Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review June 17, 2003 / 17 Sivan, 5763

Michael Ledeen

Ledeen
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


The Iranian Revolution, 2003: Regime change in the air


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | You never know what will provide the spark for revolution. The most you can expect from a good analyst is the recognition of what the Marxists used to call a "revolutionary situation," but the crucial ingredient is impossible to measure (which is why the so-called social scientists have never been very good at predicting revolutions). It can only be sniffed out, and the revolutionaries are the first to know. They smell rot and fear coming from the corridors of power. They smell tell-tale odors coming from the undergarments of the doomed leaders. And they sense a wavering of will, a growing pattern of panicky response.

Those odors are beginning to waft through the air of the central squares of Iran's major cities, and have stimulated the people to an increasingly open challenge to the reigning mullahs. There have now been six consecutive nights of demonstrations all over Iran, and although Western reporters there are on a tight leash — the regime has banned all journalists and photographers from the sites of demonstrations, so the "reports" are almost always based on second-hand information — and although there do not seem to be any Western reporters covering events outside Tehran itself, several facts are dramatically clear.

First, the demonstrators are not just "students" (the word itself is rather misleading in context, since many of them are in their thirties or forties). Some estimates reckon that up to 90 percent of the demonstrators are non-students.

Second, the regime is flustered, and misjudged its response. It reminds me of Gorbachev's ham-handed response to demonstrations in Lithuania towards the end of the Soviet era. He sent in just enough soldiers to enrage the Lithuanians, but not enough to put an end to the protests. The mullahs in Tehran did just the same, unleashing the most unruly and undisciplined members of the vigilante security forces, the Basiji. But the demonstrators fought back effectively, which was an enormous boost to the morale of the democratic forces. As of Sunday night, the regime had sent in some of the shock troops of the Revolutionary Guards, who were more effective, but the situation may well have gotten out of hand.

Third, the brutal assaults on the demonstrators (female students were hurled out of dormitory windows, and survivors were beaten savagely as they lay on the street) provoked the police to intervene against the Basiji, showing once again that the regime cannot count on its own security personnel to put down the freedom movement. This is one of the prime reasons for the smell of fear coming out of the mullahs' mosques and palaces.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, the anti-regime demonstrations are not limited to Tehran. On Sunday night, for example, the biggest demonstrations to date — anywhere in the country — reportedly took place in Isfahan (where my informant said virtually the entire city was mobilized against the regime), and other protests were staged in Mashad, Shiraz (where three distinguished scholars were thrown in jail last Thursday, following an extorted "confession" from a 14-year old) and Ahvaz. This is doubly significant, both because it shows the national character of the rebellion, and because Isfahan has historically been the epicenter of revolutionary movements (and indeed some of the harshest critics of the regime are in and from Isfahan).

Fifth, the leaders of the regime are acting with open incoherence. While Supreme Leader Khamenei and Information Minister Yunesi accused the United States of financing the uprising, strongman Rafsanjani publicly offered assistance to America in fighting terrorism. He announced that Iran had abundant information on various terrorist groups (now there's a real revelation for you) and would be willing to share it with us in exchange for a friendlier attitude. Put in simple terms, he's negotiating for his survival. Meanwhile, the speaker of parliament, Mehdi Karrubi, demanded that Yunesi document the regime's claim that Iranian officials had been paid off by the Americans, and threatened to impeach the information minister if he didn't carry out an exhaustive investigation. To be sure, Karrubi is a mere figurehead, but his willingness to openly and melodramatically challenge the regime speaks volumes about the determination of the opposition and the contempt held for the leadership.

Sixth, there is mounting violence against the regime. We are no longer talking about purely peaceful demonstrations. The protesters know they are going to be attacked with guns, clubs, knives, machetes and chains, and they are responding with Molotov cocktails and guns of their own. In some of the recent street fighting, the demonstrators strung wires across the streets to bring down the Basiji, who were on motorcycles.

The regime is in a real jam. The mullahs know the people hate them — even the timorous correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor in Tehran says that 90 percent of Iranians want democratic change, and 70 percent want drastic change — and they also know that their own instruments of repression are insufficient to deal with a massive insurrection. Many leaders of the armed forces have openly said they will side with the people if there is open civil conflict. Members of some of the most powerful institutions in the country have said that they believe more than half of the Revolutionary Guards will support the people in a frontal showdown. Ergo, the mullahs have had to import foreign thugs — described as "Afghan Arabs" in the popular press — to put down demonstrations.

On the other side of the barricades, the pro-democracy forces seem to have passed the point of no return. They know that if they stop now, many of them will be subjected to terrible tortures and summary execution. Kamenei and Rafsanjani are not likely to embark on a domestic peace process. Just as they have sensed the rot within the regime, the mullahs are desperately sniffing the air for similar odors from the university areas and the homes and offices of the other leaders of the insurrection.

As usual, President Bush has been letter perfect in his praise for the freedom fighters and his condemnation of the repression in Iran. And the State Department spoke in similar terms through its spokesman, Richard Boucher. It would be good if Secretary Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, threw their prestige openly behind democracy (and hence regime change) in the next few days. There has been considerable criticism — which I have joined — of the administration's lack of a formal Iran policy, but it seems that the president himself has clearly formulated it. He should now ensure that the whole choir is chanting from his hymnal.

Part of the reason for the failure to agree upon an explicit endorsement of Iranian democracy is a lack of good information from inside Iran, and a consequent lack of accurate analysis. At this point, there is nothing that can be done about the failure of the intelligence community to obtain an accurate picture of the forces in play within Iran. It is not to be blamed on the current CIA, or on its personable leader, George Tenet. The truth is that the United States has had rotten intelligence on Iran ever since the run-up to the 1979 revolution that removed the shah and brought the awful mullahs to power. But even so, there is no excuse for the misunderstanding of revolutionary change that dominates the thinking of the intelligence and diplomatic communities.

The spooks and dips believe that democratic revolution in Iran is unlikely because the revolutionary forces have no charismatic leader — no Walesa, no Havel, no Robespierre, no Jefferson — and without revolutionary leaders, revolutions do not occur. Our deep thinkers fear that if we supported the rebels, we would risk a replay of the abortive uprisings in Poland and Hungary in the 1950s and 1960s.

But Iran today is not at all comparable to Central Europe half a century ago, or for that matter to revolutionary France of America in the 18th century, or Russia on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. In all those cases, the revolutionaries were a distinct minority, and only a combination of dynamic leadership and foreign support could bring down the regimes. In Iran today, the revolutionaries constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, while the tyrants only glean minimal support. Thus, the Iranian people hold their destiny in their own hands. They share a common dream of freedom, and need only transform it into a common mission to liberate themselves.

Finally, our analysts should be more modest when they pronounce on the lack of revolutionary leaders in Iran today. The democracy movement has been growing for years, and has clearly attracted mass support. That does not take place without good leadership. The leaders are there, we just don't know their names and faces. But if we stick to our own guiding principles, and support the democratic revolution under way in the streets of Iran — and if the revolutionary momentum is as strong as it now appears — we will get to know them soon enough.


Like this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Michael Ledeen is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of, most recently, ""The War Against the Terror Masters," Comment by clicking here.

Up

06/05/03: Academic Standards: A Middle East scholar has his way with the truth.
05/28/03: The Moment of Truth? U.S. policy could determine Iran's destiny
05/15/03: Iran's Path: Stopping the mullahs in their tracks
05/13/03: The Nuclear Axis of Evil: The people solution
05/08/03: Inside the Dark: Applebaum's ‘Gulag’
05/06/03: Tough Guy: Powell's curious priority list
05/01/03: Desert Shame Redux: Want a free Iran and a free Syria? We have to fight for it
04/25/03: Timing Is Everything: We have a narrow window in Iraq to win Shiite support
04/15/03: Political war can remove terror masters in Syria and Iran
04/07/03: The Others: We have miles to go in eliminating the Axis
04/02/03: French Lies: Take the foreign minister at his word
03/31/03: Why muzzle Saddam's foes?
03/28/03: The post-war terror threat
03/26/03: All Fronts: Military war, political war, psychological war
03/24/03: More Bad News for Daschle: Taking out terror of all nationalities
03/21/03: The Killer Pneu: Virus terror from China
03/13/03: Iran: Nuclear suicide bombers?
03/11/03: A Theory: What if there's method to the Franco-German madness?
03/05/03: The Iranian-Election Revolt: The people speak. The West won't listen
02/19/03: The willful blindness of those who will not see
02/12/03: The Europeans Know More Than They Now Pretend? They choose to dawdle and obstruct
02/03/03: Monumental failure: Nelson Mandela had promise
01/30/03: Elevation: The president knows what it's all about
01/29/03: No Leader: France's Chirac is all about personal interest
01/28/03: The Axis of Evil Redux: Same place, a year later
01/27/03: The Return of the Ayatollah: Washington could afford a little more attention on Iran
01/13/03: How we could lose
01/09/03: Fish are Better than Women: Gauging U.S. priorities
01/07/03: The Shape of Things to Come: The terror masters are now waiting for us
12/20/02: A Prophecy for the New Year --- Faster, please!
12/16/02: Scud Surrender: The "W" factor
12/13/02: The Heart of Darkness: The mullahs make terror possible
12/12/02: The Real War
12/09/02: Tom Friedman's Reformation: His Iran
11/26/02: How Tyrannies Fall: Opportunity time in Iran
11/22/02: The Blind Leading the Blind: The New York Times and the Iranian crisis
11/13/02: The Temperature Rises: We should liberate Iran first --- now
11/05/02: End of the Road: Iran's Mohammed Khatami, on his way out
10/29/02: The Angleton Dialogues, Contnued: What George Tenet doesn’t know
10/24/02: The Iranian Comedy Hour: In the U.S., the silence continues
10/16/02: Sniper, Saboteur, or Sleeper? Channeling James Jesus Angleton
10/01/02: The real foe
09/27/02: The Iranian String Quartet: The mullahs get increasingly nervous
09/25/02: The Dubya Doctrine
09/23/02: Intelligence? What intelligence?
09/12/02: America's revenge: To turn tyrannies into democracies
09/10/02: Iran & Afghanistan & Us: We'll have to deal with the mullahcracy, sooner or later
09/04/02: Iran, according to the Times: All the nonsense that's fit to print
08/21/02: Life and death of Abu Nidal tells us a great deal about our enemies
08/08/02: Can You Keep a Secret?: The media silence on Iran
08/06/02: Fantasy Reporting: The latest disinformation from the Washington Post
08/02/02: Propping Up the Terror Masters: Europe's Solana on tour
07/16/02: Bush vs. the Mullahs: Getting on the side of the Iranian freedom fighters
07/12/02: The State Department Goes Mute: It's official: State has no message
07/09/02: History being made, but the West appears clueless
06/05/02: Is George Tenet endangering peace in Israel?
06/03/02: Ridiculous, even for a journalist
05/20/02: So how come nobody's been fired yet?
05/14/02: Open doors for thugs
04/20/02: Iran on the Brink … and the U.S. does nothing
04/16/02: It’s the war, stupid … someone remind Colin Powell
04/08/02: Gulled: In the Middle East, Arafat doesn't matter
04/02/02: Faster, Please: The war falters
03/26/02: The Revolution Continues: What's brewing in Iran
03/18/02: Iran simmers still: Where's the press?
03/05/02: We can't lose any more ground in Iran
02/14/02: The Great Iranian Hoax
02/12/02: Unnoticed Bombshell: Key information in a new book
01/31/02: The truth behind the Powell play
01/29/02: My past with "Johnny Jihad's" lawyer
01/21/02: It's Munich, all over again
01/08/02: What's the Holdup?: It's time for the next battles in the war against terrorism
12/11/01: We must be imperious, ruthless, and relentless
12/06/01: Remembering my family friend, Walt Disney
11/28/01: The Barbara Olson Bomb: Understanding the war
11/13/01: How We're Doing: The Angleton Files, IV
11/06/01: A great revolutionary war is coming
10/25/01: How to talk to a terrorist
10/23/01: Creative Reporting: Learning to appreciate press briefings
10/19/01: Not the Emmys: A Beltway award presentation
10/15/01: Rediscovering American character
10/11/01: Somehow, I've missed Arafat's praise of the first stage of our war on terrorism
10/04/01: What do we not know?
09/28/01: Machiavelli On Our War: Some advice for our leaders
09/25/01: No Room for the U.N.: Keeping Annan & co. out of the picture
09/21/01: Creative destruction
09/14/01: Who Killed Barbara Olson?
08/22/01: How Israel will win this war
08/15/01: Bracing for war
08/09/01: More Dithering Democrats
08/02/01: Delirious Dems
07/31/01: Consulting a legendary counterspy about Chandra and Condit, cont'd
07/19/01: Be careful what you wish for
07/17/01: Consulting a legendary counterspy about Chandra and Condit
07/05/01: Let Slobo Go
05/30/01: Anybody out there afraid of the Republicans?
05/09/01: The bad guys to the rescue
05/07/01: Bye-bye, Blumenthal
04/20/01: Handling China
04/11/01: EXAM TIME!
04/05/01: Chinese over-water torture
03/27/01: Fighting AIDS in Africa is a losing proposition
03/14/01: Big Bird, Oscar, and other threats
03/09/01: Time for a good, old-fashioned purge
03/06/01: Powell’s great (mis)adventure
02/26/01: The Clinton Sopranos
02/20/01: Unity Schmoonity: Sharon is defying the will of the people
01/30/01: The Rest of the Rich Story
01/22/01: Ashcroft the Jew
01/11/01: A fitting close to the Clinton years
12/26/00: Continuing Clinton's shameful legacy
12/21/00: Clinton’s gift for Bush

© 2001, Michael Ledeen