We are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy in Iran. I don't mean by this that the Iranian regime is about to collapse. It may"”I certainly hope it will"”but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. We are watching the failure of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian government. The regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laid out his special interpretation of political Islam in a series of lectures in 1970. In this interpretation of Shia Islam, Islamic jurists were presumed to have divinely ordained powers to rule as guardians of the society, supreme arbiters not only on matters of morality, but politics as well. When Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, this idea, velayat-e faqih, rule by the Supreme Jurist, was at its heart. Last week that ideology suffered a fatal blow.
When the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "divine assessment," he was using the key weapon of velayat-e faqih, divine sanction. Millions of Iranians didn't buy it, convinced that their votes"”one of the key secular rights allowed them under Iran's religious system"”had been stolen. Soon Khamenei was forced to accept the need for an inquiry into the election. The Guardian Council, Iran's supreme constitutional body, promised to investigate, meet with the candidates and recount some votes. Khamenei has realized that the regime's existence is at stake and has now hardened his position, but that cannot put things back together. It has become clear that in Iran today, legitimacy does not flow from divine authority but from popular will. For three decades, the Iranian regime has wielded its power through its religious standing, effectively excommunicating those who defied it. This no longer works"”and the mullahs know it. For millions, perhaps the majority of Iranians, the regime has lost its legitimacy.
Why is this happening? There have been protests in Iran before, but they always placed the street against the state, and the clerics all sided with the state. When the reformist president Mohammad Khatami was in power, he entertained the possibility of siding with the street after student riots broke out in 1999 and 2003, but in the end he stuck with the establishment. The street and state are at odds again"”the difference this time is that the clerics are divided. Khatami has openly backed the challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as has the reformist Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri. Even Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, not a cleric himself but a man with strong family connections to the highest levels of the religious hierarchy, has expressed doubts about the election. Behind the scenes, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani"”the head of the Assembly of Experts, another important constitutional body"”is reportedly waging a campaign against Ahmadinejad and even possibly the Supreme Leader. If senior clerics dispute Khamenei's divine assessment and argue that the Guardian Council is wrong, it would represent a death blow to the basic premise behind the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would be as though a senior Soviet leader had said in 1980 that Karl Marx was not the right guide to economic policy.
The Islamic Republic might endure but would be devoid of legitimacy. The regime could certainly prevail in this struggle; in fact, that would have to be the most likely outcome. But it will do so by using drastic means"”banning all protests, arresting students, punishing senior leaders and shutting down civil society. No matter how things turn out"”crackdown, co-optation"”it is clear that millions in Iran no longer believe in the regime's governing ideology. If it holds on to power, it will do so like the Soviet Union in the late Brezhnev era, surviving only through military intimidation. "Iran will turn into Egypt," says the Iranian-born intellectual Reza Aslan, meaning a regime in which guns, rather than ideas, hold things together behind a façade of politics.
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The Islamic Republic has been watching its legitimacy dwindle over the past decade. First came Khatami, the reformist, who won landslide victories and began some reforms before he was stymied by the Guardian Council. That experience made the mullahs decide they had to reverse course on the only element of democracy they'd permitted in Iran"”reasonably open elections. The regime's method of control used to be to select permissible candidates, favor one or two, but allow genuine, secret balloting. In the parliamentary elections of 2004, however, the Guardian Council decided that normal methods would not achieve acceptable results. So it summarily banned 3,000 candidates, including many sitting parliamentarians. Because public support was even less certain this time, the regime went further, announcing the election results in two hours and giving Ahmadinejad victory by such a wide margin that it would preclude any dispute. Khamenei revealed the strategy in his sermon last Friday. "A difference of 11 million votes"”how can there be vote rigging?" he asked.
How should the United States deal with the situation in Iran? First, it is worth pointing out that Washington is dealing with it. By reaching out to Iran, publicly and repeatedly, President Barack Obama has made it extremely difficult for the Iranian regime to claim that it is battling an aggressive America, bent on attacking Iran. A few years ago, this was a perfectly plausible claim. George W. Bush had repeatedly declared that the Iranian regime was a mortal enemy, that Iran was part of the Axis of Evil and that a military assault on the country was something he was considering. Obama has done the opposite, making clear that he views the Iranian people with warmth and would negotiate with whichever leaders they chose to represent them. In his Inaugural Address, his Persian New Year greetings and his Cairo speech, he has made a consistent effort to convey respect and friendship for Iranians. That is why Khamenei reacted so angrily throughout most of his response to the New Year message. It undermined the image of the Great Satan that he routinely paints in his sermons. (Of course, ever the ruthless pragmatist, he also carefully left open the door to negotiations with the United States.)
In his Friday sermon, Khamenei said that the United States, Israel and especially Britain were behind the street protests that have roiled Tehran, an accusation that will surely sound ridiculous to many Iranians. But not all: suspicion of meddling by outside powers is deeply ingrained among even the most Westernized citizens in Iran. The fact that Obama has been cautious in his reaction makes it all the harder for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to wrap themselves in a nationalist flag.
1 2 Next Page » Share: newsweek:http://www.newsweek.com/id/202979 var url = 'http://content.pulse360.com/ABECBB72-0E78-11DE-86AA-F5793FF5047F'; url += '?CommercialNode=' + commercialNode; // NOTE :: The "scr" + "ipt" break is essential, presumably to bypass loose // js/DOM safeguards against doing what we want to do here. document.write('"); var isAuthenticated = false; Discuss Enter Your Comment NWK.widget.CommentsSubmit.form = $('#comment-form'); NWK.widget.CommentsSubmit.init(); placeAd2('comments/'+commercialNode,'88x31|2',false,''); Sponsored by Member Comments Reply Report Abuse Posted By: Deepshark @ 06/21/2009 10:17:38 PM
The 'rise' of a political Islam ? Islam has always been political, from day 1. Mohammed created a warrior religion bent on political as well as religious hegemony. The Western Catholic Church was no better of course - though mercifully it underwent a Reformation and Counter-Reformation in the 1600's, which broke its political form, rendering the modern Catholic Church as an instrument of compassion and mercy, though of course there are still issues with liberals who pursue a hedonistic desire to which Mother Church will of course not give its assent to....and Islam is yet to have a reformation.While a localized reformation is possible, I doubt very much that Iran would be its most suitable seat. There is no Martin Luther in the person of Mousahvi, and he is not nailing any form of religio-political treatise on the door of the Mosque of Tehran. No - a true reformation would come at the deaths of the mullahs in Saudi Arabia, which may happen - when the oil runs dry at last. For as long as there is oil, there is a centre of power, and an excuse. On the day the oil runs out, I fear the Islamic world will suffer its reformatory social evolution out of medieval fuedatory.
Reply Report Abuse Posted By: lonnie62 @ 06/21/2009 9:39:49 PM
fareed zakaria, same guy who is with the famous "bilderbergs" is he the only writer for newsweek with such 'neato' friends in the world?
Reply Report Abuse Posted By: Greg the Third @ 06/21/2009 9:31:30 PM
These are very astute observations. I agree with just about every assessment. The elder Bush naturally made astute foreign policy decisions since he was the CIA director after all. If only the junior Bush took after the old man in this regard. I think Obama is playing this equally well and is using our intelligence intelligently. It is so refreshing to see this difference compared to what we all had to endure the previous 8 years. I think you can simplify the Iranian regime as a populist one and this makes it atypical. In this respect it resembles the Soviet Union by promoting the nationalist and populist mindset of the average poor and working class citizens over the middle class and upper class Iranians. In most nations it is the other way around and the reason quite frankly is that the middle class and upper class do a better job of running a nation, especially economically. Fortunately in Iran there is no real notion of class warfare, however the clerical Islamic leaders in power now and since the 79 revolution would rather have it that way and pit one class versus another to serve their ends. I don't see it woking however. I don't see the working class Iranians being goaded to do violence upon fellow Iranians for ideological reasons. As such I think the administrations efforts will to use force will eventually fail. In the meantime it will be seen as increasingly feckless as it's attempts to use force fail to stop the unrest. For them I think the best solution and perhaps only working solution is a compromise and in essence this will merely be a transition to a more open and secular government. I think the clergy will still wield conisderable power in the end, but not absolute authority. So we shall see soon if the regime has the backbone and clout to repress the unrest or not. But I completely agree that the Islamic republic days in it's current form are numbered.
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Why is this happening? There have been protests in Iran before, but they always placed the street against the state, and the clerics all sided with the state. When the reformist president Mohammad Khatami was in power, he entertained the possibility of siding with the street after student riots broke out in 1999 and 2003, but in the end he stuck with the establishment. The street and state are at odds again"”the difference this time is that the clerics are divided. Khatami has openly backed the challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, as has the reformist Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri. Even Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, not a cleric himself but a man with strong family connections to the highest levels of the religious hierarchy, has expressed doubts about the election. Behind the scenes, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani"”the head of the Assembly of Experts, another important constitutional body"”is reportedly waging a campaign against Ahmadinejad and even possibly the Supreme Leader. If senior clerics dispute Khamenei's divine assessment and argue that the Guardian Council is wrong, it would represent a death blow to the basic premise behind the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would be as though a senior Soviet leader had said in 1980 that Karl Marx was not the right guide to economic policy.
The Islamic Republic might endure but would be devoid of legitimacy. The regime could certainly prevail in this struggle; in fact, that would have to be the most likely outcome. But it will do so by using drastic means"”banning all protests, arresting students, punishing senior leaders and shutting down civil society. No matter how things turn out"”crackdown, co-optation"”it is clear that millions in Iran no longer believe in the regime's governing ideology. If it holds on to power, it will do so like the Soviet Union in the late Brezhnev era, surviving only through military intimidation. "Iran will turn into Egypt," says the Iranian-born intellectual Reza Aslan, meaning a regime in which guns, rather than ideas, hold things together behind a façade of politics.
The Islamic Republic has been watching its legitimacy dwindle over the past decade. First came Khatami, the reformist, who won landslide victories and began some reforms before he was stymied by the Guardian Council. That experience made the mullahs decide they had to reverse course on the only element of democracy they'd permitted in Iran"”reasonably open elections. The regime's method of control used to be to select permissible candidates, favor one or two, but allow genuine, secret balloting. In the parliamentary elections of 2004, however, the Guardian Council decided that normal methods would not achieve acceptable results. So it summarily banned 3,000 candidates, including many sitting parliamentarians. Because public support was even less certain this time, the regime went further, announcing the election results in two hours and giving Ahmadinejad victory by such a wide margin that it would preclude any dispute. Khamenei revealed the strategy in his sermon last Friday. "A difference of 11 million votes"”how can there be vote rigging?" he asked.
How should the United States deal with the situation in Iran? First, it is worth pointing out that Washington is dealing with it. By reaching out to Iran, publicly and repeatedly, President Barack Obama has made it extremely difficult for the Iranian regime to claim that it is battling an aggressive America, bent on attacking Iran. A few years ago, this was a perfectly plausible claim. George W. Bush had repeatedly declared that the Iranian regime was a mortal enemy, that Iran was part of the Axis of Evil and that a military assault on the country was something he was considering. Obama has done the opposite, making clear that he views the Iranian people with warmth and would negotiate with whichever leaders they chose to represent them. In his Inaugural Address, his Persian New Year greetings and his Cairo speech, he has made a consistent effort to convey respect and friendship for Iranians. That is why Khamenei reacted so angrily throughout most of his response to the New Year message. It undermined the image of the Great Satan that he routinely paints in his sermons. (Of course, ever the ruthless pragmatist, he also carefully left open the door to negotiations with the United States.)
In his Friday sermon, Khamenei said that the United States, Israel and especially Britain were behind the street protests that have roiled Tehran, an accusation that will surely sound ridiculous to many Iranians. But not all: suspicion of meddling by outside powers is deeply ingrained among even the most Westernized citizens in Iran. The fact that Obama has been cautious in his reaction makes it all the harder for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to wrap themselves in a nationalist flag.
The 'rise' of a political Islam ? Islam has always been political, from day 1. Mohammed created a warrior religion bent on political as well as religious hegemony. The Western Catholic Church was no better of course - though mercifully it underwent a Reformation and Counter-Reformation in the 1600's, which broke its political form, rendering the modern Catholic Church as an instrument of compassion and mercy, though of course there are still issues with liberals who pursue a hedonistic desire to which Mother Church will of course not give its assent to....and Islam is yet to have a reformation.While a localized reformation is possible, I doubt very much that Iran would be its most suitable seat. There is no Martin Luther in the person of Mousahvi, and he is not nailing any form of religio-political treatise on the door of the Mosque of Tehran. No - a true reformation would come at the deaths of the mullahs in Saudi Arabia, which may happen - when the oil runs dry at last. For as long as there is oil, there is a centre of power, and an excuse. On the day the oil runs out, I fear the Islamic world will suffer its reformatory social evolution out of medieval fuedatory.
fareed zakaria, same guy who is with the famous "bilderbergs" is he the only writer for newsweek with such 'neato' friends in the world?
These are very astute observations. I agree with just about every assessment. The elder Bush naturally made astute foreign policy decisions since he was the CIA director after all. If only the junior Bush took after the old man in this regard. I think Obama is playing this equally well and is using our intelligence intelligently. It is so refreshing to see this difference compared to what we all had to endure the previous 8 years. I think you can simplify the Iranian regime as a populist one and this makes it atypical. In this respect it resembles the Soviet Union by promoting the nationalist and populist mindset of the average poor and working class citizens over the middle class and upper class Iranians. In most nations it is the other way around and the reason quite frankly is that the middle class and upper class do a better job of running a nation, especially economically. Fortunately in Iran there is no real notion of class warfare, however the clerical Islamic leaders in power now and since the 79 revolution would rather have it that way and pit one class versus another to serve their ends. I don't see it woking however. I don't see the working class Iranians being goaded to do violence upon fellow Iranians for ideological reasons. As such I think the administrations efforts will to use force will eventually fail. In the meantime it will be seen as increasingly feckless as it's attempts to use force fail to stop the unrest. For them I think the best solution and perhaps only working solution is a compromise and in essence this will merely be a transition to a more open and secular government. I think the clergy will still wield conisderable power in the end, but not absolute authority. So we shall see soon if the regime has the backbone and clout to repress the unrest or not. But I completely agree that the Islamic republic days in it's current form are numbered.
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