A movement of movements: a break with elitist, leader-centred, paternalistic traditions
Which political order is to replace the Islamic regimen and how? This is the crucial question facing Iran today. The reason is clear. Iran has entered a phase where the political transformation appears undeniable. The evidence that the countdown has begun is strong.
Inside the country people are disillusioned with the movement to reform the existing order. The reformist project was clearly a pipe-dream. Support for the regime is at a minimum and the hatred is explosive. The miracle of repression, the last resort of those in power, has lost its effect. The circumstances in the country has evolved from a crisis of legitimacy to a crisis of control. [1]
Outside the country, the Islamic Republic faces the challenge of the greatest power on earth. With the occupation of Iraq the encirclement of the country is complete. The diplomatic, and economic grip is tightening and the regime faces complete international isolation. Setting up and funding a television and radio network was the first step to isolate the regime. [2] As the doors for negotiation closed, an undisguised effort began to forge a broad coalition amongst the wide range of opposition forces who are not unhappy with US intervention in Iran [3].
The neo-conservatives in Pentagon make no secret of their desire to remove the Iranian regime as part of their plan to redraw the map of the Middle East on the way to building the “global American empire”. The coming US presidential election and the current instability in Iraq and Afghanistan merely changes the timing of the execution of such plans. Their scheme remains untouched.
Thus the “Islamic Republic” is on the way to yesteryear – but this gives us no clues as to the future. The religious despotism may be about to implode, but this does not mean that the era of darkness is over. Will the Iranian people be able to finally crack the closed circuit of monarchical and religious government and complete the tasks of the two revolutions of 1905 (Constitutional) and 1979. Or will they roll from one nightmare to another?
In short, what is the alternative government? Who is the possible architect? And who will ultimately occupy it? Broadly, three distinct answers can be distinguished in the Iranian political scene: one looks forward to a colonial rule; another to a liberal democracy, and finally one which aims for a radical democracy. This article will try to identify the existing potentials and from these draw a picture of the potential perspectives.
For some the alternative government to the native religious despotism is a non-religious colonial dictatorship. The governmental model they yearn for is Iraq and Afghanistan and its architect, the Pentagon. They employ the same arguments as the followers of “war of civilisations” and the ones that equate this with “unlimited war”, “humanist imperialism”, “defeated states” and “rogue states”. [5]
They argue that the hurdle stopping the establishment of western democracy in such societies as Iran is not merely religious government. The root cause is the obsolete cultural and social structures and traditionalist and fundamentalist beliefs of the people. Rogue and despotic states, including its religious varieties, are the political expression of cultural and social backwardness. Political roguery and despotism will never be eradicated until these societies are remade and such structures uprooted.
Thus popular participation is not only not an answer to the backwardness and authoritarianism, it is itself part of the problem. The circuit of despotism and ossification will not leave such societies voluntarily and with the help of the internal forces of these societies. This task can only be achieved from outside by civilised and modern societies. Until the cultural and social gap between modern (meaning western) and traditional societies (eastern) is closed the traditionalism of the east threatens the security of western civilisation. The global world order must be based, not on national sovereignty and equal rights of nations, but in the form of mandates and protectorates. Modern states have the right to control backward and tradition-bound nations. Colonialism is thus the route where pre-modern societies such as Iran can renovate themselves and be cleansed of religious despotism [6].
A colonial solution for Iran is theoretically nonsensical and politically perilously adventurist. The theoretical assumptions are not so much derived from historic realities and experience, than from memoirs of missionaries legitimising the right to civilise savages and enslave “heathen Africans”. What is surprising is that alongside the various monarchist and repentant hizbullahi groups that espouse this colonialist solution there are a number of former left “intellectuals”. The pull of the greatest super-power has not only attracted servants of two repressive regimes, but also intellectuals who have seen their dreams go up in flames and lost all hope [7]. It is this that makes it worthwhile to pause over the theoretical presupposition and political conclusions of this alternative government.
The key argument seems to be that the cultural and social modernisation of such backward communities is the mission of imperialism in general, and US imperialism in particular. This is clearly nonsense. Imperialism’s mission is nothing other than removal of all obstacles to the movement of capital and its insatiable appetite for greater profit, with or without the use of arms, and with or without modernisation and ideological conquest. These actions range from re-division of the world, to smashing cultural, social and political barriers. Its consequences are not always necessarily the same everywhere. Rarely it renovates cultural and social structures. Mostly it causes them to stagnate or even regress. If in places it created the material infrastructure for modernisation, (industrialisation, expanding commodification, overturning the models of consumption, and urbanisation) in others it destroyed, or ossified, these very infrastructures. Modernising these societies, and specifically cultural modernisation, is a goal not a structural necessity. Where it did take place, it was firstly an answer to a specific historical need, and secondly rather than creating the new, it merely destroyed the old. History shows two realities: imperialism cuts off the epoch-forming historic dynamism of peripheral societies, and while creating new structures, recreates old structures alongside. [8]
A complementary argument describes Islamic fundamentalism as a pre-modern phenomenon belonging to traditional societies. You don’t have to go far to see the absurdity of this argument blind to dozens of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and other fundamentalist sects mushrooming everywhere. They also ignore the fact that religious fundamentalism is not the only form of ideological conservatism: racial, ethnic nationalism, sexual chauvinism to name a few. Moreover none are necessarily the persistence of outdated structures, nor confined to traditional and backward communities. They are all as modern as liberalism and socialism, and as common in the “east” as in the “west”. Finally they are not marginal beings, but in the third Millennium occupy centre stage in many countries – blossoming indeed! [9]
The presence and growth of some of these conservative ideologies, more than anything, manifest the inner contradictions of capitalism. Unless you place these at the centre of the periodic and structural crisis of capitalism, and understand their relations with the ideological and institutional crisis of capitalist states, you cannot grasp the necessity and growth dynamics of such ideologies. Conservative ideologies both impede and help the recreation of the entire system. [10] The theory of the “war of civilisations” and “rogue states” cannot explain how Zbingiew Brzezinski – a committed liberal – could remain cheek to jowl with Osama Bin Laden for over a decade, or how the US neo-conservative school was a marriage of Christian and Jewish fundamentalism. [11] And that Bush places the amalgamation of religion and state at the centre of his ideology, and has no problem calling the “war without end”, the bombing of schools, hospitals and mass killing a divine mission and a Crusade. [12].
The colonial solution will do nothing to modernise Iran. Nor will it dry up the roots of religious fundamentalism and conservative ideology. But, if successful, it can lead the political transition along frightening paths. By cutting the links between the changes in the country and its internal dynamics and requirements and placing it on the rails of colonial adventurism and commercialism, it will unleash ethnic crises and religious wars more uncontrollable than ever before. The country will be ripe for civil war and disintegration. If not another Iraq, Afghanistan or Kosovo, the country will be another heaven for warmongers, arm dealers, drug barons and traffickers in sex. [12] A hell that in the name of “democratic revolution” [13] will pre-sell the labour of millions at the price of “buy one take on free”.
To ask which is worse: the Iran controlled by the Islamic Republic or a colonialised land is totally misleading. It assumes that there is no other route. Our destiny is in the hands of the Islamic regime or the USA. People are at best bystanders, their choice being limited to choosing between bad and worse. This picture totally ignores the existence of a people who have fought for a century for freedom, self-government and a better society, have made two great revolutions and even today are ridiculing the fiendish power of the Islamic regime. Any recourse that excludes people from the political equation, or reduces them to a minor role, is totally mistaken. And when put alongside an absolutist view of US power, will have disastrous results.
Another broad collection of opponents place an elitist secularism in opposition to the religious dictatorship: a liberal form of democracy. They derive their alternative from a limited critique of the Islamic Republic and ultimately offer a secularised copy. Political power in the country is defined by three qualities: religious rule, totalitarianism and despotism. Its replacement should therefore be secular, pluralistic and based on the popular vote. The mullahs are to lose their monopolistic hold on the state and non-clerics should become part of the political class (or ultimately the right to rule should be denied the clergy). Social and cultural structures should be freed of the constraints of Shari’a and moved on to a secular framework (though not necessarily cleansed of religion). The discriminatory and oppressive policies against women, youth, religious minorities are to be annulled in so far as they relate to male domination and paternalism in its religious form. Legitimacy for power will come from universal suffrage (even though - as monarchists in practice define it - some see this as a once only referendum which can then be discarded for ever). “National interests” will replace the “interests of Islam” in foreign policy (ignoring the fact that the global system of domination seems to have bypassed the right of self-government and solidarity of the nations of the world) [14].
This group does not link its criticism of the Islamic government with that of the structure of power, nor does it offer a critique of the role of the state in the reproduction of the relations of dominance. The structure of power in their alternative remains a top down hierarchy placing the leaders above the led. Popular participation is limited to a periodic ballot box to chose who will determine their destiny for a variable time. The fact that governmental institutions are elected, and the road to power is through an appeal to the popular vote, with all the insignificance it has in countries like ours, will not change the nature of power. The latter remains separate from the people, alien to them, standing above them, belonging to the elite.
The liberal democratic alternative, as described above, is a bare minimum. No one playing in the political arena of the country, regardless of whether they believe in this minimum or not, dares to go below it. No one can afford to ignore the most manifest and universally hated aspect of the current system – its total control of the ballot. Not surprisingly, the most heterogeneous groups are united in this minimum: those wanting to restore the monarchy (give and take some minor emphases) a multifarious range of republicans, nationalists and the “left” all show their devotion to an elected parliamentary democracy.
Clearly there are differences among this group, some not insignificant, despite their common belief in a political structure organised from above and separate from the people. Republicans, who extend elections to all institutions are clearly different from monarchists who exclude some institutions from any elective process. Or, say, those who believe in a federal state compared to those whose vision is a highly centralised one. Moreover one cannot ignore the methods they chose to implement their program and the effects these may have on the real and practical direction each will have. That one or other tendency relies on the mobilisation of which social or political agency for change may distinguish it from others, and even bring them into opposition to them, and may even in practice lead to results which would force it to change its political program. I will expand.
This grouping relies in its strategy for overthrowing the Islamic Republic on two players: the people and the Bush administration. By emphasising one or the other, two overall tendencies emerge.
For one section the alternative comes out of a political movement that is anti the religious despotism, and aiming to replace it by a secular elected government. While they concede the seeds of such a movement is already visible in the deep popular discontent with the regime, it has not yet developed into a force for intervention. What is ostensibly missing is an appropriate “leadership”. All efforts therefore has to be directed at supplying this missing link and to assemble the dispersed forces into a force that can be seen and heard.
They may be a little weary of (or even opposed to) the policies of the Bush administration but believe that one must use the clash between Bush and the Islamic regime to create a liberal democratic alternative. They advocate a “wise” and “non-ideological” encounter with the US. No radical views towards regional and global issues – especially criticism of the occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. One must emphasise, on every occasion, the importance of close ties with the US and Israel. Support the neo-liberal model of economic and political globalisation. We cannot, therefore, ascribe their silence over poverty, unemployment, housing shortage, educational deprivation entirely to their class conservatism.
The problem with this analysis is two-fold. Their understanding of the policies of the US administration regarding Iran is rather superficial. They appear not to appreciate that the US is not reacting to the adventurist posturing of the Islamic Republic, or any quarrels with this or that government, but part of its overall scheme for the Middle East. Redefining national sovereignty and bringing the entire Middle East under the direct US tutelage are prime objectives. Precisely for this reason, George W Bush’s empire could outdo any despotic regime in opposing democracy in Iran or other regional countries. Lacking a suitable analytical tool this tendency is overly optimistic in believing they can miraculously persuade the US to back a liberal-democratic alternative for Iran through their conservatism and expediency. [16]
This delusion is compounded by their mistrust in direct action. They fail to recognise the potential for mass action of the various layers of people, do not understand the demands of the different social layers, do not see the need to mobilise them along these demands, nor discover the force for social transformation through linking with this force. They cannot move beyond a cultural and political level and understand the depth of popular discontent, and from there mobilise and lead the “anti-dictatorial movement”. It cannot overcome its fears and help organise the explosive potential of the mass of workers which could act as a counterweight to the oppressive policies of the ruling dictatorship as well as the domination-seeking intrusion of the White House.
It seems difficult to imagine that their solution, the creation of a powerful anti-dictatorial movement, can succeed and ultimately lead to the liberal-democratic alternative. This grouping will either reign in its analytical conservatism and show a much greater political boldness and decisiveness, or they will have to concede defeat to their rivals in the race for an alternative even before the referee’s whistle.
This models itself on the experience of Poland. The alternative liberal democracy comes about through the “export of the revolution”. It has two assumptions. First, under an oppressive, violent and die-hard regime like the Islamic Republic people cannot free themselves without outside help. Second, the White House’s hegemony has no conflict with self-government and the establishment of a system based on popular vote. An alliance with it will result in a “revolution” which will establish democracy in Iran. The only ingredient necessary is the leadership of Bush and the mobilising power of certain student organisations (here taking the place of Solidarity trade union in Poland) and the collaboration of a number of political, social and cultural public figures. [18]
They face a theoretical challenge and two practical difficulties: On the theoretical level they ignore the aggressive, domineering and despotic nature of US imperialism. Yet US imperialism has entered a new phase that not only said goodbye to its 19th Century features, but even to the role it played in the cold war . US imperialism has since entered a new phase, one where its hegemony over the other capitalist states is in decline and its efforts to maintain it, with anything other than naked display of force unsuccessful. As the original designers of this new imperialism emphasised, this is not a democracy but an a global empire the architect of which is the military might of pentagon under the name of the American Enterprise. This where the limits of the “democratic revolution” operates. The new American era serves to spread the domination of US on the strategic areas of the world. The globalisation of the Middle East and its colonisation, the privatisation of the resources of the peripheral communities (robbery) to imperialist seizure of those resources (armed robber). This is not a new Pax Americana but a move towards a new holocaust.
The practical problems facing this analysis can be summerised thus:
First: people may not be as amenable as the “democratic revolution” the White House wants. They may enter the arena independently and determined. They may reject privatisation and tax relief for multinationals, want socialisation of public resources, and of mass consumption. Or even further, occupy factories, farms , pavements, take over empty property and land – as they did in the last revolution. Alliance with such people will be unacceptable to the White House. Will George Bush not do to them what it is doing to the people of Bolivia, Venezuelan poor, Columbian peasants, Argentinean unemployed? Or do they deserve any better treatment than befalls Iraq and Afghanistan? Will George Bush not rather ally himself with the current rulers of Iran than these mutinous people?
Second: People ignore the exhortation of Emperor Bush and his native mouthpieces and ignore the call to rise. The burden of the “revolution” will then fall on ex-SAVAK agents, army officers, repentant ex-hezbollahis, and also the armed gangs of Rajavi and people of the same ilk. The scenario of the 1953 coup d’etat. What will such a “revolution” bring other than another despotism of the Pahlavi or Khomeini version. Even if on the surface it is natives at the realm and not another Paul Bremer, would the votes come out of the ballot boxes if they are not exactly as Washington wants – the fate of the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Kirgizstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan?
Poland is a totally absurd model for the export of “democracy revolution”. Iran is not Poland first because the key question in the Middle East is definitely not confined to the control of the market and the labour force, but expands to the occupation of oil and gas resources. What provokes the appetite of capital and encourages them to export the “revolution” is not just to take possession of the produced value but the looting of rent. Second, we are not in the immediate post-cold war era. And the Middle East is not the Middle East of even two years ago. We have had September 11 and major developments have changed the face of the region. Even the political group running the US administration are no longer neo-liberals but neo-conservatives with openly fascistic predispositions beating on the drums of war. Finally the student movement in Iran is unlikely to stay under the current confused and misguided leadership. The slogans against the privatisation of universities made this clear enough as did the slogans in the last days of the demonstrations last June. It is unlikely that Bush will open up an account for the student movement.
The third option comes out of the critique of the first two: defeatism masquerading under the guise of rational realism. Undoubtedly the Islamic Republic is unique in its enmity with freedom and its inherent irreconcilability with the popular sovereignty. In comparison almost any government, no matter how corrupt and cruel, emerges in better light. The people of Iran should therefore not be forced to measure their advance by their distance from this regime. In this world rights are being discussed at the grass root level everywhere. Why impose a discourse on the Iranian people that is centuries behind what is taken as minimum rights and demands elsewhere?
A break with the Islamic Republic is genuine only when it can blossom into a break with the system of power hierarchy, and to put an end to the concentration of power above and its rupture from the people. This means a power structure that is non-centralised, organised from below and is based on the self-government and direct participation of all sections of society in running affairs to the extent that effects their lives. It is a system that in distributing natural and political resources dissolves all geographic, ethnic, religious and sexual inequities. Its institutional base are local and regional self-governing communities, equal in all aspects, and self-rule in production and consumption. It not only recognises political, social and cultural differences, but internalises their equality.
This shape of sovereignty is, however, not a vessel in which any policy can be poured [ref]. Specifically not neo-liberal policies. Indeed this form of popular sovereignty and system of power finds its reason d’etre in a radical critique of the bourgeois state, and in particular its neo-liberal re-incarnation. Political and cultural freedoms (which are without restraints) are separated from economic processes and redefined as social rights. “Human needs” replace the “needs of the market”. Where a conflict arises between popular intervention in things that affect their lives and their unequal access to the main resources of production and reproduction (that is where private property becomes an obstacle) participatory democracy chooses the former against the latter. In this government no material resource, except the labour force (humans) has immunity against the need to be socialised.
In this participatory democracy the source of power is three-fold: inner union between common interests, freedom and the right of individual choice; the guarantee of voluntary solidarity through acknowledging plurality; and belonging to a global camp that fights against enslavement of people of the world and against the establishment of a barbaric order in international relations.
Neo-liberal policies have brought to their knees most liberal democracies that implemented them. The “vote” hardly seems to matter [ref]. The participatory alternative rejects neo-liberal policies, and especially by defying the capitalist globalisation, on the one hand, and referring the power of decision making to below, on the other, slows down the direct access to the multinationals and impeded their indirect influence in the socio-political arena. In short, despite all the value parliamentarism, secularism and political and cultural pluralism have for societies such as Iran, without a restructuring of the power structure, and transforming the role of the state, they cannot protect the people from the brutal despotism of capital.
The other challenge that virtually all the governments face is aggressive US imperialism. Here again “peoples representatives” from most countries have so often had to ignore the “popular vote” as a price for supporting the Bush administration. The only realistic source of resistance to this bullying is the solidarity of people who stand on their own feet across our planet. The reality is that an imperial power with a military budget equal to that of ten big powers has been unleashed on the world, not by the back door but sitting on tanks, with a piece of paper justifying occupation in its pocket. And which from the very first instant begins the “privatisation” of all public wealth. In this new world order one either annuls oneself as a political unit or recreates political power in such a way as to be able to make a stand. This may take years, but in the political future facing our world it is difficult to find another way.
In Iran the only truly democratic alternative for the Islamic Republic is participatory democracy. This is no utopianism. There may be ideals involved but it is not fantasy. It is also not merely a theoretical expression of a necessity. In Iran today millions of nameless men and women try to reply to this necessity with their actions. Thousands of NGO’s address such issues as poverty, addiction, prostitution, street children, runaway girls, homeless, and ecology. Thousands of self-help groups provide interest-free loans and free services, distribute essential commodities, teach literacy, provide training and such like. The real content of workers demands, mass popular action by the urban poor, the movements of the unemployed, youth, teachers, women, nationalities, religious minorities, lawyers, journalists, artists, writers, intellectuals all speak volumes. They all seek their needs outside the market, side stepping commodity relations, competition, and profit.
They want to socialise consumption. They want to remove the sources and conditions of their reproduction from state control. They reflect a realisation that only through direct collective participation can they fill the gap between needs and what the system offers. These movements are nothing less than the existence of the embryonic infrastructures for a society based on self-government and a participatory democracy.
Can people, and specifically those social forces whose demands are unanswered under capitalism and who cannot mediate to change their conditions within the existing political order, undertake this transition? The answer is qualified. Yes, if they can become organised as an wide-ranging movement against dictatorship and capitalism. No, if they remain fragmented or fall in behind one or other “charismatic” leader. The key issue, therefore, is the organisation of such a movement.
Moreover, the characteristics of any movement at its inception also determines the nature of the government it sets up. Changes in the meaning of power and the relations defining its distribution and structure are not the result of this process, but the condition for its beginning. For this reason previous models cannot offer a solution. Success has been rare, and the majority of political movements of the previous decades, have either been suppressed, ultimately appeared as another authoritarian system, or been absorbed in the dominant power structures. Movements which were able to open up different vistas are rare and, possibly, mainly confined to the 90’s. We need to start from somewhere else: a critique of the past and break with its elitist, leader-centred, paternalistic male dominated traditions. Some of the main features of this movement can be summarised:
First: Power is conquered from below and reconstructed, moving upwards, on the foundation of self-government and self-management. This is a termite-like process that powders the building of political and economic authoritarianism from within. It spreads and expands the area of control, the “liberated areas” of society, broadens direct participation, creates a new world in the depths. The empowerment of this movement is the other side of the process of strengthening the mass of working people, the other side of their direct action.
Second: This movement is not merely a route but also the construction of the road. Does not just train the player but sets the scenery too. It cannot ignore the political scene, which can speed up or impede, even block its movement. It therefore needs to intervene in crating the historic groupings that facilitate the goal. Its different views on power and its structure is no reason for it to stand aside from becoming active in the existing political scene. Like it or not, US imperialism will be one of the major players in the Middle East, and of course Iran, for years to come and the establishment of a government of participatory democracy in whatever form faces the twin obstacles of the religious despots and American imperialism.
The movement for self-government cannot ignore these obstacles, nor the fact that other social groups and layers could be potential allies in this struggle. Others, with a different vision of democracy, including some liberal democrats, can unite with this movement under such clear political framework as the slogan “for secularism, pluralism, republicanism – against imperialism and neo-liberalism”. Such alliances can, and must, be sought by the movement for participatory democracy. A democratic forum can provide the appropriate space for different forces and tendencies to gather together.
Third: This movement is part of the global struggle against dictatorship and the domination of capital and for self-government. This movement will not breathe unless, and until, it ties in with the global anti-capitalist movement and with the global movement against the warmongering and domineering policies of US imperialism. Even more, it has a duty to be actively involved in the organisation of this movement.
Fourth: Its organisation obeys a central rule: the source of solidarity is not uniformity, but acknowledging differences. In its organisation social, cultural, ethnic, sexual differences are acknowledged and encouraged. Individual needs become collective needs and every part can see itself in the whole. Only then can all potentials be mobilised and the movement for self-government and participation be organised in the form of a movement of movements.
The structural equivalent is a voluntary network linking its different components, self-managed and horizontally organised. No social grouping, no specific movement, no particular institution, no person or personality can claim to be at the helm of this network, to represent it or give it identity. Leadership is not the expression of a centralised will, nor obey a hierarchy of leadership. Voting is not the fundamental mechanism for decision making, which is mainly through a process of consensus.
The mechanism of choice is the social forum: that all-embracing umbrella that gathers under it all the social movements, civil institutions, NGO’s, trade unions, parties, the press, and political activists who believe in confronting capital and dictatorship, and have a share in the struggle for participatory self-government. This is the first and immediate step to plant the seed of that political presence that can take on the role of architect for political transition towards the alternative order.
In Iran today, the only force capable of engineering this project is the left. A left that has said goodbye to its addiction to “stages of revolution” and who has abandoned the puritanical isolationism, and is prepared to be involved in the day-to-day struggle to facilitate the road. The left, unless it can overcome its existing dispersion, cannot answer such a call. The project of Left Unity thus becomes doubly important. The radical, socialist left is the only force that can see the dawn in the depth of darkness and turn it into an attainable reality. No time to lose.
This an abridged translation of an article that appeared in Rahe Kargar no ..
Footnotes
1-Large scale demonstrations in June 2003 in most Iranian cities and the elections of local councils, 5months ago, where almost 90% of the population refused to participate in the voting process demonstrate this fact.
2-A plan by Republican senator, Sam Brownbeck, for allocating 50 million dollars financial support to Royalist TV stations in Los Angeles and Washington’s efforts in setting up a 24 hour program for Radio Farda are amongst such policies.
3- The Conference: “Future of Iran, mullacracy, democracy and the war against terror” last June in 2003 , establishing close ties with the pretender to the thrown, Reza Pahlavi and his entourage , discussions with Kurdish and Azari opposition figures , negotiations with the leaders of the Mojahedin.
, are part of such efforts.
4-See David Frum, ‘A peaceful approach to Regime Change’, AEI online ( Washington), May1, 2003
- Michael A. Ledeen, ‘The Tehran Regime must fall’, Wall Street Journal , June 11,2003.
-Revel Marc Gerecht, The weekly Standard, ‘Regime Change in Iran’, the weekly Standard , August5,2003.
5-Amongst hundreds of articles and books introducing this concept see :
-Barber ,b. ‘Jihad vs. MacWorld’, New York , Time Books ,1995
-Huntington, S. ‘The clash of civilisations and Remarking of World Order, London, Touchstone, 1997.
-Jonson Paul, ‘The New Colonialism’, The new York Times Magazine, May2, 1993.
-Kaplan Robert, ‘Interviews’, Centre for Defence Information, Washington, www.cdi.org/adm/1311/kaplan.html
6-A polished version of this type of thought is covering the literature of some of the repentant Hezbollahis. See Mohamad Reza Shalgouni’s article in the same issue (Rahe Kargar or Iran Bulletin_ME Forum) under the title ‘when a hezbollahi becomes pro US’, where the thoughts of one of them is introduced and criticised.
7-One can regularly see writings by such ‘Intellectuals’ on internet sites, however they rarely present a rational , documented argument in defence of imperialist intervention, colonialism and domination, but was is widespread is their attacks against the opponents of US Imperialism and its domination policies throughout the world. In short they claim that opponents of imperialism can only be followers of Khomeini and his government, ( what happened soon after 1979 revolution in Iran) . Breaking with this tradition , a necessary step, can only mean following imperialism. Once imperialism confronts a regime, one cannot be at the same time against both of them, if one is dictatorial the other is liberating, if one is reactionary the other one must be progressive. This line has evolved time and time again over the last 25 years ( since the Feb uprising in Iran) but one issue has not changed , according to these people the left has no other historic role but to decide to ally itself with which of two confronting powers: a dictatorial , reactionary internal regime or a despotic, dominant seeking imperialist power? It isn’t important which one it chooses , all that matters is that the choice is made with ‘wisdom’ and free from’ prejudice’ .
8-See ‘The nature of the state in the third world’ , written by Soleyman Orus, translated to Farsi by Behrouz Ghodratmand, Nashr Agah, Theran 1362.
9-For more details see
Al-Azmeh, Aziz, Conversation with Ardeshir Mehrdad, Iran Bulletin, NO 15-16, 17,18, 1997-98.
10-For a more extended explanation, see
Mehrdad. Ardeshir, ‘Radical Islam’ a primary study ‘ , Iran Bulletin, No 2-3-4-5, 1993-1994.
11- See Raimondo. Justin, ‘Neo Conservatives’ What and Who they are’
www.againstbombing.org/pont4.htm
Francis. Samuel ‘Neo-Con Invasion, New American , Vol.12 , No16, August 5, 1996.
12- This is one example of his proclamations:
‘God had ordered me tack Alghaedeh, I did that, then he told me to attack Sadam , I followed that order, and now I am determined to resolve the Middle East issue ,
quote Haaretz , published din Floyd. Chris, Global Eye- Errand Boy, Moscow Times, 7 June 2003.
13- reference to a pivotal issue in Michel Leeden’s proposals to move events in the Middle East to benefit the US. He believes the time has come to ‘export democratic revolutions’ to the Middle East and the mission to do this belongs to the US.
14- With few exceptions, these points are common to all the ‘charters’ , ‘agreements of alliance written by constitutional monarchists, republicans, national-religious groups and some ‘leftists’ published in recent months. The difference is on minor less significant issues , where each group emphasise their own preferences.
14- It should be noted that where the silence is broken, the followers of this line, limit themselves to a general critic of economic crises and rarely does it go beyond an expose of the corruption and inability of the current regime, for example in addressing government’s economic policies, rarely do they mention
the economic policies of the regime in following the prescriptions imposed by the IMF . It is true to say that amongst a large section of the opposition to the Islamic regime it is easier to say ‘death to Khamnei’ than to say ‘down with neo liberal economics’/
Amongst the existing factions within this tendency , many defended directly or indirectly US war against Afghanistan and the number of those who welcomed the fall of the Saddam regime and congratulated the Iraqi people and who did not oppose the occupation of this country are many.
17- See 4- Frum. David , A peaceful approach…
18- For a more detailed analysis see Ardeshir Mehrdad, Rise and fall of the US Empire , Rahe Kargar , Number 170, Summer, Autumn 1381
19-See -Panith.Leo, ‘Violence: A tool of Order and Change’, Monthly Review
-Gowan, Peter , ‘US hegemony Today’ , Monthly Review, July – August 2003-
20- The background and consequences of US Imperialism’s entry to a new phase has been examined in a separate article. See Ardeshir Mehrdad” the rise and fall of American Imperialism’ , Rahe Kargar , Number 17, Summer, Autumn 1381
21- See articles by George Caffentzis, From stealing to Robbing : a Post –Script to ‘No blood for Oil’ at www.commoner.org.uk
22-Let us not forget that during the recent student uprising and widespread demonstrations that followed it, started with protests against plans to privatise state universities.
Precisely the issue that most Los Angeles based royalist TV stations and groups such as ‘Coalition of democracy in Iran ‘ want to avoid mentioning (The coalition for democracy in Iran was founded Micheal Leeden, James Woolsey, former director of CIA , former senator Frank Gaffney , Rob Sobhani amongst others)
23- The very same people whose services are bought daily by security and intelligence organisations in Washington and who according to latest reports have been given a budget of 500 million dollars.
24- It should be said that the reference to the ‘Polish Model’ does not imply that Washington follows a fixed and final plan for regime change in Iran. Of course such a supposition would be wrong. If immediately after the coming to power of Khatami, the planners in Washington immediately favoured a Russian scenario ( transfer of power from Gorbachev to Yeltsin) with the rise in student and youth protests the Polish Model has been added to the existing scenarios. The rise in tension regarding Iran’s Nuclear plant shows that other scenarios including the Yugoslav scenario have not been ruled out.