ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

IRAN AND REGIME CHANGE: Leave it to the Iranians (Hooman Peimani, 8/04/03, Asia Times)

Unlike what some hawkish policy makers in Washington might think, Iran is a totally different society from those of Afghanistan and Iraq in terms of history, social fabric and development, political aspirations and economic, industrial, scientific and military capabilities. As a result, the American experience in those countries on "regime change" is simply inapplicable to Iran. Despite the depth of social dissatisfaction with the status quo and a clear desire for a secular political system, as citizens of an ancient country now a regional power with claims to a higher international status, Iranians will not act according to any Washington-envisaged plan.

In particular, unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has a genuine popular pro-democracy movement with a clear, but yet to be achieved, demand for a democratic political system, whose roots can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century. Internal and external factors have since muted that movement during certain periods. However, social and economic necessities have made it reemerge in intervals.

Iran's first major popular movement for democracy resulted in the 1906 Constitutional Revolution, which changed the Qajar Dynasty's despotic monarchy into a constitutional one. The subsequent suppression of that revolution and the restoration of despotism, although not in name, muted the movement until 1941, when Allied forces occupied Iran. Unintentionally, that development weakened the despotic Pahalvi Dynasty, the successor of the aforementioned. Such new political environment helped surface the movement one more time, which lasted until 1953 when an Anglo-American coup restored the Shah to power.

The pro-democracy movement reappeared in the early 1960s, only to be suppressed again in 1963 as the Shah consolidated his power. Social necessities helped its reemergence in 1976 in the form of an expanding popular movement with clear democratic demands. Thanks to three decades of suppression, the weakness of the political parties with democratic platforms enabled a faction of the dissatisfied clergy to gain the movement's leadership. Thus, the Shah's overthrow in 1979 did not bring about a democratic political system. Yet such demands remained a popular aspiration until 1981, when the ruling clergy resorted to a massive suppression of all opposition forces in its bid for consolidation. The profound social and economic developments of the 1980s and the 1990s created grounds for the reemergence of the democratic movement in the second half of the 1990s.

Has Mr. Peimani by any chance noticed that the destabilization of Iran is being handled completely fdifferently than was that of Afghanistan and Iraq? In fact, it is being handled more like Palestine was. And, just as pre-existing conditions in Palestine masde it fairly easy to replace Yasar Arafat using only rhetorical means, so too the particular dynamic of Shi'a society makes it comparatively easy to topple just about any Iranian government. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 4, 2003 10:28 AM