[Reader-list] Iran-discussions on the readerlist

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Junaid,

Thank you for your well argued response to my post on Iran.

I have no hesitation at all in saying that with respect to the regime  
that rules Iran, I think my usage of the word 'hatred' is a measured  
and considered. I have nothing but hatred and rage for the  
Ahmedinejad-Khamenei clique, and the reason I have this is because I  
have a deep and abiding engagement with Iran and its history.

You and I may agree on many things, and we usually do, especially on  
Kashmir, but I have to say that on Iran we have to be clear that we  
have differences. And that does not worry me at all, nor does it  
diminish my categorical support to your positions on Kashmir.  
Differences are healthy and positive things. I write to you, not in  
opposition, but in the spirit of critical solidarity, and I hope it  
will be understood as such.

Let me, first of all say a few things in order to clarify where I am  
coming from on Iran.

I actually despise the Hugo Chavez regime. And I say this as a person  
who places himself squarely on the left.  think Chavez represents the  
worst form of authoritarian populism, buttressed (not unlike  
Ahmadinejad) by oil wealth, and the backing of the military  
establishment, and I think his brand of politics is actually harmful  
for the building up of a credible global left wing alternative. I  
also think Hamas are reactionary.

But, notwithstanding my personal distaste for Chavez and what he  
represents, and Hamas, I do not doubt that both Chavez and Hamas  
command the support of the majority of the populations in Venezuela  
and the Gaza strip (though not, for Hamas, in the West Bank in  
Palestine). And so, I have no hesitation in saying that they enjoy  
the electoral mandate given to them by the populations that they  
represent. The intenrational observers in place during the Venezuelan  
and Palestinian elections, have also not indicated that the elections  
in Venezuela and Palestine/Gaza were anything but regular.

Iran is a different matter. Elections were also regularly held in the  
Soviet Union, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia (during the years of  
Soviet hegemony) and they continue to be held in China. In each of  
these cases, the ruling regime always maintained that it had won, and  
by ludicrously handsome figures. It won due to massive manipulation  
of the electoral process. Not very far from home, until recently (and  
until electronic voting machines introduced a new, as yet, untried  
technology of selection) the ruling Left Front government in West  
Bengal had near perfected techniques of 'electoral management' that  
always gave them the edge. George Bush did exactly the same with his  
'stolen election'. You yourself know very well how elections have  
been and are 'managed', especially by the intelligence agencies of  
the Indian state  in Jammu and Kashmir. I think that the elections we  
have witnessed in Iran are not very different from these instances.  
Finally, let us at least concede that an electoral process in which  
candidates are vetted by an unelected, unrepresentative body, like  
happens in Iran, where the Guardians Council decides who is suitable  
and who is not, can never be characterized as a free and fair  
election. So we can never really say who, or what kind of politics  
enjoys the confidence of the majority of the population of Iran. Even  
if that is the case, there was a feeling

There are numerous instances of electoral irregularities, which  
include the fact that the polling percentage for Ahmadinejad
stayed constant, from the very beginning to the very end of the  
counting process, leading to the reasonable suspicion that the  
outcome was somehow 'fixed' in advance. The opposition has in fact  
indicated more than 600 specific and concrete instances of  
irregularity. Here is only one instance - that deliberate confusions  
within the ballot marking system (between the number for the  
candidate and a code of endorsement) such as 4 for Moussavi and 44  
for Ahmadinejad, lay them open to manipulation. Numerous instances of  
voter intimidation by the Basij, especially in poorer Industrial and  
rural districts. And finally, the crackdown on phones, internet and  
email communication that made communication difficult for opposition  
activists.I have been in touch with friends in Iran throughout this  
process, and they are utterly dismayed at what happened, exactly as  
people were dismayed when elections were blatantly rigged in Kashmir  
in 1987. They have told me that reliable sources from within the  
ministry of the interior have communicated to them that the election  
was utterly, utterly rigged. And that the rigging was well planned  
from before.

I am not a champion of Moussavi. I know very well that he is a part  
of the ruling establishment of the Islamic Republic, and that he was  
close to the section of left-leaning intellectuals in Iran who  
colluded with the Khomeini faction in the initial years after 1979,  
and that they were complicit (as was for instance the well known  
Iranian filmmaker, now Mousavi's representative, Mohsen Makhmalbaf,  
in the brutal repression of the 'left opposition' - their own former  
comrades). He is like a Khruschev after Stalin. No doubt a part of  
the system, but also its own internal adversary. This does not make  
him any less a luminary of the Islamic Republic, just as Khruschev  
was no less a Soviet luminary. And notwithstanding my critique of the  
Islamic Republic and the post 1920s Soviet Union, I can still  
maintain that there is a difference between a Khruschev and a Stalin,  
and that there are differences between Khomeini, Khameini,  
Ahmedinejad and Moussavi.

But I also know that, over the years, Moussavi has grown closer to  
Ayatollah Montazeri, (once seen as Khomeini's successor) who made his  
opposition to the excesses of the regime quite clear and open, and  
who has been kept under virtual house arrest, since his removal from  
all positions of influence.

But, at the present juncture, things are way beyond the question of  
what exactly Mousavi represents. To the large majority of Iranians,  
he represents the realistic possibility of change. The Ahmadinejad  
regime is, contrary to what you say, deeply unpopular amongst the  
working poor. Inflation has skyrocketed in Iran, wages have been cut,  
people have been laid off, there is deep economic discontent. He may  
have once enjoyed the support of a section of the working poor,  
because of his apparently 'incorruptible' image, but the growing  
corruption and nepotism, especially within the industrial and  
economic agencies managed by the elite of the Revolutionary Guard  
have strongly alienated him. So has his brutal handling of legitimate  
working class protest. Only last year, the Vahed Transport workers  
strike was brutally crushed, union leaders were arrested, tortured  
and one even had his tongue cut off. There has also been constant  
attrition in the Khodro automobile works (the regions biggest  
automobile producer) and in large sectors of industry.

As for Ahmadinejad's anti-American and anti-Zionist posturing, I have  
very little to say. I do not think that the rhetoric of 'Anti- 
Imperialism' , 'Anti-Zionism' and 'Anti-US' postures alone, which  
sustained tyrants ranging from Idi Amin to Indira Gandhi, necessarily  
has to endear us to anyone who spouts the same rhetoric, especially  
if they do so in the company of Klu Klux Klan functionaries like  
David Duke (as Ahmadinejad did in one of his 'Holocaust Investigation  
Conferences' in Tehran). In fact, I reiterate, Ahmadinejad is the  
best bet for reactionaries within the US and Israel. They can trust  
him, they know him, and they know that they can use his anti-Semitic  
lunacy to paint themselves as victims or potential victims and thus  
build the case for war against Iran. That is why people like Daniel  
Pipes and Efraim Halevy (former Mossad director) would rather have  
Ahmadinejad around.

Finally, let me put a few other things in perspective. You invoked  
Mossadeq and the CIA-MI6 engineered coup against him in 1953, which  
to my mind, is the 'original sin' that began the whole process that  
led up to the mess in the entire region. The coup and its details are  
little known. And there is a kind of caginess surrounding it, even in  
Iran. Ahmadinejad himself has spoken about it once, in his famous  
'love letter' to George Bush (where he invited George Bush, the good  
Christian, to join him, the good Muslim, in ridding the world of  
Evil). But even in that letter, Ahaminejad's reference to the event  
is opaque.

What is little known, is the fact that the Islamists in Iran (though  
not all religious figures were Islamists) were strongly behind the  
coup. They were in fact injected with serious amounts of cash by the  
local CIA station then, and it is with this event that they first got  
their taste of political influence. Mossadeq's one time ally,  
Ayatollah Kashani (Khomeini's mentor) fell out with Mossadeq, when he  
(Mossadeq) introduced legislation hinting at land reforms and rights  
for women. It was at this time that bridges began being built between  
the beleagured Shah, the CIA station and the Ayatollah Kashani camp.  
Incidentally, one of the couriers between the Shah and the Ayatollah  
Kashani (and his ally in the town of Qom, Ayatollah Uzma Broujerdi)  
was the then young and rising, charismatic 'Hojatolislam' Ruhollah  
Musavi Khomeini (none other than the later 'Ayatollah' Khomeini).

"Before and after the coup he (Khomeini) opposed Dr. Mossadegh and  
cooperated with the Shah. According to the Iranian historian, Nasser  
Pakdaman, in January 1953, after Mossadeq's cabinet had submitted a  
bill to Majles granting women the vote, Ayatollah Kashani opposed it.  
Ruhollah Khomeini — who was a hojatolislam at the time -- gave a  
sermon in Qom and called upon the folks in the mosque to go out and  
protest against the Mossadeq government and the bill."

(See - http://www.ghandchi.com/iranscope/Anthology/Kazemzadeh/ 
28mordad.htm)

The Shah was grateful for the help he received, via the CIA from  
Khomeini and his mentors. And it was only later, in 1961-63, that the  
Islamists fell out with the Shah, and Khomeini began to take on an  
active 'oppositional' role. The Iranian Islamist regime has made many  
attempts to whitewash the realities of the 1953-1961 period and the  
honeymoon that the Shah had with the Islamists at that time, during  
and after which, he used the Islamist Fadayeen-e-Islam (with which  
Kashani and Khomeini were closely associated) to eliminate many  
traces of the 'left opposition'.

This is reasonably well documented, and if you are interested, I can  
point you to more sources for this.

This is why, Khomeini never had much regard for Mossadeq, and is even  
reported to have said 'Mossadeq slapped Islam, and we would have had  
to slap him back'.  Incidentally, in one of the numerous flip-flops  
that characterized Khomeini's ascendancy the Avenue named after  
Mossadeq in the initial heady days after the 1979 revolution was  
renamed, and almost all traces of his memory were eliminated. It is  
only recently that the legacy of Mossadeq is being put to some  
(limited) use, as an attempt to build a 'nationalist' consensus by a  
beleagured regime.

If you examine the history of Iran carefully, I think one cannot but  
come to the conclusion that had the CIA not meddled in 1953, had the  
Shah not been restored, figures like Ayatollah Khomeini, and the  
eventual rise of the Islamic Republic might not have happened. In  
that case, we can only conclude that the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the  
regime that he inaugurated, is a beneficiary of CIA policies. Just as  
Hamas would never have had the influence it now commands if it did  
not tolerate the tacit acceptance, and indeed benevolence of the  
State of Israel, during the 1970s and 80s.

Chickens do come to roost in the end. And the best laid plans go awry.

warm regards,

Shuddha


Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net