Tablet Magazine, February 22, 2010
During a campaign speech at the University of Uroomiyeh in northwestern Iran a few months before the June presidential election there, Mir Hossein Moussavi, the main reformist presidential candidate and now opposition leader, was interrupted by angry groups of basiji, the regime’s paramilitary enforcers, carrying pictures of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Palestinian flags. “I see the root of some [of our] problems in this hall,” Moussavi said when he saw the flags. “For instance some people are carrying a Palestinian flag. Though we like Palestine, we are in Iran and the province of Azerbaijan…. I stepped into the campaign exactly to confront this [kind of] radicalism.” Mousavi’s loss in what was widely believed to have been a rigged election brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to the streets, many of whom could be heard chanting, “No Gaza, no Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran.”
Might Iran’s relationship with Israel change if the democratic opposition comes to power? Though the so-called Green Movement, the pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets after the disputed election, represents a significant development in Iran’s politics, the answer is far from clear. What is unmistakable, however, is that a large swath of Iran’s population no longer accepts at face value the statements of the Islamic Republic’s leaders, who have said the Jewish State must be “wiped off the map.”
The Islamic Republic’s attitude toward the Israel emerged from a pre-revolutionary alliance of Islamic clerics, leftist intellectuals, and political militants belonging to the communist Tudeh party, the Islamic and socialist Mujahedin-e Khalq, or the People’s Holy Warriors, and the Marxist Fedayeen e-Khalq, the People’s Freedom Fighters. Since the revolution, the Islamic Republic has had no problem in improving and expanding its relation with socialist and communist regimes: Iran’s best friends today are China, Russia, and Venezuela. A main similarity between Islamic ideology and Marxism is that the concept of the nation-state is absent in both. Instead of a “nation,” Islamic ideology is based on the concept of the “Umma,” or Muslim mass, while Marxism uses the term “class.” Marxism’s international class conflict between the proletariat and bourgeoisie parallels the conflict in Islamic ideology between the Muslim Umma, also called the mustazafin, in English “the oppressed,” and the mustakberin, in English “non-believers,” or the arrogant ones. Just as the secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union was both head of state and head of all Communists, the leader of an ideological political order like the Islamic republic does not see himself solely as head of state, but as the “ruler of the Islamic world,” or the wali-e amr-e muslimin-e jahan.
When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, he declared nationalism contrary to Islam and said “nationalism is opposed to Islam and it is the source of Muslims’ misery. Nationalists are the army of devil and are serving the superpowers and enemies of the Quran.” The Islamic rulers of Iran called the country Muslim world’s “Ummo al-Qura,” a quranic term used for Mecca that describes it as the mother of all cities. Therefore, by calling Iran the mother of all cities, they meant that they are the leaders of all Muslims and Iran is the capital of Islamic world. Just like international communism, pan-Islamic ideology defined its policies beyond national borders and legitimized political and military intervention in other countries in order to support Muslims against foes like “western imperialism” and “Jewish occupation of Israel”.
Many Muslims were attracted by this passionate new discourse, but disillusionment rapidly followed. While support for Palestinian groups as well as Shiite extremists in Lebanon and other places in the region became one of the main components of Iran’s foreign policy, there was plenty of evidence that Iran’s support and sympathy were hardly unconditional. Imam Musa Sadr, moderate charismatic Shiite leader who was the head of Shiite community—and had benefited from the Shah’s financial and political support to Lebanese Shiites—was kidnapped by the Libyan government and then disappeared in August 1978. The Islamic Republic, despite its close relationship to Libyan government and its leader, Moammar Gadhafi, did not make any effort to liberate Sadr. After more than three decades, moderate Shiites not only in Lebanon but also in other countries still wonder why Iran did not show any interest in pursuing Sadr’s case.
The situation of Sunni Muslims in Iran proved that the regime’s claim to lead all Muslims worldwide is motivated by politics rather than religious conviction. Since the Iranian revolution, Sunni Muslims in Iran, who comprise more than 10 percent of the population, suffer from systematic discrimination in various levels. Many of their leaders were executed or imprisoned without legal justification. Sunni seminaries in southwestern Iran were destroyed by the government and teachers arrested. Sunnis are banned from any significant political participation. Sunnis are not allowed to have a mosque in Tehran, even while Christians and Jews have churches and synagogues.
In foreign policy, the Iranian regime pretends that it supports Palestinians simply because they are Muslims and a Muslim cannot keep silent when he sees the sufferance of his fellow Muslim. Yet in the recent conflict between Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan, Iran supported Armenia. In July 2009, when a series of violent clashes erupted between Uighur Muslims and Chinese state police, which led to the death of more than 190 Muslims, the Islamic Republic of Iran did not react to it at all—because the regime’s relationship with China took precedence.
The anti-Western approach that created common ground for Islamists and leftists during the revolution remains major component of the Islamic Republic’s public rhetoric. Israel, as the main ally of the West in the Middle East, was an immediate and appealing target on both “Islamic” and anti-capitalist grounds. Iran has had repeated conflicts with Arab countries (from Iran-Iraq war to controversy over three islands in Persian Gulf to dispute over Bahrain), which stem from four centuries of rivalry between Iranian monarchies and the Ottoman Empire. Before the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s leaders attempted to swing the power equation to their benefit by making an alliance with the West. After the revolution, Iran lost the West’s support and saw itself as having been forced to create a new anti-Western political alliance to restore the balance. The collapse of the Soviet Union made Islamic Republic’s leader believe that they can in fact lead an anti-Western and anti-Israeli front in the region by using pan-Islamic ideology and undermining national identity. The enmity toward Israel is not driven as much by Islamic motivation as it is by a lust for power.
Many critics of Islamic radicalism believe that both radical leftists and Islamic fundamentalists share an old communist principle, that the end justifies the means. They hold that Iran’s approach to the Palestinian issue is totally instrumentalist, and that the success of peace process will create a fundamental problem for Islamic Republic by depriving the regime of a “big enemy” to which it can attribute all its political and economic failures and use to stigmatize its opponents. Especially after three decades, the Islamic Republic can hardly explain why Islamic ideology has not realized its promises to bring worldly prosperity for every Iranian citizen—or why it has failed to resist what it calls the “cultural invasion” of the West. Iranian youth are the most Westernized in the middle east after Israel’s. Hence, the Islamic regime does not have any soft power to influence Muslims by showing them an alternate model for culture, economy, or politics.
Islamic Leaders hold that there are only two ways for becoming a superpower in the region: the way that the Shah chose, of making an alliance with the west and Israel, and the way Iranian revolutionaries have chosen, a defiant Islamic-Marxist alliance against the West and Israel. For most Iranians, the second way has proved to be economically and internationally costly with no evident success.
For many Iranians, especially the younger generation, it does not matter whether Israel is a good or legitimate country: They want Iran’s leaders to place Iran before anything else. In 2008, the Tehran city council allocated $3 million dollars to aid construction in Lebanon. This decision was widely criticized by reformist politicians as well as the general public for depriving Tehran of funds that could have gone to more pressing needs, like addressing its pollution crisis or transportation problems. A Persian proverb holds that “if a house needs light, the mosque does not deserve it.” What Iranians, especially the newer generation, care about most is not Palestine or Lebanon but the concrete economic problems of the country and integrating Iran into the global community.
What are the future prospects for Iran-Israel relations? No one can predict for sure. But what is certain is that so long as the government in Iran is not perceived by its people as legitimate, its policies, including its opposition toward Israel, will have no legitimacy either. So far, the Islamic Republic has substituted the Iranian people’s “national interests” with the “expediency of the regime,” as defined by the Supreme Leader, who considers himself the ruler of Islamic world. In a democratic Iran, “national interests” would be defined by the consensus of free political parties and an open civil society, aided by a free press.
Iran’s complicated relations with Arab countries will certainly play an important role in shaping a new government’s policy toward Israel. But Iran’s new generation has shown that it cares more about Iran’s immediate national concerns than it does about the Palestinian cause. This leaves hope that a future government of Iran would examine the Arab-Israeli conflict through the viewpoint of Iran’s “national interests” rather than the ideologically-driven “expediency” of the current regime, and reverse Iran’s current enmity with Israel.

This is the full text of written testinony in House hearing on February 3.
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
GARY L. ACKERMAN (D-NY), CHAIRMAN
America and the Iranian Political Reform Movement:
First, Do No Harm
February 3, 2010
Testimony of Mehdi Khalaji
Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy

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The current democratic movement in Iran, which began after the rigged presidential election in June 2009, is a non-violent movement which aims to rely on itself without asking for foreign help. The people involved in this movement believe that democracy is not a gift that can be received by others, but rather an internal effort of a people to emancipate itself from tyranny and realize its dream of justice, freedom and national sovereignty. The Iranian people appreciate President Barak Obama’s policy of not intervening in Iranian political affairs and allowing them to manage their way toward democracy. Therefore, any policy toward Iran should be chosen in a prudent and cautious way that would not affect the democratic movement in a negative manner.
My experience with political activists who are involved in the Green movement is that they do not expect any direct help from the United States or any other foreign power. But a close look at the Iranian situation reveals that in this specific historical moment the interest of the international community and the democratic interests of Iranians are in confluence. To be sure, the focus of the international community is on the Iranian nuclear program, while the main preoccupation of the Iranian people is securing basic political and human rights and integrating the country into the international community. However, peace in the region and democracy in Iran now seem to be inseparable, because the same forces that threaten the peace are the same powers in Iran who threaten democracy and run the repressive machinery against the Iranian people.
The threat to regional peace and Iranian democracy are the same: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is not only the main body in charge of the Iranian nuclear program, but also is the most effective means for political suppression in the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s leader and commander-in-chief. The Islamic Republic is nothing but an economic-religious-military complex that applies its coercive power not through political institutions but through a military and security apparatus under the direct supervision of Ayatollah Khamenei. His religious authority is contested by the clerical establishment. The only power base he has is within the military and security community of the country. Khamenei has lost much of his political and religious legitimacy and without the military and especially the IRGC, he would have no real power.
Since coming to power, Ayatollah Khamenei has never given an interview to the media. He does not feel any sense of responsibility to the people, deriving his power from Iran’s oil income. In practice, he is accountable before nobody, despite the constitutional provision for an Assembly of Experts to supervise his leadership, because he vets who can run for that Assembly. He directly controls dozens of foundations that own some of the wealthiest companies in Iran and is not accountable before the parliament or the government. And the IRGC – whose commanders he appoints – and its affiliates control one third of Iran’s national income, dominating construction, oil field services, and telecommunications, among other industries.
In order to stop Iran’s suspicious nuclear activities, the international community needs to apply pressure on the IRGC, which not only threatens the region through a suspicious nuclear program, but is using the Quds force, asymmetrical warfare, and support for extremist groups to try to weaken Sunni allies of the West and sabotage the Arab-Israeli peace process and the budding democratic process in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Democracy and peace can be achieved through weakening the military government in Tehran and pressuring the IRGC. The two parallel tracks — the international community’s effort for peace and the Iranian people’s democratic movement — naturally reinforce each other, because they fight with the same enemy. Therefore, the main mechanism for supporting the democratic movement in Iran is to target the financial and military capabilities of the IRGC. A more powerful IRGC will result in a more militarized government, and a more militarized government is more likely to militarize the nuclear program for dangerous purposes. The real change in Iran is not a formal shift in the façade of the political structure. The change happens when civilians who think of Iran’s national interest rather than ideological ambitions take power and push the fundamentalist military out of the economic and political spheres.
Another important step the West can take to help the democratic movement is to help Iranians connect with the outside world. Khamenei often expresses his belief that he is in a soft war with the West. For him, all new telecommunication, internet and satellite technology are western tools to defeat him in this war. All bloggers, human rights and female activists, artists and writers, journalists and students — even clerics who criticize him — are un-paid western soldiers in this war. Even the teaching of humanities is a part of the western soft-war arsenal, which is why he has suggested closing all university humanities departments. The Iranian regime annually spends billions of dollars to jam TV and radio transmissions, filter the internet, censor all Western-cultural products, listen in on phone conversations, and interrogate artists, writers and university professors who travel to the West for cultural festivals or conferences. Khamenei cannot govern in an Iran opened to the world. He prefers to govern a large prison-like Iran in which Iranians are disconnected from the world outside.
Putting cracks in the wall of this prison — opening Iran to the world — would be a great help to the democratic movement in Iran. The United States has made many efforts in this regard but still could do more. The major internet companies in the West could work with activists to find ways to bypass Iran’s internet censors. Companies that provide Iran with the technology of surveillance and suppression should be named and shamed; consumers should shy away from these companies’ products, and governments should urge these companies to reconsider their practices. Iran should not be able to use modern technology for fundamentalist and totalitarian purposes. It is outrageous that Iranian state television is allowed to transmit on the EUTELSAT Hotbird satellites (run by France) when Iranian jamming of Hotbird satellites has been so powerful that other customers demanded that EUTELSAT kick the BBC and VOA off the satellites – which to its shame EUTELSAT did – before later adding these services back. Iran’s violation of its international commitments about not interfering with satellite transmissions should be vigorously pursued at the International Telecommunications Union. As a customer through its role with the VOA, the U.S. government should demand EUTELSAT throw Iranian state television off Hotbird, not VOA. New measures and mechanisms are needed to stop Iran from breaking international law.
Furthermore, because Iran’s leaders are afraid of any contact between Iranians and the world outside, the international community, including European countries and the United States, should facilitate the visa process for ordinary Iranian citizens so that they can readily travel abroad. Direct contact between Iranians and the rest of the world is an important tool for dismantling the regime’s propaganda against Western liberal democratic values, and is a major antidote to reactionary anti-Americanism and anti-Western sentiments.
And finally the U.S. should make a distinction between human rights issues and democracy. The Iranian people need the international community’s support on human rights. Many officials who are involved in human rights abuses are affiliated with the IRGC and close to the team that run the nuclear program. For instance, General Mohammad Reza Naqdi is the commander of the Basij militia and also on the U.N. black list. 12 years ago, he was convicted in a Tehran court to three months prison for his involvement in torture of prisoners. He was also involved in crackdowns on students during the student movement a decade ago. Human rights are abused mostly by IRGC and security officers involved in the nuclear program. Therefore, supporting human rights in Iran and pressuring its violators is not only a moral cause, but should be a strategic long-term policy for the United States. The Iranian people, under a democratic government, can be a reliable partner for building regional peace in the Middle East and an example for other Islamic countries in their path toward democracy.