Thus both “the street” (which hardly existed) and the intelligentsia were to some extent trapped by their common desire to make Communism “work”.

From ’68 through 1989, young men and women developed an alternative strategy: realizing that they had no hope of overthrowing the regime in direct confrontation, and no longer believing in its own ideals, they started to theorize a strategy of “as if”. They would live as though the regime’s constitutional and legal and doctrinal positions should be taken seriously. This way, they reasoned, at the very least they would feel freer; but they would also reveal the truth (or rather the lie) below the surface, thus helping the mass of the population understand that this situation could not go on.

It’s important to understand that this did not work. It did work intellectually – a lot of young people began to think and talk in these terms. But the Communist regimes could have survived indefinitely on a diet of foreign loans and Soviet tanks, facing down the few students and writers and playwrights who were “living in truth”. By the late 1980s, most of the population in Eastern Europe was cynical and de-politicized: pretending to espouse the regime’s language and theorems but actually ignoring them. The regime in turn would pretend to believe that people shared its doctrines, when even the leaders themselves were skeptical.

What changed all that of course was Gorbachev: an external imperial factor not really present in your case. What may be relevant was Gorbachev’s conscious decision not to use tanks. If he had gone the other way he could have clung to power and communism could have survived in Eastern Europe for a while longer. So don’t discount the risk of sheer repressive force. Even in an age of cell phones and internet, there is nothing that outside powers could or would do to help. Look at Budapest (1956), Prague (1968), Warsaw (1981), Beijing (1989) – these communist instances all saw Washington making loud unhappy noises…and sitting quietly back. I fear something similar would apply in Tehran.

Iranian insurgents have to ask not just what is right and just, but what would work and how to get there and whom to get there with

More relevant is Turkey, because the mixture of sophisticated urban modernity, rural backwardness and religious allegiance echoes aspects of Iranian history. In Turkey, the military even today sees itself as the “guardian” of Ataturk Republicanism, against the twin foes of Islamic backwardness and left-wing democratic challenge. On nearly half a dozen occasions since the 1920s, colonels and others have seized power for a while – successfully and with some popular support “restoring” the Ataturk model. By treating Islamic law and practices and internationalist affiliations as somehow “anti-Turkish”, the army has successfully conveyed the illusion that it represents national identity and modernity in Turkish life. This is changing now that the EU has imposed a whole series of both secular and civilian requirements for Turkish membership, with the result that both the Muslims and the army feel rebuffed by modern Europe and are looking elsewhere.

I’m not sure where this leaves you. Clearly, the young people’s sense of wounded national pride in Iran – the sense that they and their country have been humiliated both by their leaders and by the outside world – could produce a sort of left-national-Muslim democracy which the West would completely misunderstand and prefer to see replaced by “our sort of people”.

Washington desperately needs people who can explain the sort of mistake this would be. The instinct of even liberal foreign policy elites over here is always to follow the traditional strategy of decades past, but changing and adapting styles and rhetoric to new circumstances. As I grow older I have become more sympathetic to the “geo-political” theorists of my youth, who used to argue that if you want to understand what great powers are going to do, the best way is to ask i) what is their geographical situation? ii) what are their timeless interests and iii) what did they do last time in the closest comparable case? These questions still make sense.

Last thought. In the medium to long term, Iran is a natural ally and attractive friend to a lot of places: Russia, Israel (yes! – Israelis are complete cynics in this matter and would go to bed with anyone who promised to be unfriendly to their enemies), Turkey (for slightly similar reasons but also because Ankara is looking for medium-sized friends in central Asia these days)…and therefore the US. What works against this logic is Iranians’ own desire for freedom and a constitutional state, which is disruptive to many of the above; and, of course, the post-9/11 obsession of the West, even after Bush, with terrorism, real and imagined. It won’t be difficult for people with an interest in doing so to paint the more radical end of the Iranian street as potentially terroristic.

It follows that, like the Palestinians in a way, the Iranian insurgents have to ask not just what is right and just, but what would work and how to get there and whom to get there with. Any revolution that ignores these questions – and I can give you dozens of sad cases – risks finding itself marginalized even in the community of states that ostensibly share its own ideals.

Let’s keep talking about the future of your country.

All the best,

Tony