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Enemies from within: Iran and Saudi
Arabia
By Ehsan Ahrari
Iran and Saudi Arabia are edging closer to
political instability and even cataclysmic change. In
the case of Iran, the United States prefers a change of
regime, but not for Saudi Arabia. However, regime change
might be the eventual outcome in both countries for
reasons that are essentially similar: the enemies of
regimes are inside the borders. But there are also
certain important aspects of dissimilarity in both Iran
and Saudi Arabia.
The Islamic revolution
occurred in Iran in 1979 as a powerful protest against a
highly corrupt and equally ruthless regime of Mohammad
Reza Pahlevi. At the risk of oversimplification, it
should be stated that the vanguards of that revolution
at the very outset made two significant mistakes whose
ramifications might bring about its end.
First,
they created a constitution which established the
Vilayat-e-Faqih (rule of the clergy). As such, it made
the head clergy (the Supreme Leader) both infallible and
beyond reproach. The concept of infallibility is
essentially an anti-Islamic concept, since from
theological perspectives no one is infallible, save God.
At the same time, the notion of the Vilayat-e-Faqih
sowed the seeds for the establishment of a theological
dictatorship, which was going to be as exclusionist of
the common people as the monarchy that it replaced.
The constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran
is fundamentally anti-democratic in the sense that it
allocates too much power to the Supreme Leader and his
handpicked cronies. Only a cursory review of the Iranian
constitution makes it clear that it has created an
absolute dictatorship of the Supreme Leader. The Iranian
parliament is held in check by the Council of Guardians,
a body that has power to "examine all laws passed by the
parliament to determine their compatibility with [the]
Sharia or Islamic law". The Supreme Leader appoints half
of the members of this council, and the second half are
recommended by the head of the judiciary and confirmed
by parliament. The radically conservative nature of the
council may be underscored by the fact that it has been
known to strike down up to 40 percent of the laws passed
by the government.
Another powerful body is the
Assembly of Experts, which elects the Supreme Leader
from within its ranks and has no record of challenging
any of his decisions. Under the Islamic Republic, Iran
might be the only country where the president of the
republic does not control its armed forces. On this
issue as well, the Supreme Leader has ultimate
authority.
The second mistake of the Iranian
constitution is that there are virtually no
institutional constraints on the authority of the
Supreme Leader or provisions to create some balance
between his authority and that of the president of the
Republic, who is an elected official. The Iranian
constitution makes this elected official - indeed the
entire executive branch - subordinate to the Supreme
Leader. This theological dictatorship of the Supreme
Leader, along with his cohorts in the Assembly of
Experts, Council of Guardians, Expediency Council and
the judiciary have become the chief enemies from within
of the survival of the Islamic Republic. It is
befuddling, then, why Iran even pretends to be a
democracy.
Iran is a country in which about 70
percent of the population is below the age of 30. It is
within this age group that the unemployment rate is
reported to be hovering around 24 percent. It seems that
Iran's ruling class and its young population are focused
on entirely different agendas. Within the rank and file
of the ruling establishment, the issues of contention
are liberalization of the government (rather, the denial
of it) and strict interpretation of Islam. The youth of
Iran, on the contrary, like young people anywhere else
in the world, are driven by their collective ambitions
of getting quality education so that they can get
promising jobs and a good standard of living. Many are
also enticed by the consumerism and free lifestyle of
the West. But the hardliners' insistence on making their
lust for the "good life" a crime, becomes just another
reason why the feeling of alienation regarding the
Islamic government is reported to be mounting among
young Iranians.
While the hardline ayatollahs
see popular demands for liberalization as a threat to
their authority, the liberal or moderate clerics do not
fare that much better among Iranian youth because of
their unwillingness to challenge the hardliners. The
hardliners in Iran have learned nothing from the
miserable legacy of the regime of Reza Pahlevi, its
brutality, and, above all, its repudiation to
compromise. By wittingly or unwittingly emulating those
traits of the previous regime, the hardline Islamic
clerics are pushing their rule toward the same fate.
The United States is on the sidelines of this
brewing struggle in Iran, but it is not a disinterested
party. As much trouble as the Bush administration is
currently encountering, stemming from regime change in
Iraq, it would still welcome a regime change in Iran if
it was carried out by the Iranian youth, a la the
Islamic revolution of 1979.
The pro-democracy
elements are showing their interests through radio
broadcasts from the comfortable environs of Los Angeles,
urging the Iranian youth to overthrow the ayatollahs.
Like Iraqi expatriates in the United States and Britain,
the pro-democracy groups are supported by the American
neo-conservatives. The Mujahideen-e-Khalq has their own
fight with the Islamic regime. They have even approached
the Bush administration to use them as a proxy force to
carry out regime change in Iran, much like the Northern
Alliance was used to dismantle the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan. Despite the disparate endeavors of these
groups to oust the Islamic government from Iran, the
chief threat to that country's stability, in the final
analysis, stems from the enemies from within - the
hardline ayatollahs who would rather be swept away by
the winds of change than bend and survive.
The
problem in Saudi Arabia is similar to that in Iran in
the sense that the legitimacy of the regime faces
challenges from within. But the challenge to the
stability of Saudi Arabia stems from a constant pull and
push between the forces of Islamic orthodoxy and the
nexus between militant orthodoxy and al-Qaeda. The
general understanding is that the support of that
terrorist organization comes from a number of Sunni
Muslim clerics and the population at large. However,
since Saudi Arabia is a closed society, it is well nigh
impossible to make even a reasonable judgment about the
actual number of these supporters. There is little doubt
about the strength of their commitment, though. They
will go to any extreme to fulfill their objectives of
ousting the monarchy. The suicide attacks in Riyadh of
May 12 were a declaration of war by these militants on
the Saudi monarchy.
The current dilemma for the
Saudi government is how much violent tactics it should
use to suppress and eradicate the militant orthodox and
their al-Qaeda cohorts before alienating even a larger
portion of its population. At the same time, in the eyes
of their American interlocutors, the government's
willingness to suppress these groups has become a litmus
test of its earnestness in dealing with terrorism.
The Saudi monarchy is going through an
unprecedented era when its own legitimacy is being
threatened by the hardcore orthodox-al-Qaeda nexus. At
the same time, its ties with the US have also
experienced considerable strain and tensions. It seems
that the Saudi rulers are hearing from both parties that
now-famous line of George W Bush, with a slight
modification, "Either you are with us or you are with
the enemy." Except in this case, they seem to be doomed
by choosing either side. But remaining neutral in the
evolving hardball in their polity is not an option.
Stability-related problems of Iran and Saudi
Arabia should be viewed in the larger context of South
and West Asia. Afghanistan continues to be highly
volatile. Pakistan's domestic tranquility remains a
mirage. Further west of Pakistan, Iraq is a place where
the escalating spirals of anti-Americanism have pushed
all prospects of stability into the distant future. If
Iran and Saudi Arabia were also to face instability,
then the world might witness chaos on a very large
scale.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an
Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic
analyst.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online
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