More interesting news from the Axis - Iran:
Iran's long power struggle nears climax
By Guy Dinmore
Published: November 1 2002 20:41 | Last Updated: November 1 2002 20:41
news.ft.com
Iran's military commanders are giving public warnings of the external US threat, but internally their focus is on the danger of civil unrest as the Islamic republic's domestic power struggle approaches what both sides are calling the end-game.
"General preparedness must be raised, everyone must sense that they are in danger," Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the defence minister, was quoted as saying this week by a state news agency. "We should base our assumptions on the idea that America will attack us."
Iran's inclusion in what President George W. Bush called the "axis of evil", alongside Iraq and North Korea, makes it logical for many Iranians that Tehran will follow Baghdad in a domino pattern of US-inspired regime change.
The ruling clerics recognise, however, that the main danger comes not from a direct US assault but from the ranks of their own people, increasingly disaffected with economic hardship, social restrictions and corruption at all levels.
Government insiders say the Revolutionary Guards and hardline Basij militia are being prepared to deal with the civil strife that is expected to erupt if the conservative establishment rejects two important pieces of legislation proposed by Mohammad Khatami, the pro-reform president. Rahim Safavi, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, hinted at such during manoeuvres this week in Mashad, Iran's second city. "Basijis should have the necessary readiness for all-out defence in different cultural, security and defence sectors to safeguard the country," he warned.
Iran's ruling conservatives - mostly non-elected, some with vested financial interests, others driven by religious fervour - are sure to block the proposed legislation as it stands, arguing that it contains the seeds of a future secular state.
One of the bills would give President Khatami greater power to warn and sanction hardline judges who have muzzled scores of newspapers and jailed dozens of journalists and intellectuals. The other would curb the veto power used by the conservative-controlled Guardian Council to bar many reformists from running for office.
Mr Khatami insists he is determined to have the two laws passed, and has hinted that he may resign if they are blocked. His radical supporters have threatened to quit parliamentary and state posts, tired of scores of trials of political activists, closures of newspapers and stalled legislation, including a bill that would have defined and banned torture.
There is open talk of an end-game within months, the conclusion of a struggle that dates back to the 1979 revolution between the left, which has evolved towards a mix of reforms and demagoguery, and conservatives who believe they have a divine mandate to rule.
Alireza Alavitabar, a radical reformist and academic, recently spoke of a "turning point" in Iran's history within three months. Amir Mohebbian, a conservative commentator, responded fiercely. He warned the radicals not to count on divisions within the Revolutionary Guards that would prevent a military move to forestall them.
"This is a finale that will break with the first strike," he wrote in the Resalaat daily. "We are waiting for the near future. Here is the ball and here is the field."
For the moment, President Khatami shows little sign of yielding to the pressure of his opponents, even though he is openly pilloried at Friday prayers. However, his loose coalition in parliament is divided over the idea of collective resignation.
"Khatami is determined," commented one veteran analyst. "He does not want to go down in history as a loser. He wants honour, to be remembered as the man who paved the way for the true marriage of religion and democracy."
Mr Khatami is well into his second and final term, and internal opinion polls indicate that, while he is still Iran's most respected politician by far, his popularity is plummeting on the back of unkept promises.
Diplomats in Tehran tend to believe, however, that Mr Khatami would not quit and risk bringing the entire Islamic system down when it feels under threat from the US. The immediate outcome may depend on the skills of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in brokering a compromise on the controversial legislation acceptable to both sides. He and Mr Khatami would then have to test their own authority in bringing their radical supporters to heel and averting popular unrest. It is far from certain they would succeed.
Hardliners believe the confluence of external and internal developments - pressure from Mr Bush and a desperate attempt by Mr Khatami to assert his authority - are not entirely coincidental. Radical reformists are publicly branded as a US "fifth column".
Masumeh Ebtekar, now vice-president but in 1979 among the Iranian revolutionaries who held US diplomats hostage in their Tehran embassy, said that once again Washington was miscalculating in the Middle East.
A close associate of Mr Khatami, she told reporters that US policy was fanning the flames of religious extremism, while endangering the new shoots of democracy in Iran that could act as a moderating influence or serve as a model in the region.
'Great Satan' Scares Few in Modern Iran
Fri Nov 1,11:07 AM ET
By Paul Hughes
story.news.yahoo.com
TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - The gentle music piped around the Iranian capital's latest cultural exhibition sounds innocent enough, until you listen to the lyrics.
"America, death to you. The blood of our youth is dripping from your nails."
But the anti-U.S. rhetoric echoing through the halls of the "First Perspective Exhibition on How to Avoid the Great Satan" appears to be falling on deaf ears.
As Iran prepares to mark on Monday the 23rd anniversary of the day when radical students turned hostage takers overpowered guards at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, few Iranians can muster much enthusiasm for bashing the Islamic Republic's arch-foe.
"We don't hate the Americans," whispered Shafii, 33, one of seven guides who accompanied two Reuters reporters around the "Great Satan" exhibition in a Defense Ministry warehouse in northern Tehran. There were no other visitors.
"We want peace between America and Iran, not war," he said, while one of his colleagues explained a colorful mural depicting Uncle Sam standing behind Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) to portray Washington's perceived support for the Iraqi president during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Worshipers at Friday prayer meetings across Iran still chant "Death to Israel! Death to America!" at specific points during the weekly sermons.
And thousands will gather at an official demonstration on Monday at the gates of the vast former U.S. diplomatic compound to heap scorn on the "den of spies."
The embassy siege, in which 52 Americans were held for 444 days, prompted then President Jimmy Carter to freeze Iranian assets and sever all diplomatic ties with Tehran.
"Never did we imagine that our act of protest would have a far-reaching impact on the political history of our country, and of the region," former hostage taker Massoumeh Ebtekar, now Iran's vice president, said in her 2000 account of the siege "Takeover in Tehran."
THE SECOND REVOLUTION
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the 1979 Islamic revolution, was reported to be initially unsure about the students' action but changed his mind when he saw the crowds of demonstrators gathering in front of the embassy compound to voice their support for the takeover.
He hailed the students for launching "a second revolution, greater than the first."
But as a recent opinion poll revealed, 23 years later most Iranians are tired of the hardline establishment's determination to keep Iran isolated from the world superpower.
The survey showed almost three-quarters of Iranians want a resumption of some kind of dialogue with Washington. Moreover, despite Iran being lumped together with Iraq and North Korea (news - web sites) in President Bush (news - web sites)'s "axis of evil," the poll showed nearly half thought U.S. policy on Iran was "to some extent correct."
It was a like a red rag to a bull for Iran's hard-line clerical establishment which considers any mention of talks with Washington an anathema.
Despite protestations by President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites)'s moderate government, the head of the polling institute that carried out the survey has been thrown in jail awaiting trial on charges of fabricating the poll and espionage.
But the conservatives who draw moral support from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and control Iran's military, judiciary, broadcast media and powerful constitutional watchdogs are fighting a losing battle, analysts say.
"The incident over the poll is a classic example of the conservatives in denial," said Ali Ansari, a lecturer in Middle East history at Durham University, England.
Unlike other countries in the region, "the people on the street in Iran are not anti-American. The anti-U.S. slogans are totally out of tune with the people."
COKE AND CDS
Thanks to the Internet and illegal satellite television U.S. popular culture is king among young Iranians who are a vital constituency in a country where 70 percent of the population is under 30 and has no real memory of the 1979 Islamic revolution or the U.S. Embassy siege.
Teen-age boys sport baseball caps of U.S. teams and eagerly swap illegal CDs of the latest music from the Billboard charts. Despite the international acclaim accorded to Iran's burgeoning film makers, Hollywood movies are the top sellers in the thriving black market in video rentals.
And while hard-liners tried to ban the sale of Barbie dolls earlier this year because of their potential corrupting influence on young girls, the icons of American culture, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are now widely available and recording growing sales.
Khatami's government may have been furious to be branded on a par with Saddam in Bush's "axis of evil" speech, particularly after the important behind-the-scenes cooperation it provided Washington in toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan (news - web sites).
Despite persistent accusations by Washington that Iran has given safe haven to fleeing al Qaeda fighters and is developing its own weapons of mass destruction -- allegations which Tehran flatly denies -- Iranian officials have recently spoken of a softer tone emerging from the United States.
Diplomats in Tehran have told Reuters that Washington has sent a message to Iran, by way of a third country, reassuring the government that Iran is not next on its war on terror list.
"America is not going to bomb a country where the people wear baseball caps and drink Coca-Cola," one local analyst said. "You don't bomb people who like you."
SLOGANS APLENTY
Many of the radical students who stormed the U.S. Embassy 23 years ago are now Iran's most vocal reformists and fully support Khatami's policy of engagement with the West.
"The slogans that carried us forward as revolutionary students in 1980 might no longer hold all the answers to the problems of today," said Ebtekar.
Back at the "Great Satan" exhibition there are slogans aplenty.
"Negotiations and talks with America are betrayal and foolish" reads one quotation attributed to current Supreme Leader Khamenei.
The exhibition contains a series of scenes "to show the new generation what crimes America has carried out in Iran and the rest of the world," said Ali Mirzaei, one of the guides.
A mock-up of the U.S. Embassy, complete with copies of the "secret" documents allegedly uncovered, is presented as are innovative recreations of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the Vietnam war and U.S. support for Israel.
Another room attacks the symbols of Western cultural depravity such as CDs, gambling, drugs and even pet dogs.
In the room a male mannequin, wearing a baseball cap and engrossed in a glossy magazine, is about to fall off a precipice.
"When young people are busy with the cultural distractions of the West, they don't have time to move with the (Islamic) revolution," Mirzaei said. |
