Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Iranians

The newspapers all say Iran, in new president Ahmedinejad, has elected a hardliner; and things seem to be going from bad to worse.

Let’s not push the panic button just yet.

As an Arab academic pointed out to me recently, Iran is in fact one of the most democratic states in the Middle East. We perhaps ought to see it as a beacon of hope for the region, at least as much as the “new Iraq.”

The Majlis, the legislature, and the president, are elected.

Some object that both are subject to the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council.

True enough, but isn’t it in about the same sense that the US President and Congress are subject to the Supreme Court? The Guardian Council is a group of legal experts there to ensure conformity with Sharia law; just as the Supreme Court ensures conformity with liberal democratic doctrine.

And the members of the Guardian Council are chosen about the same way as are the members of the Supreme Court: half are elected by the Majlis, itself popularly elected. The other half are appointed by the Supreme Leader. And the Supreme Leader is chosen by a body itself democratically elected, the Council of Experts, not unlike the Electoral College. On paper, it seems roughly comparable to the US or British system.

Ahmedinejad’s victory in itself demonstrates that Iran is a genuine democracy. He apparently won because of his popularity with the poor. The people’s choice, not that of any entrenched elite. Note that he is the first non-clergyman to win the presidency. He was not, I gather, the candidate of the mullahs. That was Rafsanjani. And Khatami was the candidate of the economic elite, the upper and middle class.

Some protest that the Iranian government is too religious in nature.

Like, er, that of the Pilgrim fathers? The Mormons of Utah?

Of course the Iranian system is not secular. The British system and the German system are also not secular, do not recognize separation of church and state; why is it an issue here and not there?

Indeed, I think this the most attractive feature of the Iranian experiment. It seems an attempt to create a fully indigenous, Islamic democratic tradition. It can be seen in these terms as an extremely hopeful sign for democracy in the region. Any suggestion that the people of the region must choose between democracy and Islam seems to me cultural chauvinism. Nor are they likely, given that stark choice, to pick democracy.

The threat from Iran to stability in the region is not to be summarily dismissed. On the other hand, I think it is not to be automatically assumed. It makes sense to wait and see, regarding this change at the top, not to man the battle stations.

Just as with Iraq, the development or possession of weapons of mass destruction is not a justification for invasion or “preemption.” The USA has a lot of weapons of mass destruction too; as of course do other countries.

If Iran is developing nuclear weapons _in violation of treaty_ (the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), that is a more serious matter. And it probably is. But how serious? Can we justify “preemption” here when we did not preempt India, or Pakistan, or Israel, or South Africa, for the same thing? Sanctions, okay. Military action? I don’t think so.

Iran seems comparable not to Nazi Germany or Saddam’s Iraq, not to aggressive Fascist states, but to Revolutionary France or Revolutionary America in the late eighteenth century. Both were at least moderately expansionist. We do need to fear a Napoleon; but for now Iran is more an ideological, not a military, threat to its neighbours. And perhaps on the whole, like France or America, a cause for hope.