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SPEAKING FREELY
Iran: Long live
the reformers
By Nir Boms and Reza
Bulorchi
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have their
say. Please click here if you
are interested in contributing.
Defying
conventional wisdom, fresh voices of freedom appear to
be coming from the Middle East as of late. Bashar Assad
of Syria delivers his plans for democratization directly
to the New York Times. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya delivers
his to Newsweek as he claims to be an ally in the "war
against terrorism" and invites the world to review his
nuclear arsenal. Mohammad Khatami of Iran, the
"moderate" president, threatens to resign due to an
election crisis resulting from the Guardians Council's
decision to disqualify more than 3,000 candidates from
the ballot of his country's upcoming February 20
elections.
Among the disqualified candidates
were 80 incumbent parliament deputies - including two
deputy speakers. The banning of candidates, of course,
is never a positive step. But the political crisis
brewing in Iran must clearly show that voices of freedom
are indeed making headway there - right?
Wrong.
What you see is not always what you get when it comes to
the Middle East, a region that has not yet began the
process of democratic change. The cynical Syrian abuse
of the crisis in Bam, Iran - the Syrians flew
humanitarian aid into the earthquake-devastated city
only to bring back weapons for terrorist groups - is
just one example of these new cosmetics that are given
to the same old faces. Nevertheless, knowing there are
forces of reform in a country like Iran is welcome news
in Washington, where there are many who would like to
show that our policies in the Middle East are already
producing results. There is only one problem: what
Iranians have seen from Khatami and his faction over the
past seven years has been nothing more than just the
rhetoric of reform.
Iran's theocracy is based on
a theory of government called the Velayat-e
Faqih, or the absolute clerical rule. Velayat-e
Faqih is at the core of the complex structure of the
Iranian political system in which immense religious and
political authority rests with the Supreme Leader,
currently Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The
interpretation of what is or is not an "Islamic
principle" falls within the authority of the Supreme
Leader and his hand-picked Guardians Council, the
12-member body tasked with vetting candidates for their
"heart-felt" and "written" allegiance to the "Supreme
Leader".
To be sure, there are factions within
the Iranian political system, but the conflict is more
of a power grab rather than a content debate over
fundamental issues facing society, above all secular
democracy. "I have principles for my path," said Khatami
to parliament deputies, "and the most important
principle for me is to conserve the system." Indeed, the
so-called reformist faction has lost no opportunity to
conserve the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih.
In Iran, elections serve as a veneer to mask a
rigid theocracy. The mullahs have perverted the pillars
of Western democracies - elections and the parliamentary
system - and ensured that those institutions would not
pose a threat to their grip on power. This hybrid of
theocratic soul and democratic gloss has created a paper
democracy in Iran, giving ammunition to Tehran's
advocates in Washington and Europe to justify
"engagement" and "dialogue" with its clerics.
Khatami's "reformists", by the way, have some
interesting associations. Among them, you will find
Mullah Mohammed Mousavi-Khoeiniha, one of Khatami's
close allies who was fully behind the US embassy
takeover in Tehran in 1979. He was joined with the
recently deceased Ayatollah Sadiq Khalkhali, the
notorious hanging judge; Ali Akbar Mohtashami, the
terror master, who directed the Hezbollah in Lebanon in
the 1980s and is believed to have coordinated the 1983
bombing of the US Marine barrack in Beirut; the US
embassy hostage-takers; the architects of the Ministry
of Intelligence and former commanders of the
Revolutionary Guards. These and others were baptized as
"reformers" following Khatami's presidency.
And
this brings us to one of the biggest deceptions since
Khatami's presidency in 1997: promise of rule of law and
civil society. In a system erected on the
anti-democratic doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih, this
is a non-starter. This principle was built into the
constitution to make it, in essence, reform-proof. In
fact, the biggest beneficiary of Khatami's mantra of
"rule of law" has been the rival faction that
consistently invoked it, casting aside the president's
faction by applying the existing election and press
laws. In Iran, rule of law means rule of Velayat-e
Faqih. In other words, Islamic Sharia law. The
establishment never gave Khatami's faction any real say
in domestic policies. His smile, his citing of
Montesquieu and Alexis de Tocqueville, and his shallow
discourses on lofty topics such as Islam and democracy
and dialogue between civilizations served as a
diplomatic facelift for Tehran.
The Iranian
government is already besieged by domestic, social and
political crises, as well as by international pressure
for its sponsorship of terrorism and procurement of
nuclear weapons. And despite the brave face they keep in
public, Iran's leaders cannot escape the reality of what
has happened in its neighboring countries to the east
and the west.
The Guardians Council's move has
made one thing abundantly clear: under the current
political structure a metamorphosis of the Islamic
Republic from within by the likes of Khatami is an
impossible task and a "reformed" Velayat-e Faqih
system is a contradiction in terms. Change - by way of
genuine reform - can only come from inside the country,
but outside this regime.
US Secretary of State
Colin Powell has recently talked about Iran's
"encouraging" moves and "new attitude". This is
misplaced praise for a regime that still thrives on
domestic terror and the export of fundamentalism. We
need to see the clerical regime for what it really is: a
theocracy, intrinsically and structurally incapable of
reform. After a quarter of a century of acquiescence,
the US must help the Iranian people and opposition
forces tear down the clerics' house of cards.
Reza Bulorchi is the executive
director of the US Alliance for Democratic Iran. Nir
Boms is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense
of Democracies.
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click here if you
are interested in contributing.
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