subplotkudzu | Final thoughts on Iran

I've been in a ongoing Facebook debate about the situation in Iran, and for the sake of putting everything in one place (and avoiding the character limit for posting) I felt it best to put a final version of my thoughts here. I'm unlikely to change from these positions without hard evidence otherwise, so people can comment but should not expect further debate.

Any who disagree are of course welcome to do so, but I feel that I have laid out an argument based on history with a strong moral grounding.

First, what happened in Iran? Lovely as the narrative of there being noble protesters out to overthrow their oppressive regime is, I don't see it as being that simple. There are several behind the scenes players (such as the oligarch backing Mousavi) and cultural assumptions that make it hard for we outsiders to get a grip on things.

Mousavi ran on a platform of modest reforms with a lot of backing from Iran's burgeoning middle class. Ahmadinejad ran as a populist, nationalist firebrand, and apparently maintained a high degree of support nationwide. Supreme Leader Khamenei didn't like the idea of reform and has a personal grudge against Mousavi. The reformers had been gaining ground, and Khamenei seemed to fear that a close election (likely involving a run-off to get someone 51% of the vote) would just embolden the reformers so they would redouble their efforts. It appears he felt an overwhelming Ahmadinejad victory would both be accepted and convince the reformists that they lacked support and should give up. Hence the 60+% Ahmadinejad 'victory' in an election that he might well have won anyway, albeit after a run-off election.

Note that, if true, this is not a bad strategy: in Russia, Putin certain has no qualms about using state power to secure overwhelming wins when he (or his cronies) is popular enough to win in any event. Overwhelming victories give you an air of broad based support. But Khamenei's efforts were ham-fisted and instead inflamed the reformists into public protests against the stolen election. Mousavi is being swept along by these protests: ostensibly their goal is to see a fair election, but many protesters likely want more reform than he or his patron do. But I haven't seen any evidence that the protestors want to scrap the entire Revolutionary government. Most want to replace who is in it with people who will follow the laws. The protests appear to be against not the government's form but its office holders.

We do know that the protests have taken on characteristics and tactics of the 1979 revolutionary protests, and the regime is responding in the same way the Shah did: repressive violence. The 1979 revolutionary tactics have resonance in Iranian culture, so Khamenei is right to be afraid. His powerful state apparatus might well keep him in power, but he has lost legitimacy in the places where the protestors are, and might well lose it nationwide if they go on much longer. The key date is now the 40th day of mourning (an important event in Islam) for Neda, the beautiful young female protestor whose death has become a symbol for the movement. The '79 revolution used those 40th day events repeatedly to gain support and undermine the Shah. So we have a likely flashdate some 30 days in the future.

This is incredibly simplified. As I said, the players are chaotic and the rules are not Western.

Second, should we get more involved? So far the Obama administration has backed a moderate approach, decrying the violence but not embracing the reformist's cause. (Though I have seen comments from Iranian-Americans on the web pointing out the dog whistles in Obama's last speech: he used the word Justice, one of the pillars of Islam and a founding principle of the Iranian revolution, multiple times and didn't mention Democracy at all; he might be embracing them in a way that isn’t directly noticeable in the West.) He is also pointing out that in areas that matter to American national interests, such as the Iranian nuclear program, there is no difference between the candidates so we have pressing national security need to interfere. In this strategy he is being backed by Iranian pro-democracy advocates, along with 42% of the American people. 9 % think he has already done too much. But 35%, as well as several pundits and much of the Republican Party establishment, think he should be doing more.

My opinion here is that he's on the right track, because I see limiting our engagement as being beneficial to the protestor's cause, and think that a Mousavi government will be marginally superior for the Iranian public. Why do I think our not getting involved will help?

a) The protestors don't appear to be asking for our help. The presence of Twitter and other forms of electronic communication give us a zeitgeist view of the protestor's plans. I'm only keeping half an eye on these things due to work pressures, but I haven't seen any begging for our involvement, or even questions as to why we haven't yet gotten involved. They are full of denunciations of the regime and calls of death to the tyrants, so the protestors don't seem afraid to speak their mind. They also aren't carrying signs at their protests pleading for US involvement. Mousavi has made several public statements that were quickly distributed via the web, and he is not asking for our support either.

Here are two Iranian Twitters from yesterday, via Andrew Sullivan:

1 voice from Tehran: many were waiting for Obama to "condemn" #iranelection violence, which he did today. "He's in the right spot"

Obama's comments worth a read, v. strong words, tho delicate effort to avoid apprnce of meddling

b) Iranian culture has a long standing hatred of foreign cultures meddling in their affairs. They don't care for the United States doing it in particular after we helped overthrow their government in 53 and reinstall the Shah, the support the Shah's oppressive regime until the '79 revolution. They apparently like Americans as people, but they don't like our government meddling. In the past we have offered verbal or financial support to various reformers and asked told to stop and had the money refused - our support decreases the reformer's legitimacy amongst the countrymen, turning them into agents of a meddling foreign power. I don't see any evidence that Iranian public opinion has changed in this regard.

c) The protestors can communicate when they do want things. Their anger at CNN's glossing over things in the opening days of the protests was perfectly clear - they need the world to be watching so the regime can't sweep this under the rug. Twitter zeitgeist makes that possible. There is no reason to project our desire to help onto their actoins when they have the means to ask for help.

d) The Iranians are a proud people with a strong national heritage. They are an educated people with an awareness of the dangers they face. If they are not asking for our help - and as discussed above they have ample ways of doing so - then inserting ourselves into the situation strikes of patronizing colonialism. Even those advocating for action for the best of intentions and an honest desire to decrease the violence is not providing the help that the protestors are asking for, and likely therefore will not be met will approval. We do not and cannot know what is better for their cause and their nation then they do.

Third, what could we do if we did get involved? Assuming that the administration ultimately moves away from my arguments above, what are our options? Not much.

a) We could engage in stronger, perhaps even heated rhetoric. I don't think that would work, for the reasons stated above. There is one group in this who truly wants more footage of Obama making heated claims, and that is the regime. If the regime is going to stay in power it has to isolate the protestors cause from the general population. Their most commonly used device for this is denouncing the troublemakers as being agents of the United States. Since we helped overthrow their government in '53 by arranging for sham protests and finding uprisings the Iranians are very sensitive to this. In the absence of such footage the regime is forced to make accusations with no evidence. (One of their latest? That a CIA funded sniper was the one who killed Neda.) If we engage in such rhetoric we give them additional ammunition to undermine the protestors, ultimately hurting their cause.

b) We could push for international economic sanctions. Unfortunately, every use of sanctions against an autocratic regime bent on staying in power - a position in which Khamenei has now placed himself - has had the reverse effect. Sanctions may weaken a regime, but they weaken the populace, and hence the opposition, faster, giving the regime a net win. The protestors are the Iranian middle class, and would be devastated by economic changes. The 20% unemployment rate can right now be blamed on the regime's economic policies. A 30%+ unemployment rate post sanctions would be blamed on sanctions, giving the regime cover for their failures. Finally, sanctions are economic warfare, and countries under attack tend towards nationalism - sanctions would drive the undecided to back the regime in the face of the foreign meddling. Ultimately, all of this would hurt the protestors cause.

c) We could threaten violence. After all, we do have an army right next door, right? Well, no, not really. In Q1 of 2008 the US government was pushing for a State of Forces Agreement with Iraq that would give us strong permanent bases in the country that we could use as force projection points in the region - similar to what we have in Germany, Japan and South Korea. (This is the origin of McCain's remark about being in Iran for 50 to 100 years.) The Iraqi government soundly rejected this, and ultimately negotiated a SOFA that had all US troops out of the country by the end of 2010. Given that, how do you think the sovereign Iraqi government would react to our plans to launch a war from their territory against Iran, their co-religionist neighbor and backer of several of their key political parties? The Iranian regime knows this, but would be perfectly willing to air our threats as evidence of foreign meddling to stir up nationalistic sentiment, ultimately hurting their cause.

d) We could engage in actual violence. This would, of course, kill many of the protestors we are trying to protect from the regime's violence, which is counter-productive. The protestors are not Iraqis struggling under decades of brutal tyranny, but people engaging in demonstrations to take reform their existing government, so they are not likely to be happy to see us destroy their infrastructure and run tanks across their border. The events in Iraq should be ample demonstration that we don't invade a country without concrete plans to rebuild it. Do you think we have those plans? Do we have the resources for another occupation? (If you don't like the deficit projections now, add another war onto them.)

Final thoughts: There isn't more to do than we are doing. It sucks to have to watch when we want to do more, but until the Iranians ask for more, the best course of action in the one we're on. If they do ask for more we are still left without good options for how to help, which I suspect they know as well.