After two weeks of travel among the warm and friendly people of Iran -- a people whose national heroes are not generals, but lyric poets -- you are left with the question: Why is their government so paranoid and, especially, why is it so hostile to America and to the West in general?
To understand the problem, I think you need to consider two aspects of the present government: first, it's the civil government of a nation, located on natural trade routes and with few natural geographical boundaries, that has historically been at times a dominant empire, but also at other times subject to frequent external threats and humiliations; and second, it's a formal establishment of a religious sect, one that's highly self-confident and emotionally devoted to its tenets, but one that nevertheless represents only ten percent of the world's Muslims, and is considered gravely heretical by the ninety percent majority
The 1979 Revolution that drove out the shah and created the Islamic Republic was driven by a broad coalition of interests within Iran. Nearly everyone wanted a more just society, not one in which only a small percentage of well-educated, upper class citizens prospered. A very large segment of the population -- probably a substantial majority -- also wanted a society and government organized in conformity with the tenets of the Qur'an. These devout citizens, like many others in the Middle East, had seen enough of secular, Western-oriented monarchies, dictatorships and oligarchies, such as those existing in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Their desire for something different was prompted not so much by hostility to the West -- although many were repelled by the "decadence" of Western society -- but by a desire to return to the original social ideals of the Prophet.
Iran's new government was thus to be both republican in form and Islamic in content, with a Supreme Leader-- representing the ulama, or community of religious experts, and acting as proxy for the "twelfth Imam" (see below) -- who would pass on legislative and other acts of the government to ensure that they conformed to Islamic law.
Historical vulnerability to foreign dominance
Iranians -- the heirs to a succession of powerful Persian empires -- have suffered from a long series of painful reverses. The Arabs conquered Persia shortly after the founding of Islam, imposing both Islam and Arabic on the country, at a low point in Persian history when it was exhausted from a series of wars with the Byzantines. As the result of this conquest, Islam permanently supplanted Zoroastrianism as Persia's dominant religion, but did so only in the more congenial form of Shi'a. The Arabic language eventually hung on only insofar as it now provides the alphabet used to spell the Persian language, as well as supplying a number of Arabic words that have been incorporated into Persian (or "Farsi," as it's pronounced in Persian).
Persian society was nearly obliterated by the Mongol invasions of Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But the Persian culture proved strong enough to "Persianize" the invaders in each instance, until the powerful Safavid dynasty (ethnically Turkic, but fully Persian in culture) came into being in the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century, the decadent Qajar dynasty led Persia into a prolonged decline, allowing it to be humiliatingly dominated by rival British and Russian influences, themselves engaged in the "Great Game" in Central Asia.
The Pahlavi shahs, father and son, threw off the Qajars, but imposed an entirely secular rule on the country, relying more and more on support from Britain and the United States as Iran's oil became increasingly critical during World War II and the subsequent cold war. In 1951, a freely elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, brought a more democratic and egalitarian rule to the country. But, in doing so, he nationalized the assets of what is now BP Petroleum. Americans may have forgotten -- the Iranians never have -- that the CIA, in cooperation with the British Government, then engineered a coup d'etat, removing Mosaddegh from power. From that point on, the Shah was securely in America's pocket. And the Shah, supported by American weapons, ruled his own people with a cruel and iron hand.
Iranians therefore have many reasons to fear foreign interference and rule -- and, in recent decades especially, Western interference and rule. Let's not forget that the United States (and other Western nations) strongly supported Saddam Hussein's 1982-90 war against Iran, a war that left an estimated 188,000 Iranians dead. The war ended after the U.S. shot down -- deliberately or accidentally -- Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 passengers and crew.
But Iran's prickly relationships with the rest of the world also result from its Shi'ite faith.
Shi'a religion
I took courses in Islamic history in college, and the subject has always interested me. But I learned much about the religion that was new to me in the course of this trip. Shi'a is a branch of Islam resulting from a dispute over the proper successor to the prophet Muhammed. Shi'ites believe that Muhammed's cousin, Ali, was the last legitimate sucessor of the Prophet (legitimate successors are called "Imams" by Shi'ites) upon which both Sunnis and Shi'ites agree. Ali, chosen by Muhammed himself, was the fourth Imam, and after eight more Imams, recognized only by Shi'ites, the twelfth Imam disappeared in some manner from human sight ("Occultation"). This twelfth Imam still lives, and will reappear at the end of time as the Mahdi.
The majority Sunnis believe that Ali was succeeded by the Umayyad caliphate in Damascus, and by its successors. Ali was assassinated while at prayer, and his heirs were defeated in battle by the Umayyads. He is mourned annually by Shi'ites, by means of lamentations, histrionic stories of his life, and self-flagellation. Devotion to Ali (and his successors) is highly emotional. His portrait is seen everywhere in Iran. Shrines to successor Imams and other Shi'ite martyrs exist throughout Shi'ite-dominated areas of the Middle East
But this dispute over the succession is more than a simple schism. To a Sunni, the absolute one-ness and sovereignty of God are a base rock foundation of Islam. There are no priests in Sunni Islam; there are no intermediaries between the believer and God. Sunnis view Shi'ite devotion to Ali and the martyrs, and their veneration of shrines, as a form of idolotry, a heresy that hits at the very heart of Islam. An analogy would be the dispute between Protestants and Catholics over the priesthood and the veneration of saints.
Shi'ites thus believe that only through acknowledgement of Ali, of the subsequent Imams, and of the imminent coming of the Mahdi, can a Muslim be true to Islam and to the explicit wishes of Muhammed (who allegedly instructed that Ali should be his successor). Sunnis believe Shi'ites misunderstand the very foundation of Islam ("There is no god but Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet.") And Iranian Shi'ites have drifted even further from the true path, in Sunni eyes, by incorporating certain practices of Zoroastrianism into their practice of their faith. These differences and Sunni hostility again feed Iranians' distrust of cooperation with outsiders, and make it far less likely than it would otherwise be that Iran -- as a major regional power -- can effectively lead any coalition or alliance of Middle Eastern states
For example: While I was in Iran, Iranian television was obsessed by the situation in Bahrain. Bahrain is a Shi'ite Gulf State ruled by a Sunni king. Mass protests by the Shi'ite people -- similar to those going on at the same time in other countries in the region -- were met by assistance to the king (or "intervention") by Sunni Saudi Arabia. The Iranian media were livid, denouncing the Saudis as puppets of American imperialism.
Furthermore, when it comes to Iran's problems specifically with the West, there is the issue of Western morals and conduct. As our American guide pointed out, Islam is a religion that is concerned less with orthodoxy -- what you believe -- than orthopraxy -- how you behave. They think we behave badly, and who can blame them? Many Muslims have come to the U.S. with the dream of living here permanently, only to return to their homelands in disgust. We aren't going to change our society to meet Muslim standards, but we should be able to understand that the way we live our lives is problematical when it comes to dealing with a country like Iran. After all, was it so many generations ago that plenty of Americans were appalled by the way that French "libertines" lived their lives?
Muddled future
Iran is the most modern and technologically developed country in the Middle East. (With the possible exception, I suppose, of the small nation of Lebanon.) It is destined, sooner or later, to be a nuclear power. (One of its uranium enrichment plants was pointed out to us, south of Tehran, from the freeway.) Its Supreme Leader, and its President Ahmadinejad who has the Leader's full support, drive us nuts. But they are devoted to developing a nation based on Islamic principles and law, principles that include the egalitarian social teachings of Muhammed. They genuinely hope to restore Islam, in Iran at least, to primitive Islam -- just as many Protestants in our country hope to render their own faith -- and their country -- consistent with their understanding of primitive Christianity.
The Islamic Republic is thus an experiment, both in government and in religion. As such, I'm not sure that we should be instinctively hostile to it, although we can certainly deplore some of its more extreme punitive practices, practices based on strict application of sharia law. It will be interesting to see whether Iran can continue to combine a theocratic government with a modern and sophisticated society and economy, and to do so with the continued support of the majority of its people.
Those of us who wish Iran well obviously have areas of serious concern. First and foremost is Iran's repeated refusal to abide by U.N. resolutions and its insistence on proceeding with enrichment of uranium; despite protestations that it seeks only nuclear energy for peaceful uses, Iran's hostile defiance and activities make this claim unlikely. Second is the threat Iran poses to the peace process -- however moribund at present -- between Palestine and Israel. Third, despite its claim to be republican as well as Islamic, the Ahmadinejad administration appears to have fraudulently stolen the most recent election in 2009, indicating a lack of self-confidence in its popular support and a lack of dedication to its own purported principles. (Apparently, the Supreme Leader follows the tenet that any government has as its paramount duty the duty of ensuring its own survival.) Fourth, there appears to be a significant amount of corruption among the Revolutionary Guard and some of the mullahs (clergy); members of both groups have received the lion's share of those properties nationalized early in the Revolution, and have openly used them for their own personal benefit.
I've tried to identify some of the problems. But we know too little about what goes on inside Iran's ruling circles -- and a highly-structured, two week's visit as a tourist is ludicrously inadequate -- for me to offer any predictions of what happens next.
I can only predict that it will be interesting!
--------------------didactic
of literature or other art, intended to convey instruction and information. The word is often used to refer to texts that are overburdened with instructive or factual matter to the exclusion of graceful and pleasing detail so that they are pompously dull and erudite. Some literature, however, is both entertaining and consciously didactic, as, for example, proverbs and gnomic poetry. The word is from the Greek didaktikos, "apt at teaching." [emphasis added]
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