Mark Bowden: Playing to the Home Crowd in Iran
[Mark Bowden, a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, is the author of "Guests of the Ayatollah" and "Black Hawk Down."]
JUST over a quarter-century ago, five Iranian college students hit upon the idea of seizing the American Embassy in Tehran and staging a sit-in. Among them were Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is now Iran's president, and Habibollah Bitaraf, the current energy minister. The takeover of the embassy did not play out exactly as its student planners envisioned — indeed, Mr. Ahmadinejad himself initially opposed the move — but as a symbolic step, it not only isolated Iran from the rest of the world, it also rallied millions of Iranians to the idea of a strictly Islamist future. The ensuing hostage crisis made a big splash internationally, but perhaps its most important and lasting consequence was local: it gave the mullahs the leverage to take full power.
It is an old political strategy: identify a foreign enemy, provoke a crisis and wrap yourself in the flag. Today's confrontation with Iran over nuclear research is an example of how, as the saying goes, history rhymes.
Hard as it may be for Americans to believe, in November 1979 Iran's theocratic future was hardly assured. There had been a revolution, of course, but many different forces had combined to overthrow Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The mosque network, which had sunk deep roots that had spread wide during years of political oppression, provided the popular muscle; it was the force that propelled millions into the streets. But despite fervent and widespread reverence for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the new Iran could have taken any number of identities.
Among those who had cast out the shah were Communists, nationalists, socialists and others — many of whom envisioned at least some flavor of democracy. Some of these groups were highly organized and well-financed, especially Tudeh, Iran's Communist party. These groups had varying ideas about the new Iran, but were united in preferring a secular state.
Ayatollah Khomeini himself was of two minds on the subject: he did not immediately seize power on his triumphant return to Iran from Paris but retreated to the holy city of Qom, appointed a provisional government manned by the secular political leaders who had surrounded him in exile, and established a revolutionary council to write Iran's new constitution....
Ayatollah Khomeini, whose initial response to the takeover was to order that the students be chased off the grounds, reconsidered when he heard reports of its popularity. Overnight heroes, the student occupiers quickly produced "evidence" on Iranian TV to substantiate their claim that America had been planning a countercoup. ...
Today, as the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, presides over an increasingly restive, unhappy population, his pit bull, President Ahmadinejad, has picked a new fight with the United States of America. Even many Iranians who oppose the theocracy now favor joining the nuclear club; it adds to national prestige and arguably enhances Iran's security. In openly pursuing nuclear power and defying world opinion, the old revolutionaries are shoring up their stature at home by appealing to nationalism and to fears of foreign invasion or attack.
And why shouldn't they? It worked before.
Read entire article at NYT
JUST over a quarter-century ago, five Iranian college students hit upon the idea of seizing the American Embassy in Tehran and staging a sit-in. Among them were Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is now Iran's president, and Habibollah Bitaraf, the current energy minister. The takeover of the embassy did not play out exactly as its student planners envisioned — indeed, Mr. Ahmadinejad himself initially opposed the move — but as a symbolic step, it not only isolated Iran from the rest of the world, it also rallied millions of Iranians to the idea of a strictly Islamist future. The ensuing hostage crisis made a big splash internationally, but perhaps its most important and lasting consequence was local: it gave the mullahs the leverage to take full power.
It is an old political strategy: identify a foreign enemy, provoke a crisis and wrap yourself in the flag. Today's confrontation with Iran over nuclear research is an example of how, as the saying goes, history rhymes.
Hard as it may be for Americans to believe, in November 1979 Iran's theocratic future was hardly assured. There had been a revolution, of course, but many different forces had combined to overthrow Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The mosque network, which had sunk deep roots that had spread wide during years of political oppression, provided the popular muscle; it was the force that propelled millions into the streets. But despite fervent and widespread reverence for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the new Iran could have taken any number of identities.
Among those who had cast out the shah were Communists, nationalists, socialists and others — many of whom envisioned at least some flavor of democracy. Some of these groups were highly organized and well-financed, especially Tudeh, Iran's Communist party. These groups had varying ideas about the new Iran, but were united in preferring a secular state.
Ayatollah Khomeini himself was of two minds on the subject: he did not immediately seize power on his triumphant return to Iran from Paris but retreated to the holy city of Qom, appointed a provisional government manned by the secular political leaders who had surrounded him in exile, and established a revolutionary council to write Iran's new constitution....
Ayatollah Khomeini, whose initial response to the takeover was to order that the students be chased off the grounds, reconsidered when he heard reports of its popularity. Overnight heroes, the student occupiers quickly produced "evidence" on Iranian TV to substantiate their claim that America had been planning a countercoup. ...
Today, as the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, presides over an increasingly restive, unhappy population, his pit bull, President Ahmadinejad, has picked a new fight with the United States of America. Even many Iranians who oppose the theocracy now favor joining the nuclear club; it adds to national prestige and arguably enhances Iran's security. In openly pursuing nuclear power and defying world opinion, the old revolutionaries are shoring up their stature at home by appealing to nationalism and to fears of foreign invasion or attack.
And why shouldn't they? It worked before.