Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was seen as the main pillar of the regional resistance bulwark, having merged Shia ideology, anti-imperialist political thought and nationalist sentiment with geostrategic and military acumen. In life, he was revered by many Iranians as a brave defender of the nation and a mastermind of asymmetrical warfare — the cornerstone of Iran’s security doctrine. Polls taken during the fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and Iraq found that  had a favorable opinion of the general. In death, Soleimani has become an even more colossal figure, elevated to the status of shahid — a “martyr.” The question is: Why did this man’s passing have such an impact on Iranians?

Was Qassem Soleimani a Bad Guy or a Martyr?

READ MORE

On that fateful night on January 3 at Baghdad International Airport, the Iranian general was allegedly on his way to deliver Iran’s response to an Iraqi-brokered  to reduce tensions with Saudi Arabia. As these details slowly emerged in the news cycle, Trump’s move was  as deplorable and cowardly — not just an assassination but a humiliating slaying. This was not a covert operation, an accident or collateral damage. Soleimani did not perish on a battlefield. He was killed unceremoniously at a distance, in a US drone strike at an airport in a third (and sovereign) country having disembarked from a commercial flight.

Clearly, Soleimani was no fugitive. He was no Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or Osama bin Laden. Nor was he even necessarily an enemy combatant, as the CIA considered Hezbollah’s . Soleimani had actually fought alongside the US for several years, having been instrumental in dismantling the IS caliphate.  acknowledged that while the US and local allies fought IS in Syria, as well as in Iraq, Iranian-backed militias had also pushed the terrorist group back in Iraq. Soleimani was reported to have often led that fight from the front line. This is why his assassination sent such seismic shock waves throughout the Shia world.

The outpouring of grief and the rage were a curious mix of emotions that reverberated not only throughout Iran and Iraq, but all the way to Canada. A Canadian Islamic organization called Mahdi Youth Society promoted a vigil in Toronto for the slain “heroes of Islam.” Transversal in nature, this particular blend of emotions had to be “managed” with both tact and solidarity. Not only did Tehran carry the weight of the Iranian people’s demands for retribution on its shoulders, but it had to somehow honor the legacy of the now-shahid Soleimani, all the while keeping Iran out of an unwanted war. What was clear was that the Iranian government had to react — it had to appease the grief-stricken masses and to ensure that it would not precipitate war.

And it did so, through “”: Iran’s 9/11 moment, with the country seeking justice for what it saw as an act of terror, or an act of war that took place without the declaration of war. Vowing to retaliate, Tehran launched a barrage of missiles on two airbases in Iraq hosting US troops.

This was not the approach that the late general would have taken. Iran has always hovered in the haze of “plausible deniability,” where officials were able to deny knowledge of, or responsibility for, any damnable actions committed by others because of a lack of evidence that could confirm their participation. Other than Iran’s admission that it shot down a  in the Strait of Hormuz in June 2019, Tehran has vehemently denied any involvement in other attacks in the Middle East. This includes, for example, the attack on the Saudi oil processing plants in  in September last year. This time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the attacks and widely publicized each wave of strikes, giving the US advance warning.

The Take Away

What we can take away from the series of events following Soleimani’s assassination is that even with all the bitterness and resentment, Iranian retribution — while bold — was, at the same time, confined and circumscribed. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had promised in a tweet that Iranian retaliation would be “proportionate” and aimed at “legitimate targets.” In practical terms, this meant that the missiles were dropped on American military sites that were seen as a threat, and with no American casualties.

Trump’s counterintuitive “anti-politics” has yielded opposite results. Soleimani is now  in the pantheon of the country’s national heroes. In his death, he has united the Shia world — something that Trump had not been counting on, and another indication of the paucity of knowledge of Shia culture in Washington.

Ordering the raid without congressional approval and without consultation with his European partners, Trump faces questions over the . While the timing suggests that it was designed to deflect attention from , in the middle of an electoral year, Trump has made  — a diagnosis of these events that 55% of Americans share. Meanwhile, the US is being pushed out of Iraq, rather than pulling out on its own terms, and instead, Trump has pushed Iraq into Iran’s arms.

Iran is in shock and awe. The assassination of Soleimani will forevermore mark Iran-US relations. Trump’s subsequent threats to strike , including those of cultural significance, was another attack, this time on the populace itself. After all, culture is people. The assassination and this tweet were two more nails in the coffin of Trump–Iran relations. However, diplomacy (like the 2015 nuclear deal) is not dead, it is in a coma. The entire debacle has shown that even during the worst crises, both Tehran and Washington remain concerned with preventing an all-out war, and this is the bright light at the end of a dark and dangerous tunnel.

*[This article was originally published by the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Trump’s Anti-Politics and the Assassination of Iran’s General Soleimani appeared first on 51�Թ�.

As Vladimir Lenin famously said, “The revolution does not need historians.” The Iranian Revolution of 1979, lacking the old Marxist grandeur of historical necessity, it seems, does. At 40 years old, the revolution has become subject to a rash of analyses, from autopsies to pathologies to prognoses. Fluid, spontaneous and unpredictable, the Iranian Revolution has had a profound and global impact, changing the destiny of Iranians and giving rise to the great adversary the US and its allies face in the Middle East.

To understand the current debate on the 40th anniversary of the revolution, we need to look back at some of the old controversies, notably the one about inevitability: Was 1979 necessary, or was it historically inevitable? Were there moments when a single decision taken another way or a random accident could have altered the whole course of Iran’s history? Was the overthrow of the shah preordained, or was there a liberal alternative to the Pahlavi monarchy in the longue durée?

Revolutionary Energy

The accumulation of revolutionary energy in the build-up to the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi seems to suggest that it was both necessary and inevitable. The masses revolted, believing in revolution as a form of social progress and development. Others argue that the shah had placed Iran on the road to modernization, and that liberalism was an eventuality had revolution not stopped it in its tracks.

What can be said with a degree of certainty is that the character, course and direction of the revolution would have been different if Iran’s dialectic with the West had been different. For instance, how would the course of Iranian history have changed had the 1953 coup against Mohammad Mossadegh, orchestrated by Britain and the US, not occurred, and had Mohammad Reza Shah instead worked with the beleaguered prime minister to foster genuine participatory politics? What if the shah had secured his position and legitimacy without Western backing? What if he had not launched a Western-inspired modernization program that entailed marginalizing the clergy? These what-if scenarios all shed light on the question of historical inevitability.

While revolutionary protesters espoused diverse ideals, preferences, ambitions and worldviews, there was one objective that was almost universal —��and it was not only the fact that the shah had to go, but wholesale opposition to Western political exploitation. There were those who wed this idea to resistance toward cultural capitulation, which had manifested during the shah’s state-imposed Westernization campaign, a form of “modernization without modernity.” In the two or three decades preceding the revolution, there was a paradigmatic shift in political imagination as Iranian intellectuals began to define their identity by searching for authenticity and by “Othering” the pro-Western Pahlavi state.

Thus, one of the unequivocal achievements of the revolution was Iran’s emancipatory aspirations vis-à-vis the West: independence from Western political encroachment and interference. This idea is firmly built into the conceptual architecture of the regime, showcasing 1979 as a revolt in defense of culture and tradition. This narrative is so potent and commanding that it is institutionalized in virtually every facet of Iran’s political system — from its governing bodies to its vetting agencies, its security apparatus and its religious bodies. It informs the country’s economic outlook, regional and foreign policy, and defines the boundaries of social and civil liberties. It buttresses national affinities and supports the psychological and political roots of the post-1979 national identity. It also provides the ideational and emotive canvas on which hegemonic emotions geared to nationalist activism are explored.

Lessons of the Revolution

What are the lessons of the revolution? Those who speak of the “Iranian soul” ask whether the revolution ruined Iran, while revolutionary romantics and utopians ask whether Iran ruined the revolution. It may be more useful to take a less forensic approach: Rather than looking at the afterlife of the revolution, we can broach the revolution as less abstract and as a lived and living historical experience. The 1979 revolution should not be viewed as a historical dead end or a failed experiment, but rather as a work in progress — with a lot of work still to be done.

While there is consensus on when the revolution began, there is less agreement on when the revolution ends. Again, this has to do with how one perceives history — either as open-ended or as hermetic/closed. Adopting the former, I would argue that at 40 years young (in revolution years), the Iranian Revolution is, at best, a young adult. It is too soon to determine definitively if the revolution will ever achieve the social and political emancipatory ideals of 1979.

What is useful to acknowledge is that the revolution happened and that it is historically irreversible, and that at some stage it will have to start fulfilling the potential that the revolutionaries saw when they rallied for a better system. However, the bulk of the Iranian populace, including the nezam (the ruling establishment), and the diaspora, all operate under the assumption that the revolution might be “undone.” The nezam, fearing regime change, validates this mindset with its firm grip on civil society. The Iranian people cling to the hope of a sudden, overnight change, but no longer US-sponsored, as polls show; far fewer have faith in this option given the US blunders in the region and President Donald Trump’s deleterious policies. And, finally, the diaspora awaits nostalgically for an “end of times” moment, auguring the return to the vatan — the motherland.

Here To Stay

The general academic consensus is that the revolution is here to stay, having weathered many storms: everything from sanctions to erosion of the value of the national currency to terrorism on Iranian soil. There is little likelihood of regime overthrow or foreign military intervention, made patently clear by Trump’s toing and froing on Iran, and by desperate attempts to pressure Tehran through Iran-bashing conferences à-la Warsaw. In view of its revolution and the regime’s durability, it would be an opportune time for state and society to adopt a more dialogical form of engagement, one where there is genuine political evolution. To this end, the first step is a shift away from opposition to the revolution to opposition within the revolution.

Let us not forget that until Mohammad Khatami came to power in 1997, setting in motion a pluralistic momentum, there were no reformist, moderate, centrist, technocratic, principlist or radical categories in Iran’s politics. These labels gained traction and popular usage during and after Khatami’s reform-orientated presidency. Different political forms of organization develop at different stages. The late�� reminded us that democracy is not a sudden, all-or-nothing event, and that it took Britain and the US 300 years and three internal wars between them to move from tyranny to the kind of qualified democracy they have now.��Perhaps this is the lesson that the revolution itself can learn from its 40 years.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Was the Iranian Revolution Historically Inevitable? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

With bread and butter issues a priority, Iranian demands for political dynamism have been obfuscated amidst the country’s economic and political woes. Almost 40 years since the Islamic Revolution, this is not the first nor the last storm the Iranian regime will have to weather. War-hardened, Iran is no stranger to . Let us recall that Iran was the during the Iran-Iraq War. Thousands suffered horrific deaths, and tens of thousands more are coping with long-term effects of exposure to those chemical weapons 30 years ago.

Grappling with economic hardship, the Iranian people live under the predictable backlash of increased security. This is the regime’s antidote to the overwhelming evidence that Western agencies fund and provide support for self-styled pro-democracy movements whose ideological orientation is pro-Atlanticist —��that is, movements that have become a way for the Atlantic ideological and power systems to advance.

have started nationwide drills in which thousands of participants have been enlisted. According to Brigadier General Hossein Gheibparvar, “As long as there exist adversities and threats posed by foreigners, we will defend the country’s Islamic establishment, standing behind the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.” The crisis has intensified regime insecurities, and hard-liners have intensified vigilance to interdict Western-supported “democracy promotion” measures designed to achieve regime change.

Where does this leave society’s calls for social liberties and political expression? How is society to foster a national dialogue? In post-revolutionary Iran, popular electoral politics have been an integrating factor and an agent of social change. Despite the tutelary institutional mechanisms that screen candidates, have generated unexpected outcomes. The people’s mandate has unleashed power and policy shifts, as embodied in the reformist Seyyed Mohammad Khatami and the moderate-centrist Hassan Rouhani. Iranian elections, powered by the people, are the primary institutional channel through which Iranian aspirations are heard.

Powered by the People

Thus, when a commentator like that “Rouhani, already enfeebled by President Donald Trump’s abrogation of the nuclear deal, is now a political relic,” he is, by extension, suggesting that the people’s will is null and void. He is also negating the extraordinary depth and intensity of society’s desire for political development. As early as 1997, the Iranian people rallied around Khatami who promised to promote the rule of law and to invigorate civil society. Rouhani was elected on similar grounds, although his emphasis was on economic revitalization and rapprochement with the West. During his re-election campaign in 2017, Rouhani ramped up promises on human rights reforms, adding that in voting for him, Iranians would be choosing “.”

All of that is now on the back-burner as Rouhani fights for his political survival amidst mounting economic turmoil and internal pressure. Weighed down by Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the re-imposition of US sanctions, the specter of energy-related sanctions (oil being Iran’s main commodity and foreign currency source) in November, the tumbling national currency and general economic mismanagement, Rouhani faced an impeachment-level inquisition in parliament last week.

This raises the question of agency. After all, democratization and democracy are about people and how they coalesce in shaping their destiny. History has taught Iranians that political and social change needs to be negotiated internally and not outsourced. Thus, for instance, if some women in Iran contest compulsory veiling, it is not the task of US-supported Masih Alinejad to incite women to unveil in public. Whether we like it or not, veiling is mandatory under current Iranian law, just as veiling was against the law under an edict issued in 1936 by��, who used unveiling to emasculate the clergy and to promote modernization and Westernization, as did his son, Mohammad Reza Shah.

Islamic and morality dimensions aside, the contentious topic of veiling has become an historical tit for tat. And now, Alinejad has made the subject of veiling even more controversial for Iranian authorities by linking it to calls for defiance by a “VOA activist.” ��If the law on the hijab is to be amended one day, chances are that reform will not be spearheaded by Alijenad. The social media videos uploaded from Iran in which publicly unveiled woman, visibly distressed, are being verbally abused, is hardly empowering.

Recently, Parvaneh Salahshouri, a reformist parliament member, listed a host of social ills in front of her colleagues. Addressing the , she argued: “I wanted to seek their help. But I found that instead of being worried about poverty and corruption, what matters to them most is young girls’ cycling and the hair sticking out of their scarves.” Suffice it to say that Iran needs more Salahshouris and fewer Alinejads.

Permanent Stalemate

At this critical crossroads, Iran needs glasnost, a spirit of openness and dialogue that would allow society to air its grievances and to move closer to consensus. However, such an experiment would prove fatal to the regime as it would expose divisions and fragilities, which would be exploited by the US and by Iran’s regional rivals. Under the weight of sanctions, regime change efforts, support for Iranian “resistance” abroad, exacerbation of ethnic discord, talk of military action and the country’s constant vilification, Iran’s national security trumps (pardon the pun) society’s aspirations for democratic change.

As I outlined in an earlier , Iran does have the capacity for reform and renewal, even under the rubric of “religious democracy” or a hybrid theocracy-democracy. However, in what can be conceptualized as a double helix, there needs to be a clearer line indicating where theocracy ends, and where democracy begins.

Democracy is seldom handed down from above. Instead, it requires popular pressure from below — especially given the character of Iran’s institutional arrangements and of its intellectual foundations. Agency is especially crucial in view of the structural constraints of the office of the president, and one, no less, embroiled in managing the aftershocks of Washington’s antics. If Iran is to democratize “from within” and “from the bottom up,” the only the viable path ahead begins with an inclusive and engaging political discourse.

Human agency is the critical instrument in reconstituting social structures to meet human needs. However, Iranian hopes for societal empowerment and democratic procedures based on engagement, dialogue and deliberation have been stifled under the weight of international obstacles. The hegemonic geopolitical vision of the current US administration has created a situation of permanent stalemate by denying the Iranian people independent agency and popular demands for civil dignity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Why Iran Will Never Have Glasnost appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In early July, a teenage dancer from Iran, , was detained for posting photos and videos of herself dancing on Instagram. There are several frameworks for understanding Hojabri’s arrest. The dominant interpretation is that the arrest demonstrates the extent to which Iranian authorities impose their cultural dictates on Iran’s youth, and that the regime is, in the words of , trying to “stamp out the sensual and feminine aspects of national identity.”

But you can see this story through a different lens by moving away from the physicality of dance; that is, beyond dance as an expression of social behavior and aesthetic norms and values. Only a few months short of the 40th��year anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, the focus should be on the broader ideological and political ramifications of the arrest.

Even if dance can be artificially separated from its social context and considered solely in its physical features as an art form, the social component is implicit to the dancer as an individual and as a member of a socio-cultural community.��Bearing this in mind, one may suggest that Hojabri was arrested for embodying the malaise of “” (Gharbzadegi) —��a term coined by the Heideggerian philosopher Ahmad Fardid and later elaborated by the intellectual Jalal al-e Ahmad to describe fascination with, and dependence on, the West to the detriment of Iran’s traditional cultural heritage.

Indeed, as (former Washington Post Tehran bureau chief who spent 18 months in jail in Iran on espionage charges) asserts, “she might have been picked for a television talent competition show.” A talent show, indeed — America’s Got Talent, Britain’s Got Talent, The X-Factor, The Voice — all Western productions, reflecting the globalization of popular Western culture.

Ideological Baggage

Dance, as an artistic means of expression, or as a form of social interaction, is inscribed with social and political meaning, especially in West Asia and North Africa. Manipulated by the Orientalist agenda, Western representations of belly dance in literature and culture, for example, reflect how something as innocuous as dance can carry heavy ideological baggage.

The complex ways in which belly dance has been mythologized, represented and constructed in colonial travel writing, fiction, art and images from popular culture demonstrate that dance can produce social and political meaning. The term itself, danse du ventre, for instance, is fraught with political meaning, apparently denoting the French colonial conquest of Algeria and Tunisia. The is said to be “redolent with imperial soldiers’��heterosexual pursuit of hedonist fulfilment on colonized subjects’ bodies.”

Without traversing through the complex politics of nationhood and sexual identity, Hojabri’s dancing body can be designated as a site of resistance not only for women (at the intersection of gender politics, female empowerment and sexuality), but also for the Islamic Republic itself.

In the former Soviet Union, blue jeans were once a symbol of Western culture, capitalism, consumerism and consumption — hence they were banned.��Rock music was also prohibited in the USSR due to its perceived subversive effects. A of foreign bands and artists was drawn up and disseminated by the Komsomol, the Communist Party’s youth wing. The music and the jeans were not the problem, but the ideology behind these “products,” which gained significance as social and political markers during the Cold War, was. These symbols were instrumentalized in propping up the Iron Curtain.

Cultural Imperialism

This dialectic is echoed in the act of cracking down on social media and on Hojabri’s dance. It is a form of harnessing the revolutionary efforts of the past to combat the historical trauma of Westoxification. Defined as indiscriminate imitation of the West, joining the twin dangers of cultural imperialism and political domination, Gharbzadegi was the Iranian invocation of a language of revolt and of cultural protectionism. The foundation of 20th-century Iranian social criticism, Gharbzadegi was articulated in response to Western expansionism and perceived cultural erosion brought about by the Pahlavi shahs’ Westernization program.

Anti-Western, Iranian-Islamic romanticism became the focus of cultural discourse among the opposition, which started to experiment with Islamic norms and imagery for the purpose of revolution. Intellectuals like Ali Shariati reconstituted Iranian identity in a mixture of ideas that were laden with Third World-isms, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and the eternal battle between justice and injustice — with the shah and the West firmly in the folds of the unjust side of that dichotomy.

While at its core, Gharbzadegi was characterized by the iconoclastic denunciation of the West, it was not anti-modern. Rather, it reflected to chart out a developmental path that was both “modern” and reflective of a sui generis historical-cultural genotype.

Conceptually, revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini resolved the problem of orientation by summarizing the objectives of the revolution in his popular phrase, “Neither East nor West, only the Islamic Republic.” The legacy and trauma of Westoxication are inherent in the dialectic between revolutionary Iran and the West. Hojabri’s dancing amplified this pathology in a slow adagio spiraling through the corridors of Iran’s revolutionary history.

Her dance performances, her outfits, the urbanity of her style, her Instagram account, her followers — values, identities, concepts and indeed even technology — are all “Western” markers, making Hojabri’s dance all the more discomfiting. How would the Iranian authorities have reacted if Hojabri had performed a traditional Japanese dance? Hence, it appears that it was not only the dancing that was controversial, but the dancing with all of its “Western trappings.”

While the act of dancing itself can be a medium of resistance, so too can the dancing body be a locus of resistance. The oppression of expression in the form of dance is the projection of the regime’s older and deeper grievances. Hojabri’s arrest is another indicator of Iran’s troubled relationship with the West — a dialectic marred by history and reinforced by a host of confrontational measures — such as the abrogation of the hard-won Iran nuclear deal.

Hojabri’s dancing is condemned as the disease of Westoxification — one of the discursive pillars of the Iranian revolution. Her performance has been stifled amid a dangerous dialectical tango, and until this dialectic is choreographed more constructively, dance will have to move across the complex and uneven stage of world politics.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:����/

The post The Cultural Politics behind the Arrest of an Iranian Dancer appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The telephone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump on January 29��was the first official contact between the two leaders since Trump’s investiture. The Kremlin has welcomed Trump’s promises to mend ties with Moscow, which have been strained by the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and allegations of Russian meddling in the US elections.

All of these points of contention to one side, one of the key objectives behind Trump’s outreach to Moscow is whether he can persuade Russia to turn away from Iran. In an article for , Eli Lake states: “The Romanovs humiliated Iran in the 19th century with punitive treaties. Last summer��tensions rose��briefly when the Russians acknowledged they were flying air missions out of Iran into Syria. Iranian mistrust of Russia can be exploited with deft diplomacy.”

While Iranian-Russian interests often diverge, this scenario is highly unlikely. It is true that Iran and Russia are strange bedfellows. Indeed, their cooperation can at best be qualified as a tactical short-term alliance, which manifests in fits and spurts where strategic interests converge. However, what binds them together in the long term is a shared perception of the contemporary world order. While both countries oppose a US-dominated post-Cold War set-up in the Middle East, which played out in the coordinated military campaign to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad, they are aligned on deeper historical, ideological and identity-related issues that trump (pardon the pun) geopolitical dynamics.

No degree of “deft diplomacy” can significantly alter Russia and Iran’s shared view that the Atlantic community seeks to impose a global monoculture, and to write a universal history à la Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history.”��Both Russia and Iran reject the record of American hegemonic unilateralism and ethnocentrism that buttresses Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis. The fact is that while geopolitical and strategic interests are clashing, civilizations are not, history is not ending, and there is very little universalism or homogenization in sight.

Agents of Subversion

Thus, while there may be concessions of a tactical or transactional nature in the future—such as the lifting of sanctions imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea or new arms-control agreements—it is unlikely that there will be a substantive breakthrough in Russia-US relations.

So where does the blockage lie? Following US policy in what Zbigniew��Brzezinski termed the “global Balkans” in��The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Russia has accused the US of fomenting velvet revolutions under the guise of promoting democracy in order to install Western-friendly leaders and restore American global preeminence. The Arab Spring and the unceremonious removal of former US ally Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak fueled the conviction that the US was a global agent of subversion. As a result, Russia’s bond with Iran, China and its Central Asian allies was strengthened.

The Kremlin also maintains that the West operates under the Eurocentric assumption that there is some sort of historical inevitability to a liberal society, grounded solely in European historical experience. Development and modernity are situated in a Western frame of reference, with a Western governing center. Putin rejects this and has reiterated that the country is pursuing an indigenous developmental trajectory—one that accommodates historical, national, revolutionary and local experience.

The West’s perceived homogenization campaign is ultimately interpreted by the Kremlin as a smokescreen for subtle forms of neo-colonial domination kick-started through the remote-controlled color revolutions—such as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan—in Russia’s former sphere of influence.

Imminent Impasse

To this day, the Kremlin frames and perceives world conflicts as struggles between sovereignty and foreign intervention. This perception was made clear with in 2105, when the Russian foreign minister asked for a declaration “on the inadmissibility of interference into domestic affairs of sovereign states and the non-recognition of coups d’état as a method for changing governments.”

Iran harbors a very similar perception. No stranger to the threat of regime change, Iran maintains that Washington’s ultimate goal is to unseat the Islamic regime. The Obama administration allayed some of these fears with the watershed nuclear deal in 2015 but, prior to this, the Bush administration’s neoconservative agenda heightened Iran’s suspicions.

The imminent impasse in a substantive Russian-American reset does not stem from the United States’ alleged refusal to take Moscow’s legitimate interests seriously. Rather it reflects a failure to understand how the Kremlin, in line with Iran and much of the rest of the world, interprets Washington’s basic foreign policy aims and intentions. Neither Russia nor Iran, for that matter, have been accommodated in what Richard Sakwa calls the hermetically enclosed world order and the reason for that is that neither country is willing to repudiate its own history. Until they do, they are outsiders.

What the West needs to take stock of is the fact that so-called democratic revolutions do not automatically beget democratic institutions. There is no global uniformity when it comes to institutional development. Russian development will remain an ongoing process of interaction between universal value patterns and specific cultural codes. As such, we need a more broadly pluralistic understanding of institutional development in order to achieve pluralism in the international system. Until Europe and the US refrain from imposing its singular vision of what the chess pieces look like, its map of the world order, a substantive upgrade in US-Russia relations is not on the horizon, and any alliance or thaw will be an uncomfortable one.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:��

The post US-Russian Relations in an Uncomfortable World Order appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Analysts have been quick to make assumptions about President Hassan Rouhani’s diplomatic maneuvers, translating his diplomatic skills as reminiscent of Mikhail Gorbachev’s era of Perestroika and Glasnost.

Jochen Bittner of Die Zeit asks: "Is Rouhani an Iranian Gorbachev?" The Wall Street Journal asks the same question, featuring an article titled, "" Meanwhile, Stephen Kotkin writes about "" in Foreign Affairs.

So the question arises: Is Rouhani really a Gorbachev?

From a theoretical point of view, such comparisons shed little light on the direction of Iran’s political evolution. While Rouhani is comparable to Gorbachev in the sense that he too is an agent of change, the exercise of reforming Iran presents a more complex picture.

Not only are such comparisons gratuitously redundant (when Mohammad Khatami launched his reform program, numerous works sprung up comparing the reformer with the former Soviet leader), they are often dangerously subjective in nature.

In "," for example, Richard Miniter compares US President Barack Obama to Gorbachev in an effort to betray a conviction that the US is in a state of decline under a leader who is accelerating that trajectory through his efforts at reform. Walter Russell Mead raises a similar concern in "," in American Interest, in which he warns of Obama’s Gorbachev-like attempt to correct the country’s past.

Mead argues that Obama’s attempts to disengage from the over-commitments of George W. Bush’s presidency have emboldened what he calls the "Central Powers": Russia, China and Iran. With the US in seeming retreat, these rivals "think they have found a way to challenge and ultimately to change the way global politics work."

Comparisons with Gorbachev are often carried out disparagingly with the goal of expressing contempt or disapproval. After all, although Gorbachev was attempting to change an outmoded, outdated system, the country over which he ruled disintegrated.

This is not the place to undertake an extended discussion of Gorbachev’s leadership, yet some observations are relevant. The fact is Gorbachev remains in the mind of his compatriots a tragic figure, deified by some and hated by others; some see him as a great reformer, others as a perfidious destroyer.

For many Russians, Gorbachev’s legacy was national humiliation, or what President Vladimir Putin has called the "." 

The other problem with such comparisons is the element of wishful thinking. For the West, Gorbachev was the visionary leader who tackled the economic and political failings of the Soviet Union’s authoritarian system, introducing an era that ended Communist oppression, brought down the Berlin Wall, ended the Cold War, and expanded Europe’s community of democracies.

Iran bashers and detractors often make these dubious comparisons in the hope that some Gorbachev-esque character will suddenly turn up to unravel the Islamic Republic.

Thus, the comparison of any Iranian leader with Gorbachev is bound to be partial, and imbued with a subjectivity and reductionism that downplays the role of critical factors in shaping Iran’s political evolution.

If we are to improve our understanding of the sources of change in Iran under Rouhani, we need a more eclectic and multifaceted analytical framework.

The Pillars of Change in Iran

There are four guiding principles that have motivated successive Iranian political heads of state over the years. In fact, the political inclination of Iranian leaders in the past has been very much determined by the prioritization, instrumentalization or sometimes the interplay of these four principles.

Iran stands at the intersection of multiple, often contingent factors that shape its political reality. Rouhani’s challenge is to strike a balance between these factors and achieve a balance point or the nokhteh taadol.

1:      Republicanism and Participation (moshakerat): The emphasis is on popular sovereignty (mardom salari), civil society (jameh madani), and pluralism. This element was central to Mohammad Khatami, whose reform movement symbolized an effort to consolidate the rule of law and to stimulate civic activism.

2:      Economic Development (tose’eh): This was the cornerstone of Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s presidency. Described as a pragmatic centrist, Rafsanjani surrounded himself with technocrats in an effort to revive the post-war economy. In the late 1920s and 1930s, economic restructuring was the linchpin of Reza Shah Pahlavi’s state-sponsored modernization program. 

3:      Economic Justice (edalat): The pursuit of justice was one of the main pillars of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s political platform, which was predicated on tackling poverty and corruption, and redistributing wealth. His personal former website, Mardomyar or "the People’s Friend," epitomized this mission.

4:      Independence/Freedom: The emphasis is on resistance of foreign interference and encroachment through nationalism. This was the cornerstone of Mohammad Mossadeq’s short prime ministership in the 1950s. He insisted that his country’s fight for possession of its oil resources was not only a quest for profits, but also a fight for liberty. This was also the leitmotif of Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary slogan – "Esteghlal (independence), Azadi (freedom), Jomhouri Islami (Islamic Republic)."

Iraniyaat and Islamiyaat

Let us envision these four elements on an axis. This axis runs on two tracks: Iraniyat and Islamiyat. Iraniyat relates to Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage, Persian history, culture and civilization. Islamiyat corresponds to Iran’s Islamic past, values, dogma and tradition as well as classical revolutionary themes and slogans relating to Shi’a revolutionary revivalism, nationalism and populism.

Islamiyat runs on a continuum. On one side is Ejtehadi Islamiyat, which in the case of foreign policy articulation, advances a more moderate, enlightened and dynamic narrative, predicated on integration and dialogue. On the other side of the spectrum is Jihadi Islamiyat, which is characterized by a principalist and atavistic discourse. 

The Jihadi and Ejtihadi approach to independence is very different. In Jihadi Islamiyat, independence translates into autochthonous, Soviet-style economic independence, guided by revolutionary ideals of self-sufficiency.

On the other hand, Ejtihadi Islamiyat advocates representation in and interaction with international organizations, integration into the global economy, and a non-confrontational political discourse.

The recent nuclear deal brokered by President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif exemplifies an Ejtihadi reading of independence. 

Iraniyat also bifurcates in a similar way. To illustrate this point, let us focus on the concept of national independence. On one side of the spectrum, the emphasis lies on the radical negation of other civilizations (particularly the West), typified by the "Westoxication" or the "Clash of Civilizations" discourses.

In foreign policy, national independence is found in isolationism, the avoidance of political and economic entanglements, and a defensive and confrontational rhetoric. Ahmadinejad and his hard-line supporters centered their perception of national independence on this approach.

The other end of the spectrum is characterized by integration and interaction. Khatami’s "Dialogue Among Civilizations" thesis best captures this orientation. Independence is found through emphasis on cultural commonalties and shared histories through an integrative narrative.

Rouhani’s approach falls squarely in the middle: National independence is found through calibrated and cautious engagement. His administration is challenged by hard-line elements that need to be appeased, thus engagement with outside powers needs to be measured.

Furthermore, history may have taught Rouhani that full-fledged dialogue does not always yield the anticipated result. Khatami’s international campaign ironically led to Iran being placed on an "axis of evil."

The body politic — the leadership, the elite, civil society and institutions — is so complex and variegated in relation to political culture, intellectual orientation, preference for certain ideas or categories of thinking, and traditional or normative values, that it is not easy to decipher and decode the nature of Iran’s political evolution. 

The newspapers and dailies in Iran alone are a testament to this diversity (see Table 1). Let us relate them to the four categories above. For example, the daily Salam  places greater emphasis on Islamiyat, less on independence, and even less on justice, participation, freedom or development.

Jahan gives special importance to Islamiyat, independence and social justice, but less significance to participation, freedom and development.

On the other hand, Sobh Emruz prioritizes participation, freedom and development, placing less emphasis on Islamiyat, independence or justice, while Kayhan gives prominence to themes relating to Islamiyat, independence and justice.

Between Continuity and Change

So what does change really entail in Iran? A viable strategy for reform at this critical juncture in Iran’s history entails striking a balance between the four elements described above.

Moreover, a viable path requires the reconciliation of disparate orientations through the art of principled compromise. It means finding a balance between continuity and change, between Islamiyat and Iraniyat.

Rouhani is not wearing rose-colored lenses and is very much aware of the conservative resistance that lies before him — very much like Khatami, whose presidency was mired in factional wrangling and rivalry.

The difference is that Rouhani has a luxury of leadership that Khatami never knew. He enjoys political authority that flows from two sources:

1. The fact that he cannot be labeled either reformist or conservative (in an , the author argued that Rouhani himself embodies the reconciliation of disparate and competing ideologies).
2. The broad-based realization that Iran needs change: change in outlook, in perspective, in strategy, and in leadership style.

Rouhani clearly articulated the discursive foundation of his foreign policy approach during the 2013 presidential campaign: "Constructive and dignified engagement with the world" (ta’amol-e hadafmand va ezatmand ba jahan). The pursuit of all four pillars outlined above remains a priority. However, Iran needs to upgrade the exhausted methods of the past.

This is something both sides of the political spectrum recognize (hardliners, moderates, liberals, and everything in between). With more executive steering power (and, most importantly, the Supreme Leader’s tacit support), Rouhani might just succeed in striking that delicate balance — the nokhteh taadol — a task that Gorbachev never lived up to.

*[This article was published in partnership with the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Rouhani’s Iran: Striking the Balance Between Continuity and Change appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Iran is likely to change substantively under Hassan Rouhani’s leadership. Allow me to qualify "change". Change is not regime change, nor is it change toward a more secular, liberal political system à la the West. Change in Iran means qualitative change; it means breathing new life into the Islamic Republic. There are two reasons why Rouhani can change Iran.  

The first is that his moderate inclination will bring about the same subtle, yet tangible results Mohammed Khatami’s presidency brought. These are qualitative and conceptual changes rather than quantitative. They are palpable, substantive changes that will reverberate within Iranian society. At the state level, he will bring about the "politics of normalcy," which will have a direct bearing on society.

The second reason stems from the fact that Rouhani is as much a conservative, establishment figure as he is a moderate one. Thus, he will have more political "purchasing power" and elicit piecemeal results because he is cut from the same cloth as establishment figures.

Politics of Normalcy

In order to glean some insights that will support the claims made above, it is necessary to evaluate Iran’s recent history. The father of reform, Khatami, has always been the subject of mixed reviews. Critics argue that Khatami failed to achieve concrete results. While there were huge discrepancies between Khatami’s campaign promises, popular expectation and what was really achieved, the "Khatami experiment" unleashed a vibrant civic activism and budding pluralistic momentum that prevailed well beyond the end of his eight-year presidency. The reform movement ushered in a critical transition in modern Iranian history with reverberations that can still be felt today.

More significantly, Khatami tried to move Iranian politics beyond tumultuous times towards a regular mode of politics. In the context of Khatami’s reform campaign, the "politics of normalcy" reflected the state of a country that had endured years of turbulent social and revolutionary change. In the years following the 1979 revolution, both state and society were thrust into a purposive, ideological, state-driven transformation — the creation of the democratic-theocratic Islamic Republic, an extraordinary experiment without historical precedent. The attempt to link up with the past — to restore the torn fabric of society, and to draw on intellectual traditions and the cultural and religious values of the past — all reflected the post-traumatic pursuit of a usable past as the grounding for contemporary Iran.

Khatami’s pragmatic approach was rooted in the attempt to base Iran’s politics in the repudiation of revolutionary politics. While the reformer-president embraced the contributions of these extraordinary times, he pushed for change through simultaneous engagement with the future as well as the past. As such, his movement gave enormous importance to the defining features of modernising societies. A break from the past, in the current situation, would encompass the promotion of civil society, greater openness, the rule of law, economic integration and gradual rapprochement with the international community – the core features of Khatami’s political platform.

Khatami believed that modernity was compatible with Iranian culture and that western-inspired practices could be successfully woven into Iran’s national, religious and historical tapestry. His mission was to initiate a civilisational upgrade and to push the Islamic Republic into the 21st century.

Revival Under Rouhani

Likewise, Rouhani’s presidency is likely to represent the explicit project of a return to normalcy through progressive reform. The politics of normalcy refers to a country that is seeking to avoid diplomatic isolation, and a nation that is seeking to rid itself of revolutionary-style politics, self-reliant economic policies and rigid social mores. It is a shift towards more pragmatic politics characterised by an effort to base Iran’s system on the repudiation of revolutionary politics – politically, economically and socially. In Rouhani’s Iran, we are likely to see a revival of the politics of normalcy where ideological radicalism will give way to Iran’s broader interests.

Khatami’s identification with the politics of normalcy is one of the lasting legacies of his political programme. A pragmatist cognisant of the forces of civil society, market forces and globalisation, Khatami sought to construct a model of normality that combined western-aspired reforms with something broader, taking into account Iran’s unique culture, history and place in the world.

Khatami had effectively consigned the revolutionary period of Iran’s politics to history, but carried forward the original revolutionary ideals of social justice, freedom and equality. With Rouhani’s victory, a new chapter of normality has been inaugurated – and this will very much characterise the essence and spirit of change. 

In one of his first statements following his victory, Rouhani hinted at the possibility of a relaxation of social restrictions. He expressed opposition to meddling in private lives, restrictions on gender segregation in society and internet filtering. He has vowed to promote the freedom of expression, to limit artistic and cultural censorship, while fostering rapprochement. The president-elect has pledged that he will form a broad-based "trans-factional" cabinet from across the political spectrum. The rumoured members of his cabinet include two females and seasoned technocrats from both the Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani (a moderate centrist) eras.

Neither Reformist Nor Hardliner

Like many religious-minded scholars before the 1979 revolution, Rouhani was drawn to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Heard mentioning the ayatollah in a Tehran mosque, he became a target of the last shah’s dreaded intelligence service. He was forced to leave the country, eventually joining Khomeini in exile in Paris. Rouhani is a solid establishment figure: since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, in which he played a strategic role in the military command, he has not been excluded from regime institutions. Unlike many reformist and centrist leaders before him, he still enjoys a relationship of trust with the supreme leader.

Rouhani’s approval by the Guardian Council, while centrist Rafsanjani was disqualified, is a testament of his impeccable revolutionary credentials. However, the president-elect does not share the visceral anti-Americanism of the Iranian revolutionary tradition: for example, in 2003, he attracted attention by visiting the scene of the Bam earthquake and thanking the US for its help. 

Rouhani is neither reformist nor hardliner. He is the synthesis or product of a thesis (the reformist/pragmatist camp, excluding the more radical, secular Green Movement supporters) and an antithesis (Ahmadinejad and the more conservative-traditionalist, principalist elements). Rouhani is the reconciliation of the contending and competing ideological tension between these two camps – a compromise of sorts. This will be Rouhani’s "brand" and one could argue the beginnings of an alternative construction of civic national identity.

The pushes and pulls of Iran’s recent history have brought to the surface a president-elect who will be able to benefit from both socio-political constructs. He will be able to prioritise or instrumentalise either discourse, depending on political realities. As such, he will have more nuanced conceptual tools with which to address Iran’s trials and tribulations. Between 1997 and 2005, Khatami’s reform efforts were stifled amidst intra-elite wrangling. He found himself in an institutional gridlock and was unable to manoeuvre around the political structure or to reconcile the political rifts that impeded his programme for change.

Rouhani, on the other hand, straddles both sides of the fence, and this will give him a freer hand in implementing change. One can even say that Rouhani is closer to bringing harmony to the complex Byzantine hybrid of the Iranian theocracy-democracy, and of acting as an antidote to a socially-divided Iran. He has demonstrated that while he is sensitive to the concerns of the conservative establishment, he remains committed to the goals and aspirations of the popular will.

The president-elect's campaign made clear that he acutely understands the extraordinary economic strain the Iranian regime and society are under. To relieve the pressure, Rouhani appears open to a diplomatic agreement that would place limitations on Iran’s nuclear program; one that would significantly increase transparency in exchange for acknowledging Iran’s rights and the lifting of sanctions over time. He has even hinted that he would ease Iran’s pre-conditions for direct talks in an effort to end Iran’s international isolation. This suggests a more dynamic and creative logic of engagement, and the repudiation of the politics of resistance and confrontation. While he is a staunch supporter of Tehran’s nuclear program, Rouhani does recognise the importance of rehabilitating Iran’s sanctions-battered economy and its foreign relations.

Gradual and Cautious Change

This balancing act is Rouhani’s key to eliciting change. Again, Khatami’s presidency can shed some light. Diehard reformists felt that former President Khatami had not pushed for reform assertively enough and that he had been too passive. While he persistently showed reluctance to "rock the boat", in retrospect, this may have been his strongest feature. This kind of conservatism will work to Rouhani’s advantage in affecting change.

Back in 1999, Khatami received harsh criticism for not reacting aggressively enough to the raid of student dormitories by paramilitaries during the student protests. Khatami issued a harsh rebuke against the perpetrators, but he tried to quell the unrest rather than to stoke it – as Mir Hossein Mousavi did during the post-election protests in 2009 that swept across Iran. To this extent, Khatami was Mousavi’s polar opposite. While Mousavi capitalised on the widespread social dissent by urging the masses to protest, Khatami maintained social order by suggesting that the public express civic activism through the print media, academic interventions, and most importantly, the ballot box.

Like Khatami, Rouhani will eschew social disorder and tumultuous revolutions in favour of gradual and cautious change. In 1999, the president-elect took a tough stance against student demonstrators, declaring that the perpetrators arrested for sabotage and vandalism would face severe charges. With respect to the 2009 protests, while Rouhani did not support the Green Movement, he instead offered a practical solution, suggesting a random recount of 20% of the ballot votes.

The defining, and indeed lasting, feature of Khatami’s approach was his reluctance to engage in, or support, any behaviour that would threaten the foundation of the Islamic Republic. The former president wanted to reform the system in order to save the system. Change under Rouhani will mean the same thing.

Recently, Khatami urged the supreme leader to collaborate with the president-elect in carrying out his mission. This could very well happen. Here, we see how Rouhani’s deeply-entrenched conservative background works to his advantage.

They are the credentials he needs to transcend the dichotomy between conforming to native traditions and practices, and encouraging progressive change.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Rouhani: Learning From Khatami’s Experience? appeared first on 51�Թ�.