Moving on the Beaten Path
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swore for office last week while increasing discord and struggles are still going on inside the core of political power in Iran. Once again Ahmadinejad has to form a cabinet, present ministers and deputies, visit provinces, ride helicopter, travel abroad, make a speech in Columbia University when in New York and attend the annual nuclear celebrations.
Days of power structure transformation in Iran are concurrent with postmodern events which threaten the world in 21s century. This age is not only the age of information explosion and media revolution. Just in the beginning of the new century, a Bedouin issued verdict for fall of the American twin towers and such was that the symbol of humankind’s contradictions, Osama Bin Laden, slammed his head into the symbol of a global superpower and ran away. He now hides in remote places, comes to surface once in a while and curses West; just like Iranian protestors who-facing security forced armed to the teeth, can only chant anti-government slogans and escape when they can not gather and gain collective power.
One hand makes no sound. This can be one of those pearls of wisdom Iran sends to other nations. In his speeches, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slams both the United States and liberal democracy. He says that this school of thought is impure and unsacred from head to toe and its essence are three things: wealth, parties and media. However, neither Ahmadinejad nor Chavez and not any of the new anti-imperialist generation present an alternative for these three powerful elements. They never say how one could emancipate from the democracy culture.
Democratic culture uses these three elements to reproduce is again democracy, an egg-chicken relation one can say. Hence, democratic movements are the mysterious and crawling enemy of centralist, authoritarian political systems. No one knows if the movement enters from the front door, the backdoor or the window. The democratic wave moves as air, it is not visible. One doesn’t know it has been inhaled until it fills the lungs. If democracy was material it would fall under the category of gases: invisible, fluid, scentless and soundless.
But democracy opponents epitomize the United States and the American (or better to say Western) culture as democracy. For them, fighting against liberal democracy is as rewarding as American (Western) culture. That is how genuine achievements of West (military techniques and equipments) are purchased by wealthy Arabs and used against the fundaments of Western thought; American machine guns in the hand of Taliban. The postmodern flu that has inflicted the democratic world has no panacea yet and is turning into an epidemic phenomenon.
West has problems with diffuse crises which have turned into physical and psychological wars of attrition, though the this may be an advantage for it as a matter of fact. Imagine Syria, North Korea, Libya, Iran and parallel powers in Middle East uniting with each other and entering a strategic alliance with Russia; the threat would have been much graver than what jeopardizes interests of West and promotion of the democratic culture at the present.
These days, a number of U.S. envoys in Damascus, a group of West allies in Pyongyang, and other groups in Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi and Baku are following diplomatic missions and expert teams are carrying out researches on developments in Tehran, Caracas, Havana, Beirut, Kabul and Islamabad.
The 2009 summer has divided the history of Islamic Republic into two parts. Iran and West still have common interests, and these may even have become more. However, hope for rapprochement and peaceful coexistence –even for one night- appears as much inaccessible.
While Iran is constructing cement barricades in its eastern and northwestern borders, technologies have provided the possibility of passing through any wall. Walls can not stop air movement and cement walls are being replaced by glass walls. Both Iranians and foreign powers are facing huge problems: Iran has closed all windows except to its northern neighbor [Russia] and West is forced to struggle with Iran and subdue its fierce foe.
The tenth Iranian administration is unique in on sense. On the one hand it receives the legacy of the ninth administration and its aggressive and uncontrollable policies. On the other hand, it has a shaky base and lacks internal and international credit. This singular situation can direct the tenth administration in two completely different ways.
The first path is the one beaten during Ahmadinejad’s first term. Nuclear achievements besides regional developments perpetuate Ahmadinejad’s aggressive policy which sides with radicalism and disregards dialogue and tolerance. Not only lack of credit may fetter this government, but also it provides circumstances which fuel radicalism in foreign diplomacy and further complicate existing problems.
The second path, which seems less likely to be taken by the government, implicates negotiations and defusing the tensions. In this way Ahmadinejad tries to initiate talks with the United States and make deals with it, thus shielding Iran’s nuclear program from any harm. The biggest concern of tenth administration is passing this international checkpoint, even if it means using a fake passport. Ahmadinejad’s administration will tolerate all the charges against its reelection to pass this historical climacteric with minimum problems.
West has announced that it will not wait for negotiations with Iran forever. The game has become overlong and Iran’s procrastination may put an end to the game. But West does not want that to happen and the Iranian side, if it wants this, has to move in the first road.
On the whole, West should prepare itself for facing two different behaviors from the Iranians: one is adventurous and intent to progress non-stop, even with closed eyes, and the other is a soft approach which avoids defeat and is ready to give and take.
The circumstances testify to the higher possibility of the first option. Moderates are sidelined in Iranian politics and radical principlism is bearing its fruits. Negotiation-favoring ideas are rejected, repressive measures are adopted, preparations are made for a likely gasoline sanction, veto-wielding China and Russia have received economic bonuses, state-run media talk of velvet revolution supposedly supported by West, military forces stay alert to counter threats, media are controlled and information circulation is stalled; clear signs that the tenth administration is staging a confrontational policy.