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Iran is not Iraq, 2009 is not 1979, and Obama is not W

By Patricia H. Kushlis

In 2005, a student of mine began his report to the class on the relationship between politics and Islam in Iran with the title “Iran is not Iraq.” Most, if not all of the students in that upper division Islam and Politics class already knew it but his was a particularly effective opening, and as he told me later, far too few Americans knew the difference between the two countries at the time of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and fewer still could differentiate between these two large Middle Eastern countries on the map.

Presumably, after the events in Iran over the past couple of weeks and the heavy news coverage here far more Americans may – hopefully - now recognize some of the major differences between the two countries. These include the facts that the majority of Iranians speak Farsi or a Farsi dialect while most Iraqis speak either Arabic or Kurdish; that almost all Iranians are Shiite Muslims while Iraqis are either Sunni or Shiite; that Iraq was an artificial entity patched together from three former Ottoman provinces by the British during the colonial period while Iran traces its origins to the Persian Empire; and finally that Iraq has been governed as a secular state since its independence in 1932 whereas Iran has been controlled by a Shiite theocracy since 1979. There are more differences, but enough for now.

Hopefully Americans also realize that there is a huge internal political struggle underway in Iran that burst into the open in the streets in reaction to the Iranian regime’s mangling the aftermath of the country’s recent presidential election.

Getting It Wrong

by Cheryl Rofer

Here's a crabby post to start your Monday morning wrong. If you are having a bad Monday, don't click on the links. They'll make it worse.

But I found these three articles so egregiously wrong, I wanted to say something about them. Unfortunately (or maybe happily), I don't have time to work through them in detail. Maybe Tuesday will be better.

It's Not the Religion, Fareed!
I like much of what Fareed writes, but here he's reeeaaaaccchhhing for a way to distinguish the people in Iran's streets today from the people in Estonia's streets in 1989. And the other countries that emerged from Communist rule in 1989-1991. He looks around, and finds...religion! The parallels of those countries to Iran fail for a number of reasons. It was an external power, Russian Communism, that held sway in a colonial fashion. Those countries had reasonably well-developed political movements with clear paths of the insurgents to power. Religion was used in Poland as a lever, but it was much weaker in other places. That's why I've gone back to the Russian Revolution of 1917 as an analogy. It's not perfect, but it's much closer than the revolutions of 1989-1991.

Because They're Illegal, That's Why!
Jackson Diehl insists this morning that President Obama go back to business as usual with Israel.

Pressuring Israel made sense, at first. The administration correctly understood that Netanyahu, a right-winger who took office with the clear intention of indefinitely postponing any Israeli-Palestinian settlement, needed to feel some public heat from Washington to change his position -- and that the show of muscle would add credibility to the administration's demands that Arab leaders offer their own gestures.

The gesture has been made, time to return to hypocrisy.

Diehl ignores the UN resolutions and international law on the settlements to argue that they are a trivial bit of fluff that don't matter, and anyway if Israel makes any concessions, the Palestinians won't. And Obama will have to back down and lose face. But perhaps not. A competing newspaper reports this morning that Israel may put some sort of freeze in place; not exactly what the administration is asking for, but more than Israel would have done without the pressure. And we'll see where it goes from here.

Ross Douthat's Reckless Romance
This one is just plain sexism. But what can we expect from the New York Times's pet conservative man? Douthat finds the last week to have been a good one for reckless romance.

The nation’s most famous reality-television father, Jon Gosselin of “Jon and Kate Plus Eight,” threw over his marriage for a fling with a 23-year-old schoolteacher. Not one but two prominent conservative politicians torpedoed their careers with public confessions of adultery — with Mark Sanford’s Argentine disappearing act eclipsing John Ensign’s accusation of extortion against his lover’s spouse.

Um, Ross, those are all guys breaking up their marriages. Romance has some mutuality to it, and I can't see any of the women involved in those scenarios feeling particularly good just now. But reckless romance rules in Ross's fantasyland. Oh well, he's the guy who thought that cartoon character had to be male. I saw her as female, myself. Who else would have to correct all the guys who are getting it wrong on the internet? (That last one is safe to click.)

Whither Iran

By: Bill Stewart

The Islamic Republic of Iran is no longer a theocracy; it has become a military dictatorship. Iran was never a democracy, not even under the Shah. But much of its current institutional framework could be made to work as one. Parliament was freely elected, as was the presidency. The problem has been that there is an unelected religious framework that runs parallel to, around and through the elected secular institutions. In practice, it is this unelected body of mullahs and clerics who have the final say in all matters secular and religious.

At the top has been the Supreme Leader, chosen for life, who is thought to be - and sees himself - as God's spokesman and guardian of the principles of Shia Islam. In short, he plays the role of an all-powerful medieval pope, or an equally powerful medieval Caliph. He cannot be disobeyed. Just below him stands the 12-member Council of Guardians, which can veto any law and any candidate for parliament or the presidency. The Supreme Leader and the Guardians have played their respective roles with increasing abandon, convinced they are right because, in the name of God, they are doing God's work. We have our own examples in western history. Remember the Divine Right of Kings? In the long sweep of history, that was not so long ago. Even today, in matters of faith and morals, the pope is deemed to be infallible. The difference is that today, one does not get bloodied by the pope or his guardians for daring to disagree. That was not always the case.

Still Not 1913

by Cheryl Rofer

I’d like to thank Mark and others for the discussion about what decreasing the numbers of nuclear weapons and even eliminating them might do to the world. I remain unconvinced, however, that eliminating them, or decreasing them significantly, would take us back to the bad old days of 1913.

First, however, a word about my method. Mark took my argument to be that democracies don’t go to war against each other. My earlier post probably wasn’t clear, but that’s not what I said, and I’m going in a different direction. I find that argument to be poorly supported. I am working out a longer and more complex argument here; I find blogging and discussion useful for that sort of thing. So we’re in the middle of a work in progress: sometimes it may look like one thing and sometimes something else.

Mark argues several points.

Turning Points

by Cheryl Rofer

A while back, before I even started thinking about reading Nicholas and Alexandra, I was at a dinner with a noted diplomat. One of the other attendees was almost totally focused on what might have happened, had the Tsar and Tsarina not become so dependent on Rasputin. Or perhaps her turning point was the Tsarevich’s hemophilia. I didn’t listen closely, because I found her monopolization of the guest of honor with this stuff annoying. I had some things I would have liked to ask him.

The Russian Revolution certainly looks like a turning point, and it can look like the problems with Rasputin, which probably would not have happened had the Tsarevich not had hemophilia, were “the” trigger. But there were problems even before Nicholas became Tsar, long before he married Alexandra, long before Tsarevich Alexei was born.

Do Pictures Lie?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Not exactly.  But our interpretations may be way way off.

Look at this photo.  Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari is extending two hands and he’s smiling—grinning really, as if he’s trying hard to be agreeable. He wants to be friends, and he wants the camera to get this.  But Manmohan Singh, India’s Prime Minister, apparently isn’t buying it.  His body is rigid.  He’s allowing, just barely, his hand to be grasped.  The absolute diplomatic minimum.  Aha! I thought, when I first saw this photo, a wonderfully graphic indication that Singh and India want as little as possible to do with Pakistan, until Pakistan takes stronger action against those behind the murderous rampage in Mumbai last year. 

So that’s how I was going to play it when I was writing my post on Pride and Paralysis.  

Fortunately before I’d posted that draft, I came across another photo, this one of all the principals at the BRIC conference in Russia.  Look at Manmohan Singh, who has no reason to be conveying anything negative in this situation.  The same aloof body posture.  That now familiar, seemingly reluctant participation in the rite when all the others are reaching eagerly into a two handed press-the-flesh fest for photographers.   (This time, of course, there is a ghost of a smile, which may or may not mean anything. )

So I advance another hypothesis, which I’ll share with you.  Manmohan Singh does what’s necessary, diplomatically, but maybe he really doesn’t like handshakes.  As an Indian of the old school, he may prefer a namaste.  Folded hands.  Gentle reserve.  No physical contact.

But that, too, is only a guess.

Photo Credits:  The Hindu; The New York Times.

Bits and Pieces

by Cheryl Rofer

Volcanic Eruption from Space
Gorgeous photos, with a good explanation, here of a volcanic eruption on Matua Island, which is part of the Kurile chain between Russia and Japan.

Kyrgyzstan is On Again
Kyrgyzstan is now saying that the United States will be allowed to stay at the Manas Airbase. The US will be paying higher rent. It's easy to conclude that it's all about the money, but I continue to believe that complex politics between Russia and Kyrgyzstan, combined with Russia's desire to have more to say about NATO's actions in Afghanistan, are part of the mix. Supplying troops in Afghanistan is really difficult. Ask Alexander the Great. Ask the Brits. Ask the Russians. It might be one of the factors that should be weighted more heavily in considering whether the US should be in Afghanistan.

Nixon and Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program
This New York Times article almost incidentally contains a link to a recently declassified document on how Richard Nixon was dealing with Israel's nuclear weapons program. There's other interesting stuff in the article, too, and nothing particularly surprising in the document. But always interesting to see something of how things were actually playing out.

Angels and Devils in the Streets

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

It all seemed so natural, the presence of women, lots of women, among the protesters thronging the streets of Tehran and elsewhere.  I noticed and yet I didn’t notice.  After all, in most countries, females are slightly more than half of the population.

The I saw the photos of the crowds last Friday when the Supreme Leader was to address the nation after prayers.  Men. Men. Men.  Not a woman in sight.

The Basij swinging heavy chains and brandishing batons and driving motorcycles into crowds of unprotected people are men, too.  The election has been rigged to favor the candidate who would happily take women out of the universities and lock them securely in their homes, just as the Taliban do, never mind the theological differences between Shi’a and Wahabis.

But of course the streets this past week were also seething with men, old, middle-aged and young.  Especially the young.  So time is against the present regime.  Each sequence of protests against rigged elections is stronger than the one before.  The trend is clear.  This explosion of outrage may be sputtering out, but the anger and the commitment to change will smolder, always ready to flare up again.

I wonder what Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei says to Allah, these days, when the ritual part of prayer is over, when he speaks to his god without a script.  How does he explain that his stewardship of the Islamic Republic has degenerated to the point that he can only rule through demonic gangs of sadists in masks?    

In fact he has now threatened a “decisive confrontation,” a “revolutionary” one, at that.  Yet Al Jezeera reports that the streets have not emptied out. One hopes the fearsome-looking thugs will be greeted by thousands of pictures of the Angel of the Streets, Neda Agha Soltan, a beautiful  26-year old student who was shot by a sniper in Teheran on Saturday.  The irony, of course, is that Neda wasn’t demonstrating.  She was just on her way home from a music lesson.

But what difference does that make?  Women shouldn’t be gadding about—even with their fiancés—and what’s this about music?  Not exactly Islamic, according to the more puritanical sorts.  So demonstrating or not, she had obviously been corrupted by foreign ideas. 

So good riddance to bad rubbish. After all, she was only a woman.

Except now she’s a martyr.  And the regime is so terrified over her death that they wouldn’t let her family give her a proper Muslim burial.

Which, once again, provokes the question: who’s the good Muslim?