William O. Beeman--Regime Change in Iran: The Fantasy That Will Not Die (New America Media)

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/06/regime-change-in-iran-the-fantasy-that-will-not-die.php


Regime Change in Iran: The Fantasy That Will Not Die

William O. Beeman
New America Media

June 18, 2010

The American political establishment will not give up the fantasy that they can somehow bring about regime change in Iran—that the United States can somehow topple the Iranian leadership just like it supposedly toppled the Soviet Union.

Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Sam Brownback of Kansas have introduced legislation (S-3008) that, in Cornyn’s own words: “. . . states that it is U.S. policy to support the Iranian people’s efforts to establish a truly democratic and accountable government and free themselves from the regime headed by Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. ”

Self-avowed neoconservative Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on June 14 entitled "Iran's Revolution: Year 2.” It calls on the Obama administration to support the Green Movement to effect regime change. He writes: “By throwing in his lot with the freedom movement, (President Obama) would surely increase the odds that we won’t have to live with a nuclear bomb controlled by virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic clerics. Democrats, once the champions of promoting pro-democracy movements, need to understand that the good that they can do for the people of Iran far exceeds the great harm that comes from doing nothing.”

Not to be outdone, Democrats are doing something, too. Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) introduced a resolution in 2008 with Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) declaring that Iran was inimical to "the vital national security interests of the United States" and "demanding" that the president impose a full-scale naval, air and land blockade on Iran effectively, an act of war. The resolution failed, but Ackerman continues to press for similar actions from the Obama administration.

The question of regime change in Iran is warmed-over Cold War logic dating from the Revolution of 1978-79. In 1980, Edward Sa'id wrote a trenchant piece in the Columbia Journalism Review. He made the point that the dominant government stance after the Revolution had nothing to do with understanding Iran or Iranian history. Instead it asked just one question: "Is Islam for or against the United States?" And, of course, he meant Iran as the embodiment of Islam at that moment.

The answer that has emerged over four decades in the regime change circles is clearly that "Islam (read Iran) is against the United States." It is from that point that the fantasizing begins: How to destroy this anti-American regime.

The government of Israel has succeeded in creating a codicil--also right out of the Cold War: "What threatens Israel also threatens the United States."

The answers are Cold War answers. No imagination. No attempt to understand Iran in social, cultural or historical terms. Just a repeat of what "worked" to bring down the Soviet Union short of direct attack: isolation, inflicting economic pain, scaring the world into thinking “the enemy” is dangerous, and finally fomenting and encouraging internal dissent.

The reason this rhetoric works is because the U.S. public and perhaps many Europeans are already primed to accept both this logic and these solutions having been taught to fear the Soviet Union for three decades. However these stratagems won't work with Iran. Iran is not the Soviet Union. Iran sees itself not as the aggressor, but rather the defender.

All of these strategies have thus far failed.

Isolation of Iran is not working. At a recent conference on the Middle East in London, a leading Italian economist said: "We are Iran's largest European trade partner. When our businessmen show up in Tehran, there are three Chinese businessmen waiting in the outer office. The U.S. is driving Iran into the hands of Asian partners, and ruining our business with them--and for what? To satisfy some American ideology?" The only nation that truly desires Iranian isolation and believes that it can be achieved is the United States.

Inflicting economic pain is not only ineffective, it is counter-productive. We may have brought the Soviet Union down by creating an arms race that they couldn't sustain, but nothing we have or could do to Iran is going to cripple the country to the point of collapse, and it is laughable to think that that could happen. The Iranian people are inconvenienced by these low-level unilateral economic sanctions, such as those pushed through the United Nations Security Council on June 9, 2010, and the U.S. Treasury on June 16. They thus are embittered about the United States, but nothing more. It most decidedly does not make U.S. overtures to them to overthrow their own government more probable.

Scaring the world about Iran has been a complete failure outside of the United States. No one has any proof whatever that Iran has a nuclear weapons program--it is a red herring, and the world knows it. The Non-aligned Movement has continually issued support for Iran’s nuclear energy program. Even if there were a nuclear military program, Iran is years away from having anything that could pass for an effective weapon. The Gulf States may be concerned, as they always have been, about the Shi'a community, since they constitute either a majority (Bahrain) or a significant minority (UAE, Saudi Arabia), but the dead-end idea promulgated by the Bush administration and carrying forward, that Iran is about to attack its neighbors--and with a non-existent nuclear warhead--is the stuff of fiction. Iran would destroy its own economy if it did this. Its relations with its neighbors are completely symbiotic.

Finally, Cornyn and Brownback, Ackerman, Gerecht, and others of their ilk utterly misunderstand the post-1999-election Green Movement in Iran. If the movement is eventually successful, it will not usher in some kind of purging revolution that will create a pro-American government. The Green Movement is about legitimacy of leadership within the current Iranian governmental framework, not about overthrowing the government. Nor will trying to foment dissent in Iran's many ethnic communities, another strategy favored by the regime-change fans, be any more effective. The many ethnic groups that make up Iran’s pluralistic civilization have identified with Great Iranian civilization for more than two millennia.

The worst part of the push for regime change is that the more the United States and other external powers interfere in Iranian affairs, the less likely it is that change will occur. Has no one in power read Iranian history? Does no one understand how Iran has constructed the United States in its own paranoid fantasies? U.S. interference taints every attempt at reform from within, make no mistake.

If there is to be regime change in Iran, it will be from within, over time (and not such a long time frame, either). Yes, talk about the real problem of human rights. Yes, engage in dialogue, but give up the Cold War strategizing with bankrupt, inappropriate methods. They won't work. And open chatter about more strategies for "regime change" merely feeds the Iranian power elite the stuff they need to blame their every weakness and failing on the United States.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota. He has lived and conducted research in Iran and the Middle East for more than 30 years and is the author of The “Great Satan” vs. the “Mad Mullahs”: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other (Chicago, 2008).

William O. Beeman--Iran's Uncertain Future (New America Media)

Iran’s Uncertain Future

New America Media, News analysis,

William O. Beeman, Posted: Dec 31, 2009

It is now clear that the population of Iran is in full revolt against its leaders. There is a better than even chance that the government will fall before summer. Sadly, there is no clear successor leadership on the horizon. This may prove to be the worst of all possible revolutions—a leaderless coup often leads to a regime that feeds on itself.

The current governmental regime in Tehran, including spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have made error after error in dealing with the opposition. Iran is a hierarchical society. Persons in high positions are paradoxically in the most fragile positions. Either they must support their followers, or be toppled from power.

The government has, in the face of the questionable presidential elections in June, repressed, murdered and incarcerated thousands of legitimate protestors. They have jailed former architects of the Revolution of 1978-79 that toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and former government officials such as ex-Foreign Minister, Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi. These actions are a betrayal of the social ties that bind political leaders to their followers. In essence, Iran’s political elite has utterly lost its public support. There is no other possible result than that they leave the scene.

The situation has been exacerbated by the confluence of this repression with the annual observances of the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. Hossein’s legitimacy to rule the Islamic community was opposed by the Umayyid Caliph, Yazid. Yazid then ordered his army to Kerbala where Hossein was encamped with his family. The male members of Hossein’s clan were beheaded and the women and children led into captivity in the Umayyid capital, Damascus.

Now the public is equating opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Musavi with Imam Hossein. They chant “Ya Hossein, Ya Mir-Hossein” in their opposition marches. Ayatollah Khamene’i is now equated directly with the Caliph, Yazid in street slogans and banners. Currency is being defaced with insults against the government. As veteran Middle East commentator, Robin Wright, has noted, the current Iranian resistance “is arguably the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign anywhere in the world today.”

However, should Ayatollah Khamene’i, President Ahmadinejad and other high officials be toppled from power, it is unclear who will replace them. The opposition candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, has proved to be utterly feckless as a leader. His fortunes only improved shortly before the June election when he suddenly was seen as a viable opponent for the increasingly unpopular President Ahmadinejad. Since the election he has been more a follower than a leader. In fact, his wife, the intrepid Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, who apparently organized his campaign, emerged as a greater political force.

Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, former President and supreme political operative also engineered Mousavi’s campaign. Usually outspoken, he has been exceptionally cautious in recent weeks, and his relatives have been terrorized by Tehran’s leaders. Now in his 70’s, it is unclear that he could emerge as a strong leader in a new government.

There is also the sticky business of the bedrock principle of the Islamic Republic, the “Velayat-e Faqih,” or “Regency of the Chief Jurisprudent.” It is this principle that legitimizes the supreme authority of Ayatollah Khamene’i, who is said to be ruling as regent, or substitute for the 9th Century Imam, Mohammad al-Mahdi, who is believed to be alive, but “in occultation,” until the Day of Judgment. This doctrine was established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1978-79 Revolution and is ensconced in the Iranian Constitution. If Ayatollah Khamene’i is toppled from power, either the constitution must be scrapped, or a successor must be found. Most religious leaders reject this doctrine today—a fact that has already created a de facto constitutional crisis.

Humanity has seen leaderless revolutions before, and they don’t turn out well. Those vying for power early on are condemned by those who arise after them. There is a perpetual scramble for both power and control of the ideology of the revolution. Much blood flows, and decades can pass before order is restored.

In light of this situation, the Obama administration is wise to stand aside and wait before making any commitments to the present power elite. More importantly, it behooves the administration to start preparing for a post-revolutionary phase, making sure that U.S. actions do not alienate the Iranian public or those who will accede to power.

Sadly, the U.S. Congress is not as wise as the executive branch. Still stuck with a crude and inaccurate fetishization of Iran’s nuclear energy program, they are on the brink of approving economic sanctions that will only cement the Iranian public’s already fixed notion that America only wants their nation to sink in misery and failure.

William O. Beeman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, and is past president of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 30 years. His most recent book is "'The Great Satan' vs. the 'Mad Mullahs': How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other." (Chicago, 2008).