Subject: Iran in Crisis

From: "KAMAL L IBRAHIM" <kli2@copticdigest.com>

Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 00:06:33 -0400

by Daniel Pipes

New York Post

July 23, 2002

<http://www.danielpipes.org/article/435>http://www.danielpipes.org/article/435

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/53098.htm

Militant Islam is on the ascendant almost everywhere around the globe -

except in the nation that has experienced it longest and knows it best. In

Iran, it is on the defensive and perhaps in retreat.

This situation has vast potential consequences. It derives from the fact

that (putting aside the exceptional case of Saudi Arabia), militant Islam

first attained power in Iran in 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the

shah. Twenty-three years later, Khomeini's aggressive, totalitarian project

has left Iranians deeply disillusioned and longing for a return to normal life.

The population wants freedom from a regime that bullies them personally,

tyrannizes them politically, depresses them economically and isolates them

culturally. As in Afghanistan under the Taliban, suffering the ravages of

militant Islam means (Rob Sobhani of Georgetown University notes) that

Iranians now "know evil when they see it up close."

On an almost daily basis, Iranians manifest their wish to be free by

skirmishing in newspapers, student dormitories, football stadiums and

elsewhere. Most remarkably, disillusion has reached the ruling elite

itself, as manifested earlier this month in a scathing letter of

resignation published by Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri.

This nearly 90-year-old stalwart of the establishment had a part in

overthrowing the shah, helped establish the regime's intolerance and

occupied the position of Friday prayer leader (roughly equivalent to a

bishop) in the historic city of Isfahan.

But now he's had enough.

He resigned because, as he poetically put it, he saw "the flowers of virtue

being crushed and values and spirituality on the decline" by those who

"sharpen the teeth of the crocodile of power." More specifically, he found

the Islamic Republic spawned "crookedness, negligence, weakness, poverty

and indigence."

Taheri's resignation was timed to coincide with large anti-regime

demonstrations which lead to the arrest of more than 140 protesters. He

then won the endorsement of nearly half of the deputies in Iran's parliament.

These and other indications of support prompted a highly unusual statement

from President Bush advising that Iran's "government should listen" to its

people. This declaration in turn nearly panicked the government, which then

compelled Taheri to issue another statement, somewhat softening his critique.

All this has several implications.

* Iran's future: As a rule of thumb, when the apple of a regime's eye turns

against it, the government is vulnerable. Taheri's rejection of the Islamic

Republic is roughly analogous to the situation in Poland two decades ago,

when the workers of that supposed "worker's paradise" rejected the

Communist state that claimed to benefit them.

The Islamic Republic is not near collapse, for the rulers are ready to kill

as many Iranians as it takes to keep power. Still, that much of the

population - and even some of the leadership - despises the current

authority means that regime change is just a matter of time.

* Democracy: By virtue of getting more or less what they wanted in 1979

(i.e., no shah), the Iranian population realized that it had control over

and responsibility over its destiny.

This development, unknown among Arabic-speaking populations, has led to

something quite profound and wondrous: a maturation of the Iranian body

politic. It has looked at its choices and thumpingly comes down in favor of

democracy and a cautious foreign policy.

The contrast between the maturity of Iranian politics and the puerile

quality of Arab politics could hardly be greater. Yes, both are dominated

by tyrannical regimes, but Iranians can see their way out of the darkness.

It is conceivable that before too long, the apparently disastrous Iranian

revolution of 1978-79 will be looked back on as the inadvertent start of

something wholesome and necessary.

* Islam: Iranians have apparently begun a process of seriously thinking

about Islam of the sort that must precede that religion's developing into a

moderate and anti-militant influence.

Only Muslims who have suffered from the full debilitation inflicted by

militant Islam over a period of decades, it seems, are immune to the charms

of this totalitarianism and prepared to take on the challenge of finding an

alternative vision to it.

In all, Iran finds itself in the wholly unaccustomed role of providing

glimmers of good news to the outside world. The militant Islamic nightmare

is far from over, but in that country, at least, the end is in sight.