An Iranian ‘no’ to imposed democracy
On June 13, United States Congressman Brad Sherman introduced legislation into the Committee on International Relations and the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives for the purpose of “fostering democracy and freedom in Iran.”
Sherman’s bill is aimed at providing assistance to Iranian dissidents and opposition television broadcasters based in the United States, reimposing a total embargo on Iranian goods that had been partially lifted and giving President George W. Bush the authority to reduce US payments to the World Bank and other international financial institutions that provide loans to the Iranian government. The bill was cosponsored by 22 members of Congress and will be introduced for discussion on the floor in the near future. The so-called Iran Democracy and Freedom Support Act includes provisions from a previous Iran Democracy Act, submitted by Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican.
Proponents of the bill are among the staunchest supporters of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government in Israel and have close links to pro-Israel groups in Washington. They also have ties to others who regularly take a hard-line on Iran, including Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Richard Perle, the former Pentagon official who supported the US invasion of Iraq and has strongly advocated regime-change in the Middle East.
After Bush’s “axis of evil” speech, and especially in the past two months, tensions between the United States and Iran have greatly escalated. Pushing for a confrontation has been a coalition including Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Washington neoconservatives, the Israeli government and Iranian expatriates.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the European Union (EU) have prescribed a different approach. For example, on Oct. 28 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Iran and invited in Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. In his testimony Armitage declared the US would not pursue regime-change in Iran and would attempt other means to encourage democratization there.
However, such an attitude is not to everyone’s liking. US neocons have urged State to take a tougher approach to Iran. Similarly, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was pressured by Washington to condemn Tehran for violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and encouraged to pave the way for Security Council involvement in possible sanctions.
The Bush administration’s mounting problems in Iraq and its desire to further involve the Europeans in the Iraqi conflict forced it to reluctantly accept the EU’s softer position on Iranian NPT violations. The foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France visited Tehran in October and convinced the Iranian government to accept IAEA demands. Under pressure from President Mohammad Khatami and the EU, conservatives within the Iranian government agreed to go along with this. Iran agreed to sign the Additional Protocol to the NPT, which gives the IAEA the right to conduct more intrusive inspections of atomic sites, without prior notice.
Iran’s agreement to sign the Additional Protocol was not enough for the neocons in Washington and the Sharon government. With the implicit approval of the US, Sharon threatened to take matters into Israel’s own hands and bomb Iranian nuclear facilities if the IAEA did not adopt a tougher stance.
As US foreign policy toward Iran has continued to swing between those favoring confrontation and those advocating a less provocative approach, the “confrontationalists” have failed to adequately consider the implications of their policies for Iran, the Middle East, and the international community. Iran’s goodwill in Afghanistan and Iraq, and its cooperation with the IAEA, has made little difference in the overall Washington mindset. The Sherman bill has the stamp of the neocons, the pro-Israel lobby and Iranian expatriates, who all advocate regime-change imposed from outside, rather than through domestic reform. So far, the behavior of the US and Israel suggests they are unconcerned about the establishment of Iranian democracy; rather, they seek a government in Tehran that is incapable of challenging American and Israeli hegemony in the region.
The Iranian expatriates encouraging the antagonistic US policies against Iran are mostly monarchists who supported the late shah’s tyranny to the end. They, too, care little for Iranian democracy, and wish merely to see a return of the old regime. The Sherman bill seeks to give US financial support to this group under the rubric “opposition broadcasters,” since the monarchists have established over 10 international television and radio stations in the US in order to destabilize the Iranian government. This group has negligible support in Iran, even inside opposition groups and in the student movements.
The opposition and democratic movements inside Iran are formed around nationalist and religious-nationalist groups, who advocate reform and change from within. These groups are critical of past and current American policies toward Iran, in particular the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup against the democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh, which brought Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi back to power. They mistrust American claims of democratization because they believe the Bush administration has built up close links to individuals who lack any democratic credentials in Iran.
The Iranian nationalists, religious-nationalists and reformers also argue that American policies have severely undermined their own political aspirations and agendas. Such legislation as the Iran Democracy and Freedom Support Act, they argue, plays into the hands of Iranian conservatives, allowing them to justify their tight grip on power and their suppression of dissent under the guise of defending against an outside threat. Similarly, the Iranian expatriates supporting the US legislation know well that they do not have support inside Iran and, therefore, benefit from any confrontation with the US, since this can postpone homegrown Iranian reform initiatives.
Iran is not the only country that the United States has problems understanding, at least if one reads former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski correctly. He recently described American behavior in this way: “(It) can be summed up in a troubling paradox regarding the American position and the role in the world today. American power worldwide is at its historic zenith. American global political standing is at its nadir. Why? What is the cause of this? These are facts. They are measurable facts.
They’re also felt facts when one talks to one’s friends abroad who, like America, value what we treasure, but do not understand our policies, are troubled by our actions, and are perplexed by what they perceive to be either demagogy or mendacity.”
Mehdi Noorbaksh is a professor at the Center for International Studies at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/11_12_03_b.asp