Please read this fascinating interview with Iran expert Michael Ledeen on the current uprising there. What’s at stake? Survival…
Well, [the Iranian Regime] might [grab Americans to divert attention], but this has gone way beyond things like that. I mean, this is an all-out street confrontation right now. And there’s going to be a winner and a loser, and that’s all there is to it. And if the regime loses, we’re going to see hanging from streetlights.
Indeed, Judith Yaphe, an Iran specialist at the National Defense University, has said of this present uprising, “It’s a turning point. There has been nothing like this since the [1979] revolution.”
While this all may be true, I want to wrap these observations in the context offered by Dr. George Friedman at Stratfor on Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian Reality, who argues that Ahmedinejad’s Popularity with the conservative majority of Iranian voters is probably why he won the election, not voter fraud (though that certainly may have happened). Here are the reasons for such popularity:
First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization — whether from the shah or Mousavi — as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.
Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs — who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this — have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.
Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don’t necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus validating the sacrifices made in that war — something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war.
Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad’s favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran — something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Upper East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn’t win.
And if you really want to apply what I call “Contextual Dexterity” for a challenging but illuminating analysis, look closely at the religious conservative vs. pro-Western liberal sides to this. I think it is helpful why to evaluate the war of ideas between Western liberal media, academia, and entertainment with more traditional Christian conservatism. What you end up with is an analysis that leads you to root ideas, the differences between them, and the abiding question of self-government: what do you do when people want to conserve certain cherished beliefs and institutions, while others are actively (even aggressively) seeking liberation from those institutions, which they deem controlling and oppressive.
And what does all this say about the veracity of the underlying beliefs embodied in those cherished/oppressive institutions? Is an open, respectful dialog possible about those beliefs themselves, or will it always be a matter of focusing on the institutions?
I of course say this with most interest in America. But to really understand the present Iranian situation–not just as a potential nuclear threat to Israel and the West, but as a sovereign state with rich national history of its own–it is critical to at least understand the 1979 revolution initiated by Ayatollah Khomeini. I have read his book Islamic Government (available free online or at Amazon), which is essentially his Mein Kampf, and the seeds of oppression and religious control are all spelled out there, with all the justifications for brutality you may imagine.
To my Christian friends, please know that there are many reasons why non-Christians are legitimately concerned about religious controls. Western history makes it clear why this leads to conflict about theological matters that are not the proper province of the state. To understand this is to understand the very roots of America. And it is also to understand why any exclusivistic religious talk in America is often ineffective, and why the liberal revolution against Islam is probably cheered by many who are eager for something similar (if adapted to the environment) here.
good points