Is Iran right on the edge of a Revolution? Should we be giving them more help? Ledeen thinks so. From NRO.
November 25, 2002 8:30 a.m.
How Tyrannies Fall
Opportunity time in Iran.
If the American government, or the chatterers, or the academy were at all serious about trying to understand the real world, we would be in the midst of a discussion of the potentially earth-shaking events in Iran. And the main topic of discussion would be how close we are to the downfall of the mullahcracy in Tehran. Last Friday something like half a million Iranian citizens took to the streets to demonstrate their disgust with the regime of the Islamic Republic (the very same Islamic Republic with which some of our diplomats unaccountably continue to make deals, and which our secretary of state unaccountably refuses to condemn in the same clear language used by the president, the national-security adviser, and the secretary of defense). Contrary to what little you have been able to read in the popular press, these demonstrations were not limited to Tehran, but spread all over the country, with amazing results. And it was particularly noteworthy that there were very large numbers of female participants; in Tehran, some people I spoke to estimated that between one-half and two-thirds of the demonstrators were women.
In some cities ? notably Isfahan, traditionally the epicenter of political unrest in Persia ? the regime's thugs attacked the demonstrators, only to be driven out. Over the weekend, it was unclear just who was in control in Isfahan, Tabriz, Shiraz and Mashad. By Sunday, the fanatical Basij ? the volunteer thugs who are responsible for "order" in the streets ? were busily attacking and arresting anyone who did not meet their standards, and the regime's top leaders were issuing warnings to the nation ? and to us.
Sunday's demonstration in Tehran was held in front of the old American embassy, and the Revolutionary Guards and Basij who gathered there were treated to fiery rhetoric from the RG leader, Safavi, and former president (and one of the two most powerful men in the country) Rafsanjani. Both blamed the United States for the unrest, and for those who think we can make a deal with these people to help us fight Saddam Hussein, Safavi had a clear message: "An American presence in Iraq is totally unacceptable to us." As I have been saying for many months now, the regime is preparing to attack us when/if we finally liberate Iraq.
Rafsanjani declared war: "They (the Americans) are pushing us from all sides, but we will push back somewhere else," no doubt referring to the recent wave of Islamic terror in Indonesia, Jordan, Israel, and Kashmir, echoing his earlier warning that Iran would respond to the Axis of Evil speech "in the American heartland," and perhaps prefiguring attacks against us in Afghanistan, where their creature Hekmatiar is said to be preparing a terrorist spectacular of some sort.
But, for the first time in many years, there are clear signs of internal division, now between Rafsanjani and the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei. Last Friday, a special committee of the Basij openly decried widespread corruption within the government and the regime, and demanded that Rafsanjani himself account for his vast personal wealth (a question that could probably be best answered by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, for Dubai serves Iran's rulers as playground, merchant bank, and transshipment terminal for smuggled Iraqi oil and a cornucopia of weapons headed for Iran, Iraq, and the Palestinian Authority). It is close to certain that the Basij would never have made such a demand without the supreme leader's approval. At the same time, the Basij stormed the education ministry, under the pretext of searching for evidence that the minister was secretly supporting the student demonstrations.
Rafsanjani and his allies are preparing still greater repression for the suffering people of Iran, due o be launched on Wednesday, and already on Sunday members of the failed reformist movement were telling the students to calm down, so as not to provide a pretext for the looming crackdown. But it is by no means clear that the regime has the blind loyalty of the security forces any longer; during the recent demonstrations there were several instances of defections to the demonstrators' side, and even the Revolutionary Guards have been subjected to repeated purges, as the mullahs seek desperately to find willing killers and torturers.
Which brings us back to the debate-that-is-not-happening. How can we tell when a regime is about to fall? The key ingredient is not the sort of thing that the political scientists talk about in the academies, because it can't be measured, only smelled: It is a combination of failure of nerve at the top, and resolute desperation from below. On both counts, the trends are encouraging, but brutal repression is invariably successful if it is delivered with overwhelming strength, and the would-be revolutionaries cannot effectively cope with it.
We do not know how this will play out in the coming days and weeks, but one thing is already luminously clear: The Bush administration has missed an opportunity to strike a massive blow against the terror masters. If, instead of winking and nodding at various Iranian emissaries and back channels, we had supported the Iranian people with money, effective radio and television, and modern communications gear, the regime could very well have been smashed this past weekend. We may well have similar opportunities in the future, even the near future, and it would be wise if the deep thinkers in Foggy Bottom started pondering how to fulfill our revolutionary tradition rather than how best to appease Iran's oppressors.
It would help, too, if some of our misnamed "major media" devoted some energy to this hugely important but almost totally unreported story. Students have been on hunger strike in Isfahan for weeks, but not a word about it has been published or spoken over here. The monster Friday demonstrations received only token coverage, and most of that spoke as if the regime had put them down with little difficulty.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post, to its great credit, ran a fascinating front-page story on Sunday about the dreadful implementation of Islamic law (sharia) in Nigeria. For those who read it carefully, there was a telling statement from one of Nigeria's activist Islamists, who noted that the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was the great turning point in the spread of radical Islam in West Africa. "If they could do it in Iran, why not here?" he said.
When the Islamic Republic finally comes down, and we get to read the files, I'll bet you a dollar to your doughnut that Nigerian Muslims got ? and today get ? lots of help from Tehran. The mullahs have extended their network deep into the biggest Islamic countries, from Nigeria to Indonesia. Sooner or later our leaders, and maybe even our journalists and intellectuals, will figure this out. Let's hope it doesn't take a whole series of September 11-type disasters before they get there.
Faster, confound it!
? Michael Ledeen's new book, The War Against the Terror Masters, has just been published by St Martin's Press. |
