By Shahriar Ahy
A perfect storm is gathering in Iran.
- A) A new generation has entered the scene. It wants modernity and a decent life on this earth, rather than deprivation here in exchange for salvation in another world promised by corrupt mullahs they mistrust.
- B) The US Administration is fed up with the Islamic Republic’s attempts to export a revolution, long dead at home, through paramilitary forces it has created, armed, nurtured and spread from the shores of the Mediterranean to Yemen, and toward Central Asia in Afghanistan.
- C) A succession crisis at the end of the Ali Khamenei era has old stalwarts of the Revolution and their clans mercilessly at each other’s throats, while.
- D) a corrupt and incompetent administration has driven the economy to bankruptcy.
Let us not bet on the recovery from this perfect storm by men who got Iran into it in the first place. Prepare instead for the overdue collapse of a regime from the dark ages that never had a place in the modern world. But what does that mean? Freedom and democracy at the epicenter of the old Silk Road, reconnecting the disrupted value chain from Russia to Arabia, from the subcontinent to Europe, building and enjoying new wealth? Or, chaos and anarchy, a migration tsunami to Europe, a desperate vacuum of order and authority, which would naturally tend to be filled by an ultranationalist, fascist regime that bleeds the region in wars of ethnic subjugation for a generation!
With significant impact on global peace and prosperity, the answer depends on how wisely the transition from the Islamist Republic to a new Iran is managed. The key is preventing the collapse of the civil and military bureaucracies while the top policymakers change in an orderly process, by a pluralist, participatory system representing all of today’s diverse society in Iran. That is easier said than done, but five Projects could be combined to achieve that managed transition.
But first, how did the Iranian society reach this imbroglio?
Some History
In the first three decades after World War II, Iran industrialized at an astronomic pace. The attendant rapid urbanization extracted a generation from the traditional fiber of the countryside and moved it to new sprawling urban areas where the strict normative order they were used was missing. This “anomie”, to use Durkheim’s term, drove them to seek the assurance and guidance of the one reminder of the norms lost: the clerics – not just for spiritual comfort, but also to restore the lost moral and behavioral code of the traditional society through Sharia laws.
That was the consequence of the social displacement. But there was also great economic disparities that came with unevenly distributed great new wealth, which led the more educated urban youth to look for “economic justice” in leftist ideologies. One would expect to see little common ground between the more educated Marxists and the less privileged religious youth. However, there were two hidden processes that converged the two:
First, More than one Hundred years ago, Iran’s Constitutional Revolution brought the first democracy to the East. How could the same nation choose a theocracy seventy years later?
The Constitutional Revolution gathered momentum during the introduction of telegraph in Iran. The nascent free press stirred debate about democracy and the rule of law, ideas received largely through the telegraph from Iranian intellectuals living abroad.
In stark contrast, during the last two decades before the Islamic Revolution every channel of political communication had fallen under strict state control — except the mosque. A whole generation of Iranian intellectuals, mostly from the left, who couldn’t read the books they wanted, let alone publish, took their shoes off and went to the mosque. There, they sat in awe of a religious channel of communication that could carry the word, mouth by mouth, to the last village in this large country.
As the path of least resistance, the religious network became the channel of political opposition. But the channel was not impartial to the message it conveyed. In true fashion of Marshall Mcluhan’s epigram, “medium is the message,” the idiom of politics came to be shaped by the referents of the mosque. Had alternative channels been free, the clerics would not become the only leaders of political change. Writers, journalists, teachers, even movie stars (as in India) would be able to capture popular imagination and garner support
Second, The Soviets never forgot the role of the clergy in their great loss of influence through the events of summer of 1953. With the removal of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and the return of Mohammad Reza Shah, their once mighty Tudeh Party was formally disbanded and went underground. Embarking on a new project in Iran, the Soviets were no longer content to encourage merely secular leftist groups. They also recruited young, more intellectually minded clerics who amalgamated religious ideas of struggle for justice with class struggle.
And so it was that in the late 1970s, with the Shah’s terminal cancer, with an inverted J-curve of sudden economic downturn after ultra-rapid growth and rising expectations, with flagging support from the Carter Administration at a critical time in the cold war, the “black-red alliance” of the clerics and the left was ready to lead the masses toward a promise land that would never be.
Without the left, the clerics would not have a revolutionary theory or strategy, nor were they capable of creating revolutionary institutions to sustain a new state. But once they got all of that, they got rid of the left through the most brutal methods — cognizant of the fact that, ultimately, the two visions for a new society were irreconcilable. It was the more religious left, the Mujahedeen, who fared worse, since they were more of a threat than the secular Fedayeen. But neither one could defend itself against a clerical class that had studied exploitation of human weaknesses for seven hundred years.
The New Clerical Class
Before occupying seats of government clerics depended on their followers. A young seminary student would study in poverty to save the souls of his flock, or at least convince them that he could. With levers of power and wealth in the hands of clerics, however, a new kind of student was attracted. They came to enjoy the good life, courtesy of ruling Ayatollahs whose state-funded schools and centers were a ladder to the government bureaucracy and rents of state power.
Traditional (non-revolutionary) fathers of the Shiite faith, like Ayatollah Shariatmadari had often warned of mixing the clerical hierarchy with the government bureaucracy. Their concern was no less than loss of faith in a religion led by clerics that wielded mandatory power over people, rather than derive power from the consent of their followers. But in time, loss of faith was precisely what was wrought by Khomeini’s heterodoxy of absolute rule by the “Faghih”, or the Sharia law-giver. The result was a deeply corrupt and reviled ruling clerical class in a society with an exceptionally high rate of prostitution, drug addiction, mistrust and focus on momentary survival – the exact opposite of why a politically inexperienced people opted for religious government forty years ago.
The Reformists
For twenty years the Reformists have told the Iranian people that electing their candidates will enable them to force the retreat of corruption and oppression, opening a more participatory political system, eventually leading to full democracy. For twenty years, what has retreated is the Reformists themselves. There is a good reason: As the popularity and confidence of the center of power wanes, the radius of participation is reduced to ensure stability and unity of command. Thus the system bleeds even more competence, becomes less popular and confident, and the downward spiral continues. Looking tough abroad could momentarily make them look invincible and dishearten opponents, but it buys more enemies abroad, increases economic pressures and even further dissatisfaction at home. If the deeply divided and disheartened Reform Movement needed further proof of their lost appeal, they can listen to the oft-heard slogan chanted on the streets: “Principalist, Reformist, the Charade is Over.”
The IRGC
Some in the US Administration still hope to make a deal with the Revolutionary Guards. Perhaps they could pull a coup against the clerics and manage a more rational state out of self-interest, albeit an undemocratic one. One can recall the same delusion about making a deal with the Imperial military to hold the fort after the Shah’s departure. At least that military was more dependent on the West for equipment and support, as well as more West leaning through training and ideology. But it was still a delusion because militaries whose commanders are handpicked and separately controlled by a political authority outside their ranks do not have the unity of command necessary for coups. They collapse with the political authority that checks and balances their command structure.
What next?
Unfortunately for Reformists, there is no gradual, continuous path out of totalitarian states. Such states’ absolutist ideology and theory of sovereignty allows for no half-way point on the transition to democracy. Unlike non-ideological dictatorships that can compromise, totalitarian states have no tolerance for a growing, independent civil society, or political institutions that can gradually claim the power they lose for a smooth transition. And unfortunately for the Guards, they are chained to an authority from the dark ages whose anachronistic life will end by the fast growing ranks of a new generation. Iran is ripe for a rupture.
The first wave that will overwhelm the theocracy is its exact opposite: moderate, liberal, modern and open to the world. Those are the characteristics that emerge from a deep Factor Analysis of social communication among the likely first wave influencers. There is great hope for Iran and the region should a new order stabilize on the ground cleared as this wave recedes. Alas, the same Analysis shows a dark cloud if stabilization fails at this stage, anarchy follows and hope turns into dismay.
The second wave is angry, intolerant and violent. Most likely it ends in a xenophobic regime that hates reason, liberty, all who are not “like us”, and will sacrifices everything for collective power:
The result is Fascism.
What is to be Done?
Stabilizing a legitimate democratic order after the first wave requires, first effective communication with its influencers; second a pluralist political leadership, representing different segments of Iran’s diverse society, who could shape and articulate the dominant unifying discourse towards a tolerant, democratic Iran, respectful of diversity within and others outside Iran; third, recruit those within the present civil and military bureaucracies willing to help build a new democratic Iran; fourth, build trust with and support Iran’s civil society, particularly those defending the rights of women, youth, labor, teachers and ethnic groups; and fifth establish constructive relations with those in the international community willing to support a new tolerant and democratic Iran.
General Strategy and Its Five Projects
- Communication
There is a vast sum of youthful protest energy in Iran that could overwhelm the oppressive apparatus any day they act together. Like shale gas, however, they are confined in isolated pockets. Social networks connecting them are fragmented and deliberately misled by the regime’s cyber warriors to create fogs of confusion and sow the seeds of mistrust.The NetCentric Project is designed by a team of our new media experts to aggregate that energy. First, it identifies influencers and potential leaders in their respective Virtual Communities formed around distinct issues. Second, it builds neural paths that can connect those Communities. When specific events or disseminated information excite the paths, the Communities they connect can act together. Third, a hierarchic database of issues is constructed so that energy can flow bottom up when broader “macro” issues become salient. Finally, NetCentric mass media programs are produced focusing on the broad issues that are trending. They are called NetCentric, because they derive their content from the input by the influencers in social medial. Instead of pushing content onto the audience, they pull content from influencers within the audience. Once broadcast, those influencers will naturally redistribute the content and stimulate discussion within the audience. This will turn passive audiences to active participants and open gates for energy to flow bottom up. - Political Leadership
Unharnessed, powerful new methods of communication could create explosive energy. Like the Arab Spring, that could destroy authority without creating a new one in its stead. A pluralist leadership is needed to perform checks and balances. These act as negative feedback loops designed to ensure stability in systems.In the last fifteen years political leaders from across the Iranian political spectrum have tried to come together and prioritize national interest above party politics. Our Political Leadership Team’s task is to build dialogue and cooperation between parties focused on specific interest and these national non-partisan formations.
This way the authority lost by the regime under the pressure of the newly released social energy will not give way to uncontrolled conflict and competition among the opposition. This way, a new pluralist and democratic authority could replace the theocracy in a managed transition. - Recruitment
As the more thoughtful elements in the civil and military bureaucracy come to realize the regime’s hopelessness in solving its mounting problems, naturally they look for alternatives. Our Recruitment Project is developing channels of communication to growing dissent within the government. The previously emphasized goal of keeping as much of the civil and military bureaucracies for a smoother transition depends on the success of this project. Building trust and good counterintelligence work are the keys to that success. - Civil Society
Like all totalitarian states, the Islamic Republic has tried to destroy independent civil society and replace it with its own parallel institutions pretending to represents workers, teaches, youth organizations and the rest. The results did not last long. In some cases what they built turned against them. In others they never managed to seem genuine and yielded support and trust to pre-revolutionary traditional guilds. Our Civil Society Contact Team stays in touch and supports existing civil society as a foundation of tomorrow’s democracy in Iran. - International Relations
Great powers and major actors in the Middle East have played a major role in developments in Iran. Building alliances and friendship with foreign powers, as well as offering advice and correcting short-sighted policies that ultimately harm all are the priorities of our International Team.
The opinion expressed do not necessarily reflect those of ITC
