American Journalists Want Iranian Civil War
By David Yeagley
7-16-2002
American journalists and politicians seem anxious for another violent revolution in Iran. They think the current student demonstrations in Tehran are America’s cue to once again presumptuously meddle in Iranian affairs, and to bring about the triumph of Western values.
S. Rob Sobhani’s “Loud and Clear,” in The Washington Times (7-11-02) may have the right title for his interpretation of the students’ demonstrations, but, as in Michael Ledeen’s earlier piece, “Iranﾒs Next Revolution,” in The Wall Street Journal (6-5-02), Sobhani also seems over-anxious to see a revolutionary rift between the general population of Iran and their oppressive government.
But they’re making a big mistake. The current demonstrations of Iranian university students call for basic human rights, not for radical, social change.
Clearly, American’s want to see Iran reinstated in to the Western sphere of economics. Americans are anxious to remove that “Death to America” image which has stuck to the face of Iran since 1979, and to reverse that violent revolution which ousted American interests from the country.
Sobhani is quite right to point out Iranian president Khatami’s direct support of rank terrorism. Khatami’s preferred image of a reformist moderate is a façade. He is an anti-Zionist radical, and endorses the jihad approach to political problems: cowardly violence.
But American journalists are overstating their hope for radical changes in Iran. Americans are just deeply frustrated with Iran, and our lately renewed patriotic fervor incited by the 9-11 attack on the WTC makes us very excited to see any sign of Western leanings in Iran.
After America entered the nebulous war on terrorism, our journalists have become quick to dramatize their own reactions to any positive news from Iran. They immediately and presumptuously suggest that Iranian people want what the journalists want. American journalists want to see another violent revolution in Iran. It would express some deep sense of justice for America, so ‘rudely’ kicked out 23 years ago.
Therefore, journalists rally behind Iranian student demonstrations. “The people of Iran,” says Sobhani, “look to Washington for moral clarity: ‘Are you with us or with the regime?’” Sobhani wants it to appear that Iran is ready for change, and all America has to do is support it. Furthermore, he suggests, America is obligated to do so.
This is an invitation to Iranian civil war. This is clearly a moral taunting, a temptation for America to set up another Shah, as if none of the mistakes America made before 1979 could possibly be repeated, as if none of the people of Iran would oppose any of the immoral social values of liberal America.
But journalists who want another revolution must draw the battle lines clearly. They must separate “the people” from “the government,” if there is ever going to be an overthrow of the government. They bend statistics to this end.
That’s not so easy a task for realistic observers. Iran is full of left-over communists from the past decades of Russian influence. There are monarchists, democrats, and of course, theocratic Muslims. It’s as if the spirit of ancient Persian internationalism bequeathed a modern Iranian taste for a wide variety of political views, but no modern leader that can manage such pluralism with wisdom.
Ahmad Kasravi once said, “People who have no love for their country and do not value national affairs will undoubtedly be dominated by foreigners, who will put the shackles of slavery around their necks. This is the result of the behavior of the clerics.” On Islam & Shi‘ism (1946, trans. M.R.Ghanoonparvar).
This statement seems to characterize modern Iranian people, to a degree. Iranians are exceedingly broad-minded by nature and historical tradition. However, since the days of Islam in Iran (651 AD), the people have been ‘shackled’ not only to a foreign, Arab invasion, but an alien religion.
The religion, however, the people accepted. It was a universal, international religion, and appealed to their sense of imperialism. In their hands, it soon developed a new international dimension. “Persian culture…led the Islamic Empire into its golden age,” says Sandra Mackey, The Iranians (1996).
Islam, however, robbed Iranians of a vital sense of individual nationhood. This very sense is what Iran must recover. It must be recovered by the people, from within. American must not presume to interfere the second time. That will only produce yet another unstable regime, founded on foreign values, and destined to fall.
Let Iran create its own foundations, without foreign provocation. Americans who love Iran will not tempt her into bloodshed with naïve enthusiasm for revolutionary change.
|
