by liberal japonicus
(image: cartoon by Paul Noth available at the Conde Nast store, but also check out his site at www.paulnoth.com)
Working on the archive, the Middle East was unsurprisingly a running theme, and there was quite a number of bytes spilled on Iran. So when I noticed this Atlantic article about Iran by Graeme Wood, I asked and GftNC very kindly shared the gift link with me.
I would like read his other pieces (listed here) to see where he is coming from, but I can’t. The titles and subheads are all tantalizing, but ultimately unrevealing. So anyone who has read these pieces or seen other works by the author, feel free to chime in.
Wood starts out with an anecdote about Michael Ledeen that had me thinking ‘well, is this a big set up to knock down, or does he think Ledeen was right?’
Shortly after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the United States Institute of Peace held an event in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Middle East’s delicate prospects. Panelists suggested ever more intricate ways to give regional peace a chance, until the neoconservative Michael Ledeen spoke out heretically. “You have heard the case for peace,” he said. “I rise to speak on behalf of war.” He said that the conflict, which lasted from 1980 to 1988 and killed perhaps a million people, had been “a good war.” And he said that any “peace” between the United States and a government as malevolent as Iran’s would be a sham, and a prelude to more war. Peace is what happens “when one side imposes conditions on another,” Ledeen told me in 2013. He said it is not enough for both sides to stop fighting. One of them must lose. Ledeen died in May, well into his fifth decade of arguing against peace, or at least a sham peace, with Iran.
Unfortunately for wimpy peacenik me, it was the latter.
The purpose of Iran is Shiite theocracy, for its own sake and as a counterweight to democratic, secular, and Sunni governments allied with the United States in the region. Khamenei has made the argument to his own people that the Islamic Republic is an anti-fragile empire. It gets closer to its purpose and stronger when attacked and should therefore be patient and steadfast, focusing on surviving to learn from its failures. To Iran’s enemies, he has inadvertently made the opposite argument: that defeating Iran means vigorously prosecuting the war now, giving no chance for Iran to survive, and finally imposing a peace that will last.
There is a very curious aspect of the piece, which is virtually no mention, beyond the Hezbollah pager attack, of anything that the US or Israel did. It tells us that Iran was the backer of Hamas, neglecting to note that Israel were key players supporting in the network of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Muslim Brotherhood leader in Gaza whose charity, Mujama al-Islamiya, was the precursor to Hamas, and later provided support to Hamas. Nor is there any mention of Israel efforts to cripple Iran’s nuclear program, including targeted assassinations and military strikes, none of which have a comparable dimension by Iran. There is no mention of the Iranian revolution and the overthrown of the Shah, which undercuts the narrative that the US innocence. Every so often, something peeks out like this:
That approach [of supporting proxies] originated in Lebanon. In 1982, several years into the Lebanese civil war, Israel invaded Lebanon to dismantle the Palestine Liberation Organization, then headquartered in Beirut. Iran trained and supported Hezbollah to counter Israel, the United States, and the Sunni and Christian Lebanese militias. [emph mine]
So I feel like this piece stitches together a lot of background information that is the equivalent of the brother saying ‘I wasn’t doing anything, he just came and hit me!’ I tend to think that the story is a little more complicated than that.
If we define the enemies of the US as Russia, Iran and China, one thing connects all of them, which is a deep sense of national pride. As long as that pride is there, there is probably little to do short of eliminating them from the face of the earth. Which I don’t think would work out for anyone.
Ultimately, I believe that there are two competing narratives here, the one Wood outlines and another that has Iran as the continuation of the world’s oldest civilization, one that goes back 7000 years that has been held down and insulted by countries that can’t even hold a candle to that history. I wonder if there is any way to reconcile the two views.
Questions that should be asked more often when it comes to evaluating Iran’s place in the international community is:
“What has Iran actually done geopolitically to deserve its reputation in, say, the past 25 years, what have other nations operating in the ME done and how does it compare? What is the death toll that resulted from Iran’s actions and how does it compare to that of other nations operating in the ME?”
I think any objective observer will find that, if you set aside the rhetoric, the actual actions of the Iranian regime amount to very little compared to those of other nations. The operative phrase here is “setting aside the rhetoric” because since the hostage crisis and later Ahmadinejad, a narrative has emerged that describes the “islamofascist theocracy” in Iran as the “greatest danger to ME peace”. This is completely unjustified if you look at the historical facts.
The geopolitical argument against Iran is then often bolstered by bringing up the domestic policies of the Iranian regime, which are certainly deplorable. However, they are sadly not unique in the region and elsewhere and despite claims to the contrary the regime does not have totalitarian grip on the very complex and multilayered society of Iran.
What is also almost completely ignored is the fact that the regime is more about money and power than about religion. Most observers simply are ignorant of or choose to ignore the vast amount of wealth the ruling elite from Khamenei down to the rannk and file revolutionary guard member control and their understandable desire to hold on to it. One tool to perpetuate this control is religion, but I would say in and of itself it is actually secondary.
Finally, as much as parts of Iranian society are westernised, even they don’t want a society determined by US money and influence – many might hate the regime but they want to do their own thing and understandably view foreign interference with strong suspicion. And that is much more so the case with much of the conservative, religious population who just have different ideas about how to live.
I think Wood is actually better postioned than most to comment on Iran because of his educational background and having actually travelled in the country, though that seems to have been a while ago. However, he seems to succumb in part to the usual US foreign policy establishment groupthink which prioritises regime change narratives. I would just challenge everyone fixated on this to tell me what an Iran post-regime change would look like, especially considering the many different ethnic groups that make up the country.
As for Iran being an old civilization, that’s certainly one source of the national pride, though it depends on who you talk to, because it can sit uneasily with the grim current relity. It’s also kind of a running gag among some, who make fun of this tendency to trace back every invention and accomplishment of the past 2000 years to the Persian empire. I heard the Greeks do the same and there is apparently a scene in “My big fat Greek wedding” making fun of this.
Great points, novakant. I don’t know as much as I should about Iran and its history, so I agree that Wood’s background and in-country experience is not something I dismiss out of hand. Of course, claiming to represent civilization isn’t something restricted to Iranians, Stephen Miller said this at Charlie Kirk’s memorial
We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion. Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello. Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry.
Erika stands on the shoulders of thousands of years of warriors, of women who raised up families, raised up city, raised up industry, raised up civilization, who pulled us out of the caves and the darkness into the light.
Words fail.
I would recommend Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels Persopolis (1 and 2) are excellent and her newest, Women, Life and Freedom is something I’m getting for my school library.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/16/marjane-satrapi-interview-persepolis-woman-life-freedom
As far as I can tell, the major infraction of Iran is being Shia rather than Sunni.** And therefore a rival of Saudi Arabia. We remain allies of the Saudis, and adamant goes of Iran. This despite Saudi Arabia also being a theocracy (albeit with a subservient monarchy as cover), and a far more fundamentalist and repressive one. Iranian women, for example, have rights and freedoms that Saudi women can only dream of.
Once upon a time, the Saudis controlled the price of oil, and that gave them a bargaining chip. We ignored little details like the oil price shock of the mid-70s, and continued the relationship because we felt we had to, lest they ramp up the price of oil on us again. (We also ignore the fact that the perpetrators of 9/11 were Saudis. Iranians have never done anything like that to us.)
Now, of course, we are a net oil exporter. If the price of oil goes up, we make money. But inertia is a powerful force. Someday, I hope, we cut the Saudis off. Not to switch to allying with Iran necessarily. But at least shifting to neutrality in their theological dispute.
** Not that most Americans know. Or have the least clue what the difference is. (For comparison, think Catholics and Protestants during the wars of religion.)