Limed for the Truth

That’s what I think we’ll hear in a few months when the seemingly inevitable bombing of Iran finally happens. Are there any other choices? Why not negotiate?

No convincing reason is given. Many neo-conservatives would argue that it would be detrimental to US efforts to engender a revolution against the government, but the US is all but impotent in that regard. It would be cool if the State Department’s $75 million cheerleading policy could work, but I doubt that it will. Sending money to opposition groups and NGOs inside Iran, if it’s possible, is ineffective because they can be easily infiltrated by government agents. The opposition groups outside are disunited, and have no useful connections inside Iran. Mujahideen-e-Khalq has no popular support. The LA Persian satellite stations are good for entertainment, but not much else.

There is a strong dissatisfaction with the present regime, but no sign that thei frustrations will materialize into a popular revolution, and the conservatives have hold of all the real power. If the dissenters get louder, the government could let them have freer parliamentary elections and wait until their movement loses momentum before cracking down again, but it’s doubtful that they would just give up power, and the system is on their side. In the befuddling Iranian system -velayat-e faqih- the people elect the president, Majlis representatives who must be preapproved by the Council of Guardians, and the Assembly of Experts who pick the Supreme Leader (Khamenei, at the moment) for his lifetime appointment. The Supreme Leader picks 6 of the 12 members of the Council of Guardians; 6 more are selected by the Majlis from a list of 12 lawyers picked by the head of the judiciary. The head of the judiciary is picked by the Supreme Leader. The electorate has, in theory, a hand in picking the Supreme Leader by way of the Assembly of Experts, but its members must be clerics, and approved by the Council of Guardians. The Supreme Leader also appoints the 31 members of the Expediency Council who resolve disputes between the Council of Guardians the Majlis, the commanders of the various armed forces, and radio/television head.

Control of candidates, especially, the Council of Guardians, control of the judicary, and more importantly, control of the various security forces is important for the conservatives’ power. And unlike the Shah, the conservatives have ideologically loyal security forces in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the basij.

In the long term, I don’t see the system surviving. It gives a taste for democracy, and frustrates it with meddling. And the conservatives have penchant for miscalculation. And there are clerics, like Yusef Saanei, and Montazeri (if he had kept his mouth shut for a couple of extra months, Iran could be in a different place right now), who are uncomfortable with the relationship between religion and the state, and the damage it brings to both.

But for the foreseeable future, the conservatives are firmly in control. The reformers and students misjudged their power. They thought they could rob the system of legitimacy by boycotting it, just as they brought Khatami to power, but Ahmadinejad proved to be quite an effective populist, and the reformists did not help their image when many of them endorsed Rafsanjani in the second round of the elections they were seeking to boycott. And it seems that now he’s rousing nationalism and building up support for the government in its bid to acquire the bomb, with some success.

Iran’s other big problem is the economy. State controlled, subsidy laden, overmanaged, with almost 2 million entering the work force each year, and in need of privatization and deregulation. But many political and commercial interests (like the bazaaris) are against economic reform, and while oil is at $70 a barrel, there’s little incentive to reform. And Iranian intellectuals, much like their Arab brethren, don’t take an interest in economic matters; it is sad. A sharp dip in oil prices could force economic reforms that have political implications. Incompetent conservatives will have to concede power to a reformer (not necessarily a liberal) to open up the economy and take the state’s hand out of it. When more than 70% of the population works for the government, rebellion has high costs. But oil futures are holding steady at a high price with no signs of changing any time soon.

In short, a policy of ‘waiting for the regime to change’ has no grounding reality. And bombing hundreds of sites to set back the Iranian program, and inflicting much collateral damage, will do more harm to the America’s image in Iran than would negotiations. And at any rate, saying that negotiations would hurt America’s image is a very weak point, given that 75% of Iranians favor dialogue with the United States.

And so we ask again, why not negotiate? The Economist makes a good point. “If all options are indeed on the table, as America suggests, then it is time for the Americans to take a fresh look at the diplomatic one too.” It would be very undemocratic to use Americans’ fears of the Iranian nuclear program to precipitate a military conflict, while most want it to be solved peacefully; don’t sell regime-change as non-proliferation, especially at a time when regime-change is delivering disasters in Iraq. Do people in the Bush administration see the option with less blood as the better option? I hope so.

But I also have a feeling that policy has already been set, and there’s nothing left for us to do, so let us pray.

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 10:49 pm and is filed under World & Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.