by: Sandbad
David Cameron has congratulated Rouhani as Iranian new president and hoped that Rouhani’s election can be an opportunity for an improvement in Iran and Britain’s relationship.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/07/david-cameron-iran-hassan-rouhani
And its not only Cameron who seem to be so optimistic about Iran these days. The same atmosphere of optimism is present amongst many Iranians in social media. But when it comes to regressive regime of Iran in my opinion there is little to be happy about despite all the noise Rouhani’s presidency made in media. Because in an unlikely event that Rouhani remains loyal to all his so called campaign promises there are some serious issues he never mentioned he has any plans to resolve. Some are listed below:
1) Horrendous human rights situation under Islamic regime. The suppression of human rights and women rights activists, workers and trade union activists by means of prosecution are common place under Iran's Islamic regime. Rouhani did not mention any of these in his campaign.
2) Laws and treatments such as; death penalty for homosexuals, stoning for adulterers, lashing for drinking alcohol, mandatory Islamic dress code, discriminatory laws against women and religious minorities and etc. which are part of official civil and penal code of the country and are enforced by a feared religious police and judiciary system are going to remain the same with Rouhani. He did not mention any plans to resolve these issues.
3) It is no secret that the regime in Iran is holding its grip on power by keeping a tight control over media and by leaving no space for any opposition or protest without risking a high price such as imprisonment and torture. Rouhani made no direct and clear promise to improve the situation so I expect it remains the same with him as president.
Interestingly Rouhani and Cameron both chose to remain silent about some of the serious issues which are mentioned above. Rouhani in his elections campaign and Cameron in his letter congratulating him after he so called won.
Optimism
I think the optimism expressed by many including Cameron on Iranian regime's change of political direction as a result of election (or selection) of Rouhani is premature and misplaced and can only be a result of cherry picking the facts and ignoring the whole spectrum of Iranian political scene. Because:
1) First and foremost in Iranian political structure the Supreme Leader maintains the ultimate power and the president is just a “yes man” to him. To hope that Rouhani as president is going to change anything against Supreme Leader's wish is a hope in vain. Supreme Leader is in the position of supervising the president in Iranian political structure and has the power to dismiss him if he wishes so.
2) People who think Rouhani’s presidency is a big change in Iranian political scene because he replaced Ahmadinejad have to remember that A.N. was no exception of the rule and the Supreme Leader was also giving him directions and could change Ahmadinejad’s policies if he disagreed with them during his 8 years term as president. So if the supreme leader made no intervention during Ahmadinejad’s presidency it can only be assumed that A.N. was merely following Supreme Leader’s directions and as Supreme Leader was happy with what A.N. was doing there was no need for Supreme leader to intervene. Hence the Supreme Leader is the one to be blamed for the state of affairs in Iran not A.N. and not anyone else.
3) In fact as evidence for what mentioned in 2 the Supreme Leader gave his affirmation to Ahmadinejad’s policies especially on his nuclear and social policies on number of occasions and called them a return to revolution’s original values.
By 1, 2 and 3 this is obvious the circumstances under Ahmadinejad (in terms of foreign policy, nuclear policy, economy, etc.) were what was (and perhaps is) seen as ideal by the regime and the Supreme Leader and in my opinion it is only the pressure resulting from economical sanctions which is forcing the regime to give up on its ideals (pursued during A.N.) and to put on a smiley face again and give raise to this Rouhani phenomenon.
4) My suspicion is empowered as it is not the first time the Iranian regime is following this Smiley Mullah Policy. I can recall in 1997 when the regime was facing total international diplomatic boycott in the aftermath of Mykonos restaurant scandal the same Smiley Mullah Policy came to it's rescue when Khatami was installed under the title of a reformists as president.
http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9704/10/germany.iran/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Khatami
5) That solved the regime’s problem at that point (1997) as international community took Khatami as a real reformist and that optimism in international scene alleviated the international boycott which was in place on Iran at the time as international community wanted to give a chance to what they saw as a possibility of reform from within to Iranian regime so all foreign representatives which had left Iran previously in protest of Iran regime’s role in Mykonos assassinations returned to Tehran when Khatami become president. That gave the regime a breathing space to recover itself in the years that followed.
6) In Khatami’s eight years term (1997 -2005) he proved that he was no reformist. He failed or didn't want to deliver on most of his promises and by the end of his eight years term as the country’s oil revenue had increased significantly (due to increase in crude oil price in world’s markets) the regime gained an unprecedented opportunity to follow up on its lets say expansionist ideas which it left on pause in 1997 when it was forced to give raise to Khatami as a false reformer due to international pressure it faced at the time.
Thanks to extra cash which was flowing in as a result of increased oil revenues towards the end of Khatami presidency term the regime officially declared the reform period was over and under Ahmadinejad it began the period of return to real revolution values (as it was named by supreme leader himself) This return went on until it took the country to complete political and economical bankruptcy by 2013 due to economical sanctions it caused.
So in my opinion it is only under heavy economical sanctions and on the verge of collapse that the regime is initiating the second round of Smiley Mullah Policy using Rouhani to save itself again. And I can predict Rouhani’s term isn't going to be anything but just another eight years of empty promises as it was with his predecessor's Khatami (1997 -2005 ) and on the basis of what I explained in this article I think to lay too much hope on Rouhani is simplistic if not completely stupid.
To me it seems the regime is trying the Smiley Mullah Policy again in order to alleviate the pressure it is currently under as a result of international sanctions just as it did in 1997 with Khatami. Once this goal is achieved and the sanctions were lifted it will return to its ideal Ahmadinijad-ism soon enough.
By a Friend:
ReplyDeleteYou blog post had a few mistakes:
Khatami was not installed but was geniunly elected. The supreme leader wanted Nategh Nouri but the overwhelming support for Khatami mean he won with a humongous margin. This is a fact recognised by anti-regime activists like Mohsen Sazgara, Akbar Ganji and others so you have to accept that.
Another issue is that during Khatami's era oil prices went down to a historic low at $7 per barrel. Iran was forced to presell a huge volumes at $7 even when prices started rising during his second term.
Ahmadinejad came to power in the face of tougher sanctions so your phrase below implying that hardliners come to power when sanctions are removed is technically meaningless "To me it seems the regime is trying the Smiley Mullah Policy again in order to alleviate the pressure it is currently under as a result of international sanctions just as it did in 1997 with Khatami. Once this goal is achieved and the sanctions were lifted it will return to its ideal Ahmadinijad-ism soon enough".
To me alot of Khatami's failures are due to him being as unfortunate as having to be Iran's president when a maniach had come to power in the US who despite the reforms and positive moves, Bush called Iran part of the axis of evil. We are lucky that the Labour party at the time wasn't totally insane and Jack Straw's negotiations with Rouhani at the time saved the country from an imminent war which I still todate believe would have happened had not been for the UK, France on one hand and Zarif's dealings with the Democrats in the US on the other.
On another note, a great man died today, Rashid Esmaeili, one of Iran's most prominant student activists. In his last FB post before he died he talked about egypt. This last paragraph of his post is truly music to the ear:
اتفاقات دو سال اخیر مصر برای من اثبات دوباره که نه بلکه 10 باره ی این گزاره بود که «انقلاب»، «براندازی»، «رادیکالیسم تخیلی» و «خشونت» راهی به سوی دموکراسی نمی گشاید. گذار به دموکراسی فرآیندی است سخت و پیچیده مبتنی بر «ساختن تدریجی» نه «تولدی ناگهانی و انفجاری» بر مبنای «ویرانی». پس «مرگ بر انقلاب، زنده باد اصلاحات»!
we are going in circles with you! I keep bring you facts, you agree, then you come back in a week or month and say the same things as you always said as I never told you what I said! Ok again;
DeleteFirst, Khatami's election.
At that point of time Supreme Leader was left with no choice other than showing a smiley face! That why it didn’t fake the elections as it did in 2009 and allowed khatami to come out! Why? Because as I explained in my blog post due to Mykonos restaurant scandal the country was in total international political boycott back then so the Supreme Leader had to mellow up after years of showing teeth in order to break the political boycott.
Also as you mentioned oil prices at that time was really low and the regime didn’t have as much cash in its disposal as it did during A.N’s term. And also the country was still paying off the military contracts from the 8 years war that the same regime inflicted on us. So they were poorer and weaker back then and more in need of having friends.
I clearly explained the circumstance in 1997 in my post.
Do a research into Mykonos restaurant assassinations which its consequences led to first smiley mullah period in my opinion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykonos_restaurant_assassinations
Ashkan, it is a known fact that America attempted on many occasion to enhance its relationships with Iran during Khatami era. And this was Iran who refused to play along as the supreme leader was against establishing relationships with America. It was even before bush term during Clintons.
If America called Iran the axis of evil, Iran was and is calling America the great Satan for 35 years! So that type of war of the words was going on since the beginning and never was a barrier for Iran to cooperate with America on other issues such as their invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The axis of evil thing is just the Iranian regime’s excuse on why they didn’t went in to much anticipated talks with America during Khatami. I clearly remember in 1998 there was the best atmosphere to start talks with America after the football match in the world cup, it was the best chance to get things right, on both sides lots of diplomacy had already gone in and we were sure this football game would cause the talks and set everything right, but that did not happen and in order to prevent it from happening the Khamenei himself appeared on TV right after the game and issued one another of his anti Satan declarations to make sure no one dares to do anything about getting in touch with America.
Continue from above :
DeleteAnd after all it was Iran who took all American embassy staff hostage for more than a year on the first place!
Also you don’t like to see or recognize for whatever reason that the president of Republic Islamic of Iran has no power to decide on Iran’s foreign policy and nuclear program.
These things are directly controlled by Supreme Leader and on many occasions dealt with by his own men in parallel with government, often with not involving government at all. So it’s a false hope to think Rouhani can do anything about peace with America and the world if Khameni doesn’t wish so. So its someone else we need to deal with Rouhani is a puppet and at best a facilitator and not more.
Also another thing you fail to see is that a regime that its leaders are criminals cannot be reformed. Because it is common sense if the regime is reformed the first thing it has to do is to bring its current leaders to justice on charges of crimes against humanity and since the current leaders of the regime are aware of this so they won’t easily give up their grip on power and allow thing to reform the way I and you want it. Simply because they know what crimes they have committed and what happens to them if protection their totalitarian regime is currently providing them is lifted.
So they will resist change and reforms with teeth and nails.
I sincerely wish what you say about reforms was possible. But I don’t see how realistically such reforms can be reached. I am not mad and I don’t want bloodshed and revolutions. But what you say about reforms we already tried it once. And they proved unrealistic and impossible and to try the same thing twice is stupid.
The source of power is somewhere else. The power is not in president’s hands. Rouhani’s duty as I said in my post is to smile as a puppet just to try to lift the sanctions. Then when the cash start to flow in again we are back to real values of revolution again and no more smiles. This is a false cycle Ashkan. We are being played in this cycle. I won’t play this game anymore. We have to find the least expensive way to break out of it.