What "Totalitarianism" Can teach Us About Iran

Iran’s regime is truly despicable, a deeply authoritarian theocracy that has grown so repressive that many of its original revolutionaries have come to regard Khomeneism as a terrible betrayal. The twisted theocracy imposes its terror on a vast segment of society, perpetrating all sorts of crimes against its people in a routine and bureaucratized manner. Among the editors of OTR there is very little disagreement that this regime needs to be strenuously contested . . . . by supporting opposition and human rights groups within Iran and through covert action, exploiting “the back doors,” but not by bombing or invasion. Overt aggression on the part of the US could lead to a nationalistic blowback that crushes the fragile internal opposition we seek to nourish, a wager too high to countenance for now.

Where the editors have differed is over the application of the term totalitarian to Iran. This debate can be fruitful in parsing out the distinctions between “classic” 20th century totalitarianism and how its warped political features mirror or vary from that of Iran. In doing so, much is revealed about the Iranian regime: its contradictions, weaknesses and divisions, and with that knowledge we find tactical openings. We have a better notion of how to proceed in agitating for its inevitable transition, its demise. In Iraq there is a cautionary tale on the dangers of misapplying totalizing concepts that ignore the true nature of the regime. The Penatgon’s “decapitation” strategy was premised on the singular authority of a rigid, totalitarian Baathist party, one ruled completely by the Baathist elite. All they had to do was cut it off and resistance would crumble. This misperception overlooked the post-1991 transition in which a decayed Baathist apparatus came to rely on semi-autonomous Sunni tribesmen (and to an extent, Islamists) as a reserve pool of support; support bought off with franchises, direct payments and even weapons. This bizarre political attribute became the refuge for insurgents, “dead-enders” and “die-hards” even after the state ceased to exist. Contra Condi Rice’s assertion of Nazi “Werewolves,” there was very little resistance to the Allies after Admiral Donitz signed the surrender of the Third Reich.

By too hastily applying the label totalitarian, or shoehorning Iran’s perverse idiosyncrasies into mid-20th century rubrics, we obscure important facts about Iran’s schizophrenic state and its intentions or even lose sight of the weak, nascent civil society that could one day oppose it. After all, in totalitarian states, civil society is enveloped by the state to the point of no public resistance. On this definition, Arendt made the first splash and the biggest, supplying key concepts with her The Origins of Totalitarianism. Sure, many that followed have pointed out flaws and "proved" some theses that were over-stated or wrong, but they worked off of her definitions. Arendt insisted that totalitarianism was a genuinely novel force in human history, a political form never seen before, one that broke radically with the past wherever it took root. It could not be conflated with conventional autocracies, mere fascisms like Franco's Spain or even Mussoloni's Italy. "Whever it rose to power," Arendt asserted, totalitarianism created "entirely new political institutions and destroyed all social, legal and political traditions of the country." Her basic definition pivoted on its willful break with the past, especially its violent repudiation of liberal democracy, parliamentary democracy: "Totalitarian government always transformed classes into masses, supplanted the party system, not by one-party dictatorships but by a mass movements, shifted the center of power from the army to the police, and established a foreign policy openly directed toward world domination." (460)

On at least two points then, it is apparent that Iran does not meet some of Arendt's criteria for totalitarianism:

1. World domination. Though Iran has tried to build influence in its neighborhood through the export of terror, the debilitating horrors of the Iran-Iraq war have circumscribed its expansion. It is not making a play “openly directed toward world domination.” Iran is simply not that bellicose or megalomanical in its efforts to impose its mutated version of theocracy. Indeed, in many ways, its schizophrenic governmental gestalt seems highly unattractive to its closest ideological allies. For all the money that Iran has poured into the Sciri and Dawa parties in neighboring Iraq, many elite Iraqi Shiites are quick to point out that they find the Iranian theocracy deeply distasteful, that it is not what they want for Iraq. Even Hezbollah, as horrifying as they still are, renounced Iranian style theocracy as far back as 1992 in order to enter Lebanese parliamentary politics. What do these limits on Iranian expansion mean for the future of the regime?

2. Iran still has a weak adherence to at least the appearance of parliamentary democracy. Yes, the reform movement has been neutered or violently thwarted, but the state did not want Khatami to win. "Elections" for President of Iran will take place this year. It most likely will be a farce, constrained by the Guardian Council as to who can enter the contest, but this show of democracy is not a traditional totalitarian feature. Totalitarianism did not care -- it had superseded democracy, “supplanted the party-system”, casting it into the dust heap of history. Throughout its brief life the post-revolutionary Iranian parliament has shown some faint political autonomy as an institution. It was the parliament under Rahfsanjani that began modest market reforms. For all its vicious political control, the Iranian state still feels the need to perform the pharisaic rituals of parliamentary democracy. This is a structural weakness that still stings this monster, a thorn that Iraqi elections will hopefully push deeper into its flesh.

Totalitarianism, T.S. Eliot once said, was inherently "pagan," for it recognized no authority or principle but that of the state. The state triumphed over all previous ideologies and traditions and subjugated ALL religions, there could be no other source of authority, a totalizing aspect that Arendt seemed to endorse. Shiite Islam, though, has multiple fonts of authority: why do the Iraqi Shi'a revere one Iranian Ayatollah (Sistani) over another (Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran)? For many, Sistani is more learned, older, and revered and has advanced further in a particular Shi'a school of thought and hierarchy. This makes Shii'sm, en toto, a poor vehicle for a deeply authoritarian expansion of Iranian hegemony, as well as pointing to extra-state authorities of a theology that the state claims to represent fully. As Reuel Marc Gerecht writes in the Weekly Standard:

"Primary point to remember: Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who is now certainly the most senior Shiite cleric in both Iraq and Iran, who is of Iranian birth and early education, has embraced a democratic political creed that is anathema to the ruling mullahs of Tehran. Ali Khamenei, Iran's senior political cleric, is in a real pickle since he cannot openly challenge Sistani and his embrace of democracy. Iran's relations with the new Iraq would cease to exist. Also, the repercussions inside the Iranian clerical system would not be healthy. Sistani is the last of the truly great transnational Shiite clerics, and his following inside Iran, particularly since he has so publicly backed a democratic franchise, which if it were applied in Iran would shatter clerical power, should not be underestimated. Sistani and his men know very well that the political game they play in Iraq will have repercussions throughout the Arab world and Iran. He and his men are not rash, but there will be no tears shed on their side if Iraq's political advancement convulses those clerics in Iran who believe in theocracy."

Bracketing for a moment what this means for transnational Shii'sm, what of Sistani's following within Iran? What does it mean for Sistani's Iranian followers when their religious authority, their imam, proclaims a creed that directly contravenes the Iranian state’s authority? How does an Islamic state refute such an accomplished Islamic cleric whose credentials outweigh the supreme leader's? What does it mean when they don’t refute him? Imagine the value of Sistani’s pro-democracy fatwas and declarations broadcast throughout Iran.

In contrasting the ways in which Iran differs from 20th century totalitarianism, vital features of the frail Iranian opposition emerge, many elements of which would be obscured if we were to believe that there was no civil society, that the state had fully consumed it. This is tricky territory, for the sources of this information are heavily monitored and desperately besieged, and it is quite possible that they could be speaking in coded languages of resistance -- hidden transcripts with multiple meanings. Shrin Ebadi, the 20003 Nobel Peace Prize recepient, has been criticized by some who are suspicious of how narrow her critique of the regime is, how constrained her language appears. There is no effort here to diminish the atrocities of the Iranian regime and the mass terror it has inflicted upon its citizens. But some endangered form of civil society is apparently alive, and, if credible, openly contesting the state. Take her op-ed of February 8th:

“The human rights discourse is alive and well at the grassroots level; civil society activists consider it to be the most potent framework for achieving sustainable democratic reforms and political pluralism.Indeed, American readers might be surprised to know how vigorous Iran's human rights organizations are. Last fall, when security forces unlawfully detained more than 20 young journalists and bloggers because of what they had written, independent Iranian organizations like the Center for Defense of Human Rights, the Association of Journalists for Freedom of Press, and the Students Association for Human Rights campaigned for their release.

This outcry, in tandem with support from the international community and human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, led to the release of detainees. In fact, so great was the criticism of the abuses committed during these detentions that some of Iran's most senior government officials came out in favor of releasing the detainees.Independent organizations are essential for fostering the culture of human rights in Iran. But the threat of foreign military intervention will provide a powerful excuse for authoritarian elements to uproot these groups and put an end to their growth.”

While we should be cautious in deciphering this article, it does point to two intriguing developments troublesome for the totalitarian thesis. In totalitarian societies there were no “grassroots level . . . civil society activists,” the state would not allow such a public phenomenon. Resistance occurred but not so blatantly and in open alliance with the “international community.” Nor were there “senior government officials” who could “come out in favor of releasing the detainees;” the state appeared total and united not at odds. Ebadi, in her brave battles with the authoritarian regime, was recently detained again:

"I did not appear in court in protest at the summons' illegality," Mrs Ebadi told the AFP news agency.

She said that even the judge at the hearing did not know the charges against her. "Summoning me on charges that even the court is unaware of is against the law," she added.

Mrs Ebadi recently has already been involved in a court controversy, with the judiciary first summoning her through a Revolutionary Court, then apologising and saying that the case would be dealt with in a Public Court.”

The weight of her international acclaim certainly affords Ebadi unique protections (and it says something that there is no comparable figure in the far more totalitarian regime of North Korea) but the Revolutionary Court’s referral and apology shows a regime struggling to determine spheres of authority, legalistic procedure, even the role of civil society. Totalitarianism did not have those debates, there was no question who was in charge if a dissident got called in for sedition. A similar situation occurred a year ago when the Guardian Council effectively paralyzed the reform movement, barring over 2,500 candidates from running for office. The Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari blasted the reformist President Khatami for lacking the “will and courage” to pursue his promises. Aghajari proclaimed that Iranians should be given the right to choose its own structure of government and called for "passive resistance" to what he described as “totalitarianism”.

“Mr Aghajari has long been a critic of the establishment. He was sentenced to death two years ago after he questioned the clergy's right to rule.The verdict sparked weeks of student demonstrations in his support and the death sentence was later quashed by the supreme court.”

Aghajari’s noble dissent is courageous and inspiring and his struggle is exceedingly dangerous, but what Stalinist show trial would reverse a death sentence on a dissident due to public pressure? There would be no public demonstrations in the first place in a true totalitarian society; no one would dare for such thoughts of open rebellion would be self-censored long before action. Iran is shockingly repressive, sickening in its control, and reprehensible in its form, but to shroud these internal battles under the heavy veil of totalitarianism would be to ignore fissures that have the potential to widen, deepen and destabilize the regime. We must understand the monster in order to help bring it down.The debate about whether Iran is totalitarian or not is an effort to better comprehend the real nature of the regime. It is not to score moral points but to arrive at the truth which will inform our moral judgments and political actions. On those, at least, there seems to be little debate among our editors.
AK
- posted by AK @ 5:34 PM

 
Jihad vs. The School of Night: Towards the Mimetic Destruction of Islamism

Dr. Emile has forwarded an excellent review by Peter Beinart of Gilles Kepel’s work on the political evolution of Islamism and its apparent failure. Beinart develops a juxtaposition between Kepel and Paul Berman that is reminiscent of a contradiction J.M. Tyree and Dr. Emile, within the debating circles of this site, hashed out on their own months ago. Beinart writes:

“But there is an even deeper divide -- between idealists, neo-con and liberal alike, who see America's key effort in the war on terrorism as ideological, and realists who want to battle a finite group of killers, not a broader world view. For neo-cons like William Kristol and liberals like Paul Berman, 9/11 can't be answered merely with technical skill -- a well-executed terrorist capture here, the closing of an Islamist charity there. The battle has to occur at the level of ideas. It is because the invasion of Iraq came to represent the fight against totalitarianism in the Muslim world that I-can't-believe-I'm-a-hawk liberals gave their nervous assent. And it is because neo-cons deemed Islamism the new Marxism that they abandoned their traditional suspicion of nation-building.”

Kepel’s thesis is that Islamism can not govern, that the experiences of the Algerian civil war, the suffocating theocracy of the Taliban, and the already doomed Iranian mullahs point to a failed political system that, in its death throes, inspired horrific terror. Berman, in contrast, sees an expansive threat in which Islamist terror is a continuation of a totalitarian project that started with German Romanticism’s rejection of liberalism and mutated into Nazism and Stalinism. While my own analysis sides more with Kepel, my tactical inclination of how to proceed toys with synthesizing the two in a way perhaps odd. Beinart notes that Kepel ultimately believes that Islamism can be defeated without an intervention from uninformed Western intellectuals:

“The intellectual fight against Islamism, Kepel implies, is far too intricate to be fought effectively by American policymakers and public intellectuals who lack a deep, rigorous understanding of Islam. In Bad Moon Rising he notes, "In the past ten years or so, American universities have hardly accumulated any knowledge at all about the Middle East."

But look at the devastating impact, drawn from ample historical example, of Kepel’s own analysis. What has Islamism wrought, he asks? Nothing but appalling violence and intra-jihadi fratricide. The totalitarian effort to enforce a singular form of Islam can not be accomplished even within radical Islam! (N.B. I’ve written about this previously here.) It takes very rare individuals like bin-Laden (and Zarqawi?) to straddle the theological divides of Islamism, and they are only effective as insurgents, not statesman. You want to see bin-Ladenism as political practice? Look at Mullah Omar and the degenerate non-state warlordism of the Taliban’s Afghanistan. This is a simple, devastating message that knifes the henotic heart of Islamism and could be made more exoteric: some School of Night or Shadow Institute should translate and widely distribute Kepel’s book in Arabic, Urdu and Persian, if it hasn't already been done. Or, imagine the mimetic impact of a straight-from-the-book television and DVD documentary produced in Arabic, exhibiting the crazed gore of the Algerian civil War, the stultifying cruelty of the Taliban, the surging unrest in Iran and then broadcast thrice weekly on Al-Arabiya, or even Al-Jazeera. If Kepel’s thesis is correct, that Islamism is in its terminal stages, then perhaps this ideological virus can help it meet its telos.
AK
- posted by AK @ 5:17 PM

 
Parsing the Shiite Paradox

The higher than feared Shiite turnout for the Iraqi elections delivered rare post-invasion symbols and images of jubilation mixed with defiance. The dramatic photos in the NYTimes of Iraqi women smiling or glaring out from under their hijabs with ink-stained fingers held triumphantly aloft share a heartening affinity to those of Afghani women shedding their burkhas after the fall of Kabul. There could be no better gesture of rejection against the reactionary dicta of detestable jihadis like Musab Al-Zarqawi; and with two of his aides recently detained, this mass civic repudiation of his vile creed should bring his reign of terror to a close quicker. Let us hope that the product of these elections honor the delight and courage participants expressed on Sunday for the flawed process.The fear of that product, a Shiite-based ruling alliance, caused Lawrence Kaplan, a leading Liberal Hawk, to sign off on the dream of a liberal Iraq even before the election. Kaplan, a co-author with the Neoconservative princeling William Kristol of the bellicose “The War Over Iraq,” wrote for their book back in the halcyon days of 2003:

“The United States may need to occupy Iraq for some time. Though U.N., European and Arab forces will, as in Afghanistan, contribute troops, the principal responsibility will doubtless fall to the country that liberates Baghdad. According to one estimate, initially as many as 75,000 U.S. troops may be required to police the war's aftermath, at a cost of $16 billion a year. As other countries’ forces arrive, and as Iraq rebuilds its economy and political system, that force could be drawn down to several thousand soldiers after a year or two. After Saddam Hussein has been defeated and Iraq occupied, installing a decent and democratic government in Baghdad should be a manageable task for the United States.” (98)

The basis, Kaplan and Kristol believed, for this optimism was the presence of a strong, committed strata of liberal Iraqi intellectuals: “Iraq possesses some of the highest literacy rates in the region, an urbanized middle class, and other demographic measures that typically conduce to democracy.” (99) Why then has Kaplan broken faith? Where has Liberal Hawkdom diverged from Neoconservatism? According to Kaplan in his The Tragic End to a Liberal Iraq , liberal Iraqis, i.e. progressive clerics, secular politicians and newspaper editors, the key human ingredients for democratic movements and institutions, have either retreated behind barb-wire compounds, fled abroad or been murdered.

“As it grinds into its third year, the war for a liberal Iraq is destroying the dream of a liberal Iraq. If liberal democracy--that is, a political system that protects basic rights and freedoms--is a political choice, an act of will, then someone must create and sustain it. In Iraq, however, those someones--Iraqi liberals--have been so thoroughly marginalized that Sunday's elections, which should be the crowning achievement of Iraqi liberalism, may instead signal its end. As well as empowering religious conservatives, the elections will showcase a cartoon version of democracy, a process of choosing leaders and not much more. The liberal component of liberal democracy--to the extent that it ever took hold in Iraq--has all but evaporated.”

This dour assessment, made before Sunday’s turnout, sharply diverges from his former ally Kristol in the latter’s willingness to embrace Shiite nationalism as a vehicle for democratic nation building. Observant followers of the Weekly Standard can discern a shifting of faith away from beleaguered Iraqi liberals to the Shiite nationalist parties grouped loosely around the Ayatollah Sistani. The emphasis now is on the uniquely “quietist” aspects of Iraqi Shi’a -- an allegedly apolitical strain that was trumped by Khomeinism in Iran -- and Sistani’s wise council in pushing for elections and broad coalitions. Typical of this new Neocon line is Tom Donnelly’s Fearing the Shi’a from the webpages of the Weekly Standard:

“For a long time conventional wisdom about Iraq has insisted upon conflating the differences among Iraqi and Iranian Shia. This Shia-fear stems not only from the American experience of the Iranian Revolution but from many decades of propagandizing by the region's Sunni autocrats and monarchs. But a clear reading of Iraq today reveals not a lumpen Shiatariat but a pluralistic political community ranging from Abdel Aziz al-Hakim to Ahmed Chalabi. What brings them together, after generations of "estrangement" from Iraqi politics, is the chance at a decent life, a taste of liberty, and the pursuit of some happiness.”

Not so for Kaplan, who shudderingly looks at some of the very same figures (Hakim) and can’t quite transcend the established links between SCIRI and Iran:

“The most important such edict, issued by the country's senior-most Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, urges Shia to vote next week for the United Iraqi Alliance slate of candidates, headed up by Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, a conservative cleric with close ties to Iran. The signature proposals of many candidates on the Sistani list span the entire spectrum of illiberalism, from rolling back women's rights to stipulating in the constitution that Iraq be an Islamic state.”

Donnelly’s essay is a little brusque and contra Kaplan, doesn’t bother to really explain just what a “life, liberty and happiness” means precisely for the diverse elements of the United Iraqi Alliance. How would Hakim’s apparent adherence to a Shiite form of Sharia shape his sense of a decent life?It is these kind of questions that Reuel Marc Gerecht, the Weekly Standard’s lead Middle Eastern specialist, (and a former CIA analyst who also works for the American Enterprise Institute) can well address, and perhaps it’s my imagination but the Standard seems to be publishing less of his work since his hard-headed analysis took a more nuanced turn toward the intricacies of the “Islamic Paradox.” His work is much more likely now to appear in The Atlantic Monthly (e.g. “Ayatollah Democracy: Arrogant, dogmatic, and anti-American, Iraq's Shiite clerics are the last people enlightened Westerners want to see in power. Let's hope they prevail") and on the AEI website. The Islamic Paradox is a fascinating political cartography limning the peaks and valleys of terrorism, Islamic divisions, the Bush administration and democracy. Gerecht’s thesis is that democracy will ultimately prevail in the Middle East, but not in the way the Bush administration expects. Already, there have been some nasty surprises that altered their calibrations and machinations:

“When the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, first realized in the fall of 2003 that Shiite clerics would be the most important political players in American-occupied Iraq, it was not a happy discovery. . . . According to State Department and CIA officials, Ambassador Bremer in particular did not relish contact with Shiite clergymen.”

After pondering the many benefits of democratic revolutions across Arab lands and parsing intra-Shiite divisions, Gerecht warns,

“Nonetheless, the march of democracy in the Middle East is likely to be very anti-American. Decades of American support to Middle Eastern dictators helped create bin Ladenism. Popular anger at Washington’s past actions may not fade quickly, even if the United States were to switch sides and defend openly all the partiescalling for representative government. Nationalism and fundamentalism,two complementary forces throughout most of the Middle East, will likely pump up popular patriotism. Such feelings always have a sharp anti-Western edge to them. That is what Professor Lewis called “the clash of civilizations.”64 Fourteen hundred years of tense, competitive history is not easily overcome, but this antagonism can diminish. (54)”

Regardless of whether Shiite nationalism proves too illiberal for America to embrace or more moderate than expected or democratic but anti-American, it will have to be dealt with as a political dilemma both by the US and the revenant Iraqi nation as a whole. To see that you have to look no farther than today’s headline “Election Over, Iraqi Shiites Confront Internal Rivals”:

"Some Iraqi political leaders, especially Sunnis and the Kurds, have expressed concerns that some of the principal members of the Shiite coalition, like Sciri's leader, Abdul Aziz Hakim, are too close to the Iranian government, which supported Sciri in exile during the years of Saddam Hussein's rule.Some also worry that the Shiite coalition could ultimately come to be dominated by clerics like Mr. Hakim and Ayatollah Sistani from behind the scenes."
Perhaps the majority of the members have connections with religious groups," Adnan Pachachi, a secular Sunni political leader, said of the Shiite candidates."

AK
- posted by AK @ 10:30 PM