And you thought the war in Iraq was about weapons and armies? No, indeed not. Weapons and armies and such things in the physical world are the tools; but what is really happening in Iraq– as in any civil war, war of insurgency, or similar lengthy inter-group conflict– is primarily a battle of narratives. What each of the parties is seeking to do, basically, is find a way to organize the widest possible coalition of followers around their particular version of “the Truth.”
So what are the major narratives being fought over there? Here’s a first cut at describing the four biggest ones among them:
- The Bushists’ narrative (version 78.6, or so)
They would have everyone– Iraqis, the world, but most particularly the US citizenry– believe that what is “at stake” in Iraq is a broad battle between “moderates” (= the good guys) and “extremists” (= the bad guys.) Okay, I know this is extremely thin as an organizing concept. But it’s the best they can come up with after nearly four years of hard slogging inside Iraq, with a huge amount of attrition and/or turnover along the way among their top administrators there. Also, all their previous narratives proved quite useless. Remember “democrats vs. dead-enders” and all those earlier fizzlers?
These guys are tired. And it certainly shows.
Their most recent attempt at a version of the “moderates vs. extremists” narrative was designed explicitly to isolate Moqtada Sadr (= “extremist”). It relied, however, on a major logical and factual flaw. Since the attempt to isolate Moqtada relied on splitting the UIA, the broader Shiite alliance of which he is an important part, the Bushists needed to define their chosen tools within the UIA as “the moderates.” But Abdul-Aziz Hakim, his SCIRI party, and their associated Badr militia are far, far from being in any recognizeable way “moderate”. There is, indeed, considerable evidence that they are significantly more brutal (and also significantly more pro-Iranian) than the Sadrists…
Go figure.
Washington’s isolate-Moqtada plan was fairly definitively blocked by Ayatollah Sistani just before Christmas. Might the whole sad concept of the presently mooted “surge” be related to yet another attempt to revive it?
And then we have…
- The militant Sunni/Arabist narrative
This one– peddled furiously by many Sunni Arabs outside Iraq and some inside Iraq– describes the battle in Iraq as one of defending this eastern bulwark of the Arab (and Sunni) world against the looming power of the Shiites, all of whom are described in the more extreme versions of this narratives as somehow secretly either ethnically Persian or anyway controlled by Iran.
Badger recently had a great quote representing this view: something that Sunni Iraqi pol Admnan al-Dulaimi was quoted as saying at the Istanbul Conference, Dec. 13-14:
- “[There is a] Shiite, Safavid, Persian, Majousi [i.e., related to the Magi] threat originating in Iran and aiming to consume all of Iraq, and after that neighboring countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, by way of reviving the dream of a new Persian empire.”
Whew! All those four attributes coming together into a critical mass of pure threat there. Talk about rhetorical overkill. However, as As’ad Abou Khalil and many others have noted, this kind of reetoric is being very widely propagated by the Saudis and their media.
In some versions of this narrative, the Iranians are seen as having come together with not only the US but also the Israelis to attack core values and assets of the (Sunni) Arab nation in Iraq.
(Go figure.)
Another attribute of this narrative is that it systematically tries to deny the “authenticity” of most or all Shiite Iraqis by claiming that they are all, somehow, actually ethnic Iranians– not Arabs at all!– and therefore they don’t deserve to have their views as Iraqis taken seriously.
(I suppose a next step in pursuit of this move to marginalize Iraq’s many millions of, yes, ethnically Arab citizens of the Shiite faith from the national discourse would be to seek to expel them physically from the country. The Sunni militants are not strong enough to propose this yet, though of course they have ethnically cleansed many thousands of Arab-Iraqi Shiites from mixed neighborhoods; and some of them have maintained a horrendous campaign of pure, anti-civilian terror against Shiite Iraqi communities throughout the past 30 months or so, using car bombs, individual suicide bombers, truck bombs, etc.)
- The militant Shiite narrative
This one, too, has its more hardline propagators mainly outside Iraq, but also a number of propagators inside the country. It holds that the major threat to Iraq comes from the “Wahhabists”– a term that is used to describe either just the most militant of the Sunni activists or, in a more extremist version, just about all the Sunnis in Iraq.
Note that here, as with the use by Sunnis of terms like “Persian, Safavi, Majousi”, one clear intention is to deny the opponents’ “authenticity” as Iraqis, by pinning on them a label associated with an outside power. In this case, Saudi Arabia.
Some Shiite militants also use the terms “Al-Qaeda”, “Salafists”, or “neo-Baathists” as ways to deny the authenticity and legitimacy of Sunni Iraqis as Iraqis.
Here is a classic example of a writer who in September 2005 sought to delegitimize the (actually, not unreasonable) reservations that many Iraqi Sunni politicians were expressing at the time to the Iraqi constitution, by describing the these politicians as “Wahhabi” and “Salafist”. Note that the writer of this article is himself Iranian, not Iraqi at all!
- The Iraqi nationalist narrative
This narrative is harder to find represented in the western media than any of the three narratives listed above. (No surprise there.) It holds, as a fundamental tenet, that the continued US occupation is the root cause of Iraq’s current woes and therefore has to end; and that, while there are many grievances between different groups inside Iraq, these can be resolved among Iraqis themselves.
People who advocate the Iraqi nationalist view can be seen as differing on the legacy of Saddam’s rule. They may have some distrust of some or all of Iraq’s neighbors. They hold to a concept of “Iraqi-ness” that may or may not actively embrace the Kurdish roots of a large segment of Iraqis, but that attempts strenuously to maintain or build unity between ethnic-Arab Iraqis who are Sunnis and those who are Shiites, and between those who are more Islamist and those who are more secular (though the latter are a dwindling breed.)
A couple of examples of the Iraqi-nationalist narrative… The first comes from the Association of Muslim Scholars’ Harith al-Dhari, also speaking at that Istanbul conference. He was reported as saying there,
- There are both Shiites and Sunnis on the one side under a single banner, and on the other side, arrayed against them, is the Occupation along with its Iraqi agents, aiming at the realization of its colonialist aims.
The second is from the Sadrists’ Baha al-Araji, in the interview that Foreign Policy published recently:
- We have problems, unfortunately, with all of Iraq’s neighbors. Some are historical problems. Some are ethnic problems … [O]ur neighbors, the Arab countries that border us, are 100 percent Sunni. So they fear the situation in Iraq…
I don’t think Iran likes Iraq. Iran is the beneficiary of this current situation. Iran’s enemy is the United States, so Iran does everything in its power to fuel instability in the new Iraq so that Iran can remain strong and keep the United States distracted…
Note, with respect to Shiite proponents of the Iraqi-nationalist narrative, that Araji is not the only one who expresses some distrust of Iran… And some Iranians seem completely to reciprocate that level of distrust.
On January 2, the Tehran Times ran an intriguing piece of commentary. It was by Hassan Hanizadeh, who was the same person who authored that anti-Wahhabi diatribe I referred to above. On January 2, Hanizadeh criticized the Sadrists by name, describing them as acting as, effectively, dupes of hard-line Sunni politicians intent on splitting the UIA:
- The Al-Sadr Bloc’s boycott of parliament and cabinet sessions has not helped resolve Iraq’s problems and has even encouraged the Shias’ rivals, led by Hareth al-Zari, Adnan al-Dulaimi, and Saleh al-Mutlak, to gravitate toward the Al-Sadr Bloc in a strategic move meant to divide the UIA.
The three, who lead some of the hard-line Sunni groups, which also include Baathists connected to the former Iraqi regime, are trying to ignite a war between the country’s Shias and Sunnis and are receiving financial assistance from some Arab countries…
The fact that the Al-Sadr Bloc and the leaders of the Sunni minority are in consensus that a timetable should be set for the withdrawal of foreign troops put the two camps in a tactical alliance, but the veteran political leaders of the Shia majority repeatedly expressed concern over this unusual relationship.
Some of the Sunni groups, which see themselves as the main losers after the fall of Saddam Hussein, are covertly cooperating with the occupying forces and the leaders of neighboring Arab countries in efforts to eliminate the leaders of the Shia majority, weaken Maliki’s government, and spark a civil war…
There are some other notable features of this Hanizadeh op-ed, including that he mirrors the Bushist narrative regarding Iraqi politics in some significant ways! For example, when he says that the UIA is “led by Abdul-Aziz Hakim”, and when he seeks to demean and diminish Moqtada Sadr by referring to him dismissively as “a young cleric.”
Hanizadeh’s argument is also notable when he says it was the Sadrists who sought to break the UIA’s ranks (by going into an alliance with those Sunni trends), whereas what seemed to me to have happened was that it was the Bushists and Abdul-Aziz Hakim (joint darling of both the Bushists and the mullahs in Tehran) who were explicitly trying to break UIA unity by getting the UIA to repudiate Moqtada…
Interesting, huh?
I should send a quick hat-tip to Juan Cole for linking to that Hanizadeh piece. But I don’t think he gave it the attention or the context that it deserved.
We should also keep in mind about the UIA’s eminence grise, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, that though he– like some other members of the clerical class in Iraq, but unlike the vast majority of the country’s Shiite believers— is actually by ethnicity an Iranian, still, he has very significant religious, political, and philosophical differences with the mullahs in Teheran, and centrally over the concept of wilayat al-faqih. Yet another non-trivial wrinkle there.
Anyway, I just want to finish this post with a few quick observations.
(1) In the present situation in Iraq, the two main narratives that I see as competing for the hearts and minds of (Arab) Iraqis are not the two sectarian narratives described above, but rather, the Bushist narrative and the Iraqi-nationalist narrative.
The advocates of each of these two large competing narratives are currently fighting to manipulate the loyalties of the Iraqi supporters of both the sectarian narratives in the direction they want them to go.
In the case of the Iraqi nationalists they want and need to win to their own cause the loyalties of Iraqis who might currently be supporters of one or the other sectarian narrative.
In the case of the Bushists, they want to enlist as many Arab Iraqis as they can to their “moderates vs. extremists” narrative. But even the very dumbest Bushists must understand there is little likelihood of achieving a winning coalition in that way. So more than that, they are probably seeking to pump up both the two sectarian narratives, as a way of minimizing the support for the nationalist narrative, and then to let the proponents of the competing sectarianisms escalate their conflict against each other in a perpetuation of the classic divide-and-rule tactics Washington has been pursuing inside Iraq since April 2003.
(Although, as I have noted elsewhere, this is a very shortsighted thing to do, and will result in far higher risks for the widely dispersed US troops inside Iraq, whether Washington’s desire is for those troops to leave quickly or to stay in Iraq for a fuurther period.)
(2) This is far from the first time that a “battle of the narratives” of such broad and far-reaching proportions has been at issue during a bloody and very lethal battle in that region. Back in 1980 after Saddam launched his extremely aggressive and ill-starred invasion of Iran, there were huge questions about the loyalty to their respective national capitals of (a) the millions of ethnic-Arab Shiites of Iraq, and (b) the millions of ethnic-Arab Shiites of the south of Iran. But it was the citizenship that members of each of these groups had at that time won out over, in the case of the Iraqi Shiites, their sectarian sentiment, and in the case of the ethnic-Arab Iranians, their ethnic identity.
(3) A “battle of the narratives” is not won with tanks, aerial bombardments, or troop surges– though the arrival of additional large numbers of US troops might well end up tipping the balance in favor of the Iraqi nationalists. But basically, a battle of the narratives is won through effective political work.
(4) As noted here previously, the vast majority of the western MSM has ignored or systematically the Iraqi nationalist narrative. This is most likely through some combination of (a) their unfamiliarity with Iraqi politics, (b) their susceptibility to, and in many cases reliance on, the Bushists’ spin, and (c) intellectual laziness. Over the past year or so, Juan Cole has not been a particularly helpful guide to these matters.
(5) The behavior of the onlookers, and perhaps some officials, at Saddam’s hanging was extremely undignifed, and his trial blatantly unfair. But for many Sunni Arab commentators and US commentators now to pile onto Moqtada al-Sadr and blame him for everything that went on there is quite outrageous. (Also, the phsyical manner of the hanging itself was “executed” quite professinally, unlike in Nuremberg where the dying men twisted on their ropes for 20 minutes before they finally expired.)
Look, the whole trial proceeding was presided over at one scant remove by the Americans– and now they want to use this as a pretext to gin up self-righteous criticism of Moqtada Sadr??
Helena, this is a good and useful summary of some of the competing narratives. I agree that the conflict in Iraq is essentially one between occupiers and nationalists. But the war aims of the Cheney government are not limited to Iraq, and they have not exhausted their military options. With a few exceptions like Ritter and Hersh (and you on occasion), there seems to be a kind of “knock-on-wood” reluctance among left-leaning pundits to even talk about the broader strategic context. See, for example, Robert Dreyfuss’ recent piece at TomDispatch. Dreyfuss can’t seem to understand why Bush would still listen to the neocons (in which group he incorrectly includes Dick Cheney), when things are going so badly in Iraq. It is because for him, the only way “out” of Iraq leads through Tehran. Here is an example of the propaganda we will be seeing in the weeks to come, as final preparations are made for the next phase of the war.
Does anybody here think the US just accidentally turned Saddam over to an unruly Shiite lynch mob, which had the completely unforeseen effect of stirring up anti-Iranian hysteria among Iraqi Sunnis at what was coincidentally the worst possible moment? Anyone who does might also be interested in helping OJ find Nicole’s real killer.
Dick & W know they are currently losing the war in Iraq. They know a temporary 14% increase in troop levels is not going to change that. They know they can’t simply do a 180 and back the former Baathists in retaking control of the country, with the obvious betrayal and horrendous bloodbath that would involve. They now understand that going the other way merely strengthens the hand of their ideological enemy in Tehran, and would greatly endanger our “special relationship” with Saudi Arabia, besides incurring the wrath of the Israel lobby. And anyway, those religious Shiites are worse than socialists when it comes to embracing free market economics. We didn’t go to war to put them in power. Voluntary withdrawal (retreat) has been ruled out – read his lips, it is not going to happen (sorry, Susan). Since the military can’t hold on under current conditions for many more months, there is really only one option left: expand the war to Iran and possibly Syria, and hope you win the Trifecta. The four people making this decision will be Cheney, Bush, Blair and Olmert. Have any of these four said anything that makes you doubt their intentions? Unless everything I think I know about the US Congress turns out to be false, they will do nothing to stop this action, which will be fully endorsed by AIPAC.
The “surge” is really not a critical element of the plan, see? It’s just a “nice to have.” If I wanted to be totally cynical, I would argue that floating the surge concept was just a diversionary tactic to keep people from picking up the main story line too early. I might even point out that Dick & W have laid a nice trap here for the hapless Democrats. If they support the surge, then they are complicit. If they block it, then they are “standing in the way of victory.” The poor dears have already practically promised not to do the one thing that would make a difference: cut off all funding for the war.
[…and noe they want to use this as a pretext to gin up self rightious criticism of Moqtada Sadr?]
The administration had to know this was going to happen, and most likely wanted it to happen for this express purpose. And their agent al-Rabaie who said he had a camera, then said he did’nt have a camera made sure someone had a camera to film the Sadrists being “extremists”, making a fool of Maliki, and martyring Saddam for the anti-Iranian pan arab Sunni backlash amazing hat-trick — I think the administration actually (and finally) pulled one off.
Sorry, here is the link to the NY Sun propaganda article:
http://www.nysun.com/article/46032
President Bush Welcomes Chancellor Merkel of Germany to the White House
“We talked about Iran, and I thanked Chancellor Merkel’s strong support for a Chapter 7 Iranian — Chapter 7 United Nations Security Council resolution on Iran. It was an important message to send Iran, that the free world wants there to be a peaceful future. And we don’t see a peaceful future with the Iranians developing a nuclear weapon. And so I want to thank you for your leadership, Madam Chancellor. We’re going to continue to work together on the Iranian issue. It’s important for us to follow through in order — on this Chapter 7 resolution in order to solve this issue peacefully.”
Helena
Based on his narrative, changes have been made.
I have the greatest of symapthy for poor General Petraeus who knows what he is about.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6232889.stm
Helena
Based on his narrative, changes have been made.
I have the greatest of symapthy for poor General Petraeus who knows what he is about.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6232889.stm
And then there’s the meta-narrative, (not to be mistaken for the Grand Narrative of humanism, so much despised by the post-modernists).
No, in this case the meta-narrative, or sub-text of all the texts, is that the narrative is determinent of “reality”, not the other way round.
This meta-narrative says that what matters is what is in the papers and on TV and radio. Going further than Marshall McLuhan, we are in a “Wag the Dog” world, it says. Hence what matters is only the “Battle of the Narratives”, as you put it, Helena.
I don’t think so. I’ve been thinking about this as the SABCTV here in Johannesburg has been pumping out the Langley, Virginia line on Somalia, day after day for the last couple of weeks. It is a dreadful syrup of cliches that sounds a lot like it was scripted long before the events, by a team of Dustin Hoffman types over there across the Atlantic.
No doubt the same stream of Hollywood rubbish about Somalia is going out all over the world, but I’m quite sure that the number of Somalis who are listening is negligable, and as for the rest, who knows? I doubt the effectiveness of these narratives. I think it’s all Wizard of Oz stuff, Forbidden Planet stuff at worst, paper tigers and Milo Minderbinder. To hell with it.
Jou En-lai was right, forty years ago: Africa is ripe for revolution. He was standing in Somalia at the time he said it. That was not narrative, it was a statement of truth and subjective determination.
Chaps
From Strafor’s front page (you need premium membership to read the whole thing)
Geopolitical Diary: A Leadership Change In Tehran?
January 05, 2007 0030 GMT
Rumors are circulating that Iran’s 67-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is entering the final stage in his fight against cancer. The possibility of Khamenei no longer running the show in Tehran spells serious complications for the future of the Iranian regime. [more]
Iran: Blog Reports Khamenei Dead
January 04, 2007 2351 GMT
The online blog Pajamas Media reported Jan. 4 that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died at age 67, citing an unnamed source. The blog said that Farideh Vafai, a spokeswoman for Reza Pahlavi, the former shah of Iran, said, “We cannot confirm this news. We have heard rumors but so far have no confirmation.” The reliability of this information is unknown
Source Stratfor
Helena,
This is a great way to look at the problem. The only significant disagreement I have with your take is that you take the “Iranian” perspective or interest to be monolithic. One of the characteristics of the Iranian system that makes it so enigmatic to the west, and western intelligence services, is that there are so many poles of power in Iran, and their alliances and agreements/disagreements are (a) temporary and in flux and (b) topic-related. Some of these “poles” would be: [1] Khamenei’s group with the traditional bazaar, and Mo’talefeh, [2] the clerical opposition in Qom, with the flag-bearer Montazeri, and others like Sane’ii, et al. who have formally announced their opposition to the welayateh fagheeh doctrine, [3] the economically conservative yet socially liberal groups (pro-business technocrats), best symbolized by Rafsanjani, ex-mayor Karbasschi, central-bank director (forgot his name!), [4] the reformist alliance, consisting of Nehzateh Azadi, Jebheh Mosharekat, et al. led by Khatami Jr. and Sr., [5] the universities, which have traditionally been and still are a political powerhouse (alas, only if the academics and students in the US were half as involved and informed), [6] the Sepah and Basseej (Revolutionary Guards) who have their own independent hierarchy, and have had quite fleeting alliances over the years, [7] the reactionary hawza, such as Makaarem and Messbaah (Ahmadinejad is essentially their puppet), and more. Obviously, these groupings are both arbitrary and fluid, but there is more than a grain of truth to them. I am sure if you ask ten other people they will have some differences, but there will be a lot of similarities in how the various voices are divided.
Just reading their different flagship newspapers over the past few weeks, especially over the post-execution days (and goodness knows they write a lot of what they think) shows how widely varied their takes are. The guy you quote (Hanizadeh) has a column that is the equivalent to the WSJ editorials or Drudge i.e. he is more ideological garbage than “reality-based”. He does not represent anything (other than the folks in group 7 perhaps). IMHO, over the past few months there has been a significant divide between the groups. The reactionary crowd (i.e.7), with Ahmadinejad as their spokesperson, is pro-chaos in Iraq. Their priority is to “keep the revolutionary spirit alive” and the best way to achieve this is by keeping up an eternal confrontation with “the Great Satan”. So they want to stoke the fire in Iraq, keep saying inciting things against the Iraqi Sunnis and neighboring Sunni countries, … basically the paper you quoted. The pro-business crowd (3) is very scared that a larger conflict in the area, or even a war, will ruin their business. Their survival is very much dependent on western companies, hence they hate wars and sanctions. They sometimes say pseudo-revolutionary things, simply not to be branded pro-west, but it is clearly understood by everyone where they stand (like Rafsanjani’s ridiculous quarterly “warnings” to the US). The Qom clerics of group 2, along with the reform-university alliance (4+5) have consistently been pacifist and favored détente with the west, since a war footing is anathema to social reform, and breeds extremism and suppression of the free speech needed for change. The Revolutionary Guards have not been very clear so far as I can see. Traditionally they have subscribed to the revolutionary narrative, but in the last few interviews of the Guards commanders, especially surrounding the maneuvers in the summer and fall, they were extremely cautious. They have very strictly talked about defense; no Ahmadinejad crazy-talk, no mention of missiles reaching Israel. I sense that they don’t want to overplay their hand and paint themselves into a fighting corner with the US, unless they are forced to (similar to what Cheney seems to be doing here – intentionally?). They have consistently denied any military involvement in Iraq, and I tend to believe them. Not because I like to trust them, but because I am sure that over four years, they would have given at least a few tricks away and that would have been a field day for the US administration. Despite Rumsfeld’s repeated claims, they could never produce one solid piece of evidence to prove military involvement of the Gaurds. That leaves Khamenei and his crowd (by the way, I think the story of his death is a hoax – they have done this many times before). He has acted as he has always done over his 18 years in office: he waits to see which side is the winning side, and then takes sides with them! As opposed to his high office and theoretic power, he is no Khomeini. He is actually a weak character and doesn’t like to make any tough decisions. Prof. Cole always says that he has the final say. By law yes; in action, he has never exercised that power, other than in symbolic roles.
To sum it up, there is a huge struggle going on inside the Iranian power structure, whether to work for peace in Iraq, or more bloodshed. So far, the major Shi’ite militias involved in the Shi’ite-Sunni strife are the Jeysh-alMahdi, who don’t have a lot to do with Iran. The Badr, who were trained by Iran’s Guards, have not been the main spearhead of anti-Sunni attacks. So the majority of the Shi’ite half of the violence is not run by Iran, unless we resort to paranoid theories. In the rhetorical front, a large number of Qom clerics have supported Sistani’s efforts to call for peace. But, IMHO, the most detrimental contribution of the pro-chaos group in Iran has been their inflammatory rhetoric, examples of which you quoted. And this has been nicely reciprocated by their mirror-image idiots on the other side (al-Dulaimi, Saud-al-Feisal, Abdullah of Jordan, …)
So, after all this, I think you are right on the money that it is more about the hostile narratives, than anything else. My hope is that in Iran, the see-saw tilts in the right direction, and somehow the same happens on the other side too. Maybe the invitation extended to Harith al-Dhari by the Iranian reformist students can be taken as a positive sign. Or is that just my wishful thinking?
David,
Interesting summation, and one which provides much food for thought. I’m not sure, though, whether it’s really possible to separate your third and fourth factions. Many of the prominent reformists fit into the technocratic mold; for instance, Karbaschi was and is one of Khatami’s main political allies. The trade unions, which are what remains of the pre-1979 left, often run with the reformists in elections but break with them on economic policy, and they’re arguably a faction of their own. I’d also wonder whether Ahmedinejad is Mesbah-Yazdi’s cat’s-paw or vice versa, and whether the basiji are a separate ideological faction or simply the enforcement arm of whoever happens to be in power, but like the late and unlamented science of Kremlinology, much of Iranian political analysis is based on circumstantial evidence.
Also, while you’re correct in arguing that Khamenei isn’t a strong leader in the sense of molding the country’s policies in his image, he’s strong enough to prevent anyone else from having the final say. He’s a political survivor – as much so as Rafsanjani – and has become very good at using his institutional control and manipulating political factions in order to eliminate any threats to his own position. Iran isn’t Iraq or even Lebanon; nobody’s going to start a war without Khamenei’s permission.
In any event, I agree with your broad outline of which factions favor war and which don’t, and that the stars seem to favor the Rafsanjani faction at the moment. I’d actually peg Rafsanjani as the most likely successor to the supreme leadership if Khamenei dies any time within the next couple of years. So while the medium-term future is uncertain – if nothing else, Rafsanjani’s rather spectacular corruption will drain off much of the political system’s remaining credit – I don’t think the war party is in much of a position to influence foreign policy now, and it will be in even less of one after Ahmedinejad leaves office.
Um, Bush’s people know this stuff, don’t they?
David, thanks so much for your contribution, which I found really informative and helpful. You are right that I presented the “Iranian” view as excessively monolithic. In fact, none of the interests/players/ trends I referred to in the main post is monolithic, at all. I had just picked them out and identified them as I did for the sake of simplifying my own “narrative” of the situation here…
There is a huge degree of flux within all these trends– the Saudis, the US administration, the Iranians, “the” Iraqi Shiites, “the” Iraqi Sunnis, etc…
In Iraq, it is the reality of this flux and of the related (or perhaps antecedent) indeterminate-ness at the level of raw physical power that make the battle of the narratives the dominant issue right now. E.g., if the US military had been able to crush the Iraqi nationalist opposition and/or otherwise prevent it from surviving, then the present picture would be very different. But they weren’t; so now the entire struggle is over “hearts and minds”. I.e., it’s a battle of the narratives.
The power of a narrative is that it serves as an organizing schema within which perplexed humans can organize their understanding of an otherwise chaotic and changing world around them. Any such schema is nearly always selective; but having one that can be portrayed as “working” at some level is a necessary precondition for effective action.
Religion-based narratives have some particularly robust qualities that we might discuss further later. For now, I go back to this JWN post, from April 12, 2003. In it, I predicted that in the chaotic, insecurity-plagued days that followed the fall of Baghdad, the two big trends that would most likely emerge as strongest were those of the Kurds and the Shiite religious organizations. This was not rocket science– though the whole post looks remarkably (and tragically) prescient, read again today. It was based on a sense of both the organizing power of those trends and of the persistence strength of their narratives.
Of course, I should have mentioned in my main post the strength of the Kurdist narrative regarding and within Iraq; but I see the Kurds right now as peripheral to the “main” battle in and for Iraq.
Maybe most of this comment is, indirectly, a response to my old pal Dominic. But again, I want to thank and congratulate David for his/your contribution.
Jonathan, just a note of appreciation for the hilariously funny joke in your last sentence there. (Hollow, doom-laden laughter though mine be in response to it.)
The underlying narrative is that of “extremism” versus “moderation.” These are categories so empty as to be ideal for demagogic purposes: extremism is belief in anything which might sanction resistance to the hegemonic ideal; moderation, the understanding that the world will unfold as it must. Superficially quietist, like methodism, it is actually the intellectual basis of tyranny. It is not wholly coincidental that this “war on exremism” is Blair’s favourite line: it is profoundly British to deal with opponents by disqualifying them rather than engaging with their criticisms. Thus, for example, islamic misgivings over usury, (traditionally central to Christian theology) are derided as unrealistic, fanatical, extreme. The central questions regarding society’s vulnerability to corruption, the contradiction between democracy and capitalism, the atomisation of community in the marketplace, questions which are central to muslim resistance to “western ideas” are simply not addressed: only extremists, fanatics, madmen would ask them.
Thank you Helena.
A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse.
What about this Bevin person, though? On the ball, or what? And brief! I like that.
The organisers will inherit the earth, not the spin-doctors.
More propaganda:
Retired U.S. Air Force General Thomas McInerney, a member of the Iran Policy Committee, says “Iran has become the primary killer of U.S. forces in Iraq.”
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05260335.htm
Find out about the Iran Policy Committee here:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/3280
http://benevis-dige.blogspot.com/
2.Michael Ledeen wouldnt be Michael Ledeen if he wasn’t out spreading unsubtantiated lies. His latest? That Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei has passed away. In late December, Ledeen said that Ayatollah Khamenei was severely ill; to convince his gullible fans of the depth of his “insider” knowledge, Ledeen even provided details that Supreme Leader experienced “a loss of feeling in his feet and [was] breaking out in a cold sweat”. Two days after Ledeen made these confident statements about Khamenei’s health, the Supreme Leader, seemingly in perfect good health held public meetings with Iran’s armed forces.
This time Ledeen has gone so far that not even Amir Taheri, the discredited “journalist” who fabricated and spread the false story that Iran was forcing Jews to wear yellow stars, is willing to back him on this one just yet.
This looks ominous: the Times of London links the upcoming appointment of a naval officer, Admiral William Fallon, as the new head US Central Command, to a possible future attack against Iran.
“[Fallon’s appointment] signalled a growing focus on the threat from Iran. Any mission against Tehran would rely heavily on carrier-based aircraft and missiles from the Persian Gulf.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-2533292,00.html
Even some of the wingnuts are getting worried:
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53654
Well I’m worried too. The latest from the Times of London is that Israeli pilots are practicing to drop bunker busting nuclear weapons on Iran:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2535310,00.html
The Israeli government may be trying to coerce the U.S. here. The US will certainly not want them to use their nukea. So the Israelis threaten to use them as a means of blackmailing the US into attacking Iran. That’s what they want to see happen.
“The Israeli government may be trying to coerce the U.S. here.”
Patrick, it’s always hard to tell who is using whom in this disfunctional relationship. It’s like “In Cold Blood.” Who was more responsible for killing the Clutters, Dick or Perry?
Helena, thanks for a very interesting posting. One point of detail that could be added to the discussion about Muqtada al-Sadr as “enemy number one” concerns the myth that Muqtada alone stands in the way of parliamentary progress in Iraq, through the boycott led by his 30+ deputies. After all, the Iraqi parliament has 275 members and 30 members cannot prevent it from reaching the quorum level. Also, the accusation that Muqtada is funded from Iran strikes me as one of the weakest arguments (among many weak ones!) in the McCain/Liebermann campaign for a “surge with a moderate coalition”.
Jonathan,
You are right about the alternate ways of grouping the factions. As I said, if you ask ten different people, they will cut it differently, but the outline is the idea. And of course there were more subdivisions, many of which I don’t know. As you mention, the labor movement is another important group. Then there are the ethnic groupings, the most prominent being the Azeris and the Kurds, which can overlap with some of the groups, but often have their own very specific interests. IMHO, Mesbah, Makarem, and the broad group that we could call the ultra-reactionary hawza, are Ahmadinejad’s brain. He is quite childish and stupid when you read his talks, unless one believes that he is super-smart and the foolish façade is just an act. The Sepah-Baseej command does align itself with power, most of the time, but during the years since the end of the war (1988) they have had several shows of force that may be considered to have tipped the balance. Your Kremlinology parallel is quite appropriate. I too believe that things could cool down after Ahmdinejad goes back to where he came from, but I am afraid it may be too late by then. Things are looking more ominous every day. I really hope I am wrong.
Regarding your last comment: I was at a CFR lecture series a while back, and asked a few questions about Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and their connections, religious and political factions, etc. from the folks running the show. They were all supposed foreign policy and intelligence “gurus”. With one exception, the responses I got could have been compiled in a book of political jokes or limericks. I do wonder what your similar experiences have been.
David, Jonathan
What a fascinating list of places where operations are taking place at the end of thsi article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/world/middleeast/08fallon.html?hp&ex=1168318800&en=8d2583fd24f7440f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
As you mention, the labor movement is another important group. Then there are the ethnic groupings, the most prominent being the Azeris and the Kurds, which can overlap with some of the groups, but often have their own very specific interests.
Surely the Ahwazis as well.
What’s your read on the Azeris’ current political positions? From what I understand, Iran is a “majority minority” country and the Azeris are the largest of the non-Fars ethnic groups, possibly making up a quarter of the population. Is greater-Azeri nationalism a significant force among them, and if so, which way is it pulling: toward Azeri secession or toward an alignment between Azerbaijan and Iran? Does Azerbaijan’s recent rejection of Russian gas imports play into a pro-Iran policy shift? And would Azeri nationalism within Iran become a greater factor after Khamenei, an ethnic Azeri, leaves the scene?
Also, what about the Iranian Turkmens – do you think they’ll play a part in determining the post-Niyazov order in Turkmenistan?
I do wonder what your similar experiences have been.
I’ve never breathed the rarefied air of a CFR briefing, but I have heard similar things from people who should know better.
What a fascinating list of places where operations are taking place at the end of thsi article.
So the Horn of Africa is now part of the Greater Middle East, as far as the US military is concerned? Aaaargh.
One more thing, while I’ve got your attention: Do you see a continuation of the current electoral alliance between the conservative technocrats, the reformist technocrats and the labor movement? From what I understand (and I’m handicapped by my knowledge of maybe 100 words of Farsi), the Ahmedinejad faction’s populist appeal has been diminished by anti-labor policies such as the suppression of the bus drivers’ strike, and the reformists have made a concerted effort to appeal to working-class voters. Thus, for instance, the return of my second-favorite Iranian, Soheila Jelodarzadeh, to the Majlis in the recent Tehran by-election. Do you see this continuing into the 2008 parliamentary election and possibly leading to some policy reforms afterward?
Anyway, with respect to the political crisis, I tend to agree that now is the most critical time. If we can last until 2008 without a war, then the parliamentary election (and Ahmedinejad’s probable isolation) could lead to an opening. This is especially true if the Israeli political leadership and the American congressional majority become more seasoned and take diplomatic options further in hand. Unlike some, I don’t think that either Israel or the US is hell-bent on confrontation, and that they’ll stop short if their fears are reasonably addressed. In the meantime, though, there’s a dangerous window of time in which the US, Israel and/or the Iranian war party can push things out of control. Hopefully we’ll all get through it in one piece.
Jonathan,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I am not sure if you are still following this thread, but if you are:
As far as Iranian ethnic minorities go I will state my humble understanding, most of which is based on my brief sojourn in Iran many years ago (during the war), the friendships that I have maintained with quite a few “minority” Iranians in and out of Iran, along with what I read in Iranian papers. The main “real minority” are the Kurds; by that I mean the only one that has sufficient numbers and a strong desire for independence to ever cause trouble for Tehran.
The Azeris are completely integrated into the mainstream Iranian fabric. There was no Iranian town or city that I visited that did not have a sizable Azeri community (even such far-from-Azerbaijan places like Baluchestan and Hormozgan). The Azeris feel Iranian. I have yet to hear an Azeri tell me they would like to be part of Turkey or Azerbaijan, greater or not. In fact they pride themselves in the fact that most of the Persian imperial dynasties of the past millenium were of Turkish/Azeri roots and that was the language spoken in court, although they did their book keeping in Farsi (to name a few more prominent ones, the Seljuks, Kharazmshahian, Safavid, and most recently the Qajar). The Azeri’s main grievance is not being part of Iran, but being treated with disrespect, which I think still happens quite often. Most Farsi jokes have the Turk as the idiot. And I have personally witnessed a snobbish poo-poo behavior somewhat parallel to the treatment of Sephardic/Mizrahi Israelis by the Ashkenazi Zionist elite. Most of the conflagrations of Azeri pride and anger of the past few years have had to do with episodes of disrespect, to an Azeri symbol, cleric, etc.
The Kurds are different. They are mostly localized to the 3-4 provinces with Kurdish majorities, and are sometimes wondering if they would be better off as part of a “Kurdish nation”. As opposed to the Azeris, they suffer from real material grievances: their areas are some of the most poorly developed, and their budgets are often given last priority. One other thing that sets them apart is that they are mostly Sunni in a 90% Shi’ite nation. In the years 1979-81, when there was a whole lot of ethnic unrest going on, the only serious one that took months to quell was the Kurdish, and it was only put down with the massive military moves that followed the war with Saddam’s Iraq. Having said all of this, unless instigated by outside forces, I do not see a strong Kurdish separatist movement in Iran like there is in Turkey (Iraq being a done deal); the reasons for that (IMHO again) are (a) the Iranian people love their Kurds. They are seen as the quintessential Persian pure blood. They are often good looking and tall, man and woman. The Kurdish language is basically the purest remnant of the original Farsi/Pahlavi language. And they have always been considered brave loyal Iranians; during the 4-5 centuries of rivalry and occasional wars, it was the Kurds who guarded the frontier against the Ottomans. [This may all seem sentimental to us, but Iranians are a sentimental people, and they live with their history]. And (b) by comparison to what the Iraqi and Turkish governments have historically done to their Kurds (basically active and passive genocide) Tehran has never waged a war against them (maybe because of what I said in (a), that the Kurds were always considered to be “on the Iranians’ side” by the Turks and the Arabs).
I don’t agree with the existence of a significant Ahwazi/Arab minority movement. The Arab-speakers of Southern Iran are of two groups. The tribes of Khuzestan (originally Mohammarah) and the tribes of the coastal line (the Bushehris, Tangestanis, Bandaris, …) The first group are related to the tribes of Basra (originally from Bani Ka’b of Kufa [later Kuwait], supposedly) and the Marsh Arabs. They are mostly Shi’ite, and other than a brief period in the reign of Reza Shah (the convoluted Sheik Khaz’al story) they had been given partial autonomy in the Safavid and Qajar periods, but have not been restive for the past 2-3 centuries, always considered as parts of Iran. There are a large number of separatist groups (AADPF, AARP, ALO, DRFLA, PFLA, DFLA, DSPA [last one not really separatist, but more like federalist] are the ones I remember; I am sure there are more), some of them with comical presidents and governments in exile, but I have yet to meet an Arab Khuzestani who knew one of them enough to identify with them. The Western media love to exaggerate their importance in terms of strength and popularity (as did Saddam’s propaganda apparatus, which actually was propping up quite a few of them) for obvious reasons. There are two parties that I know of who have been working within a peaceful framework for fairer treatment by the Tehran government, the DSPA and Islamic Wefagh Party. They are accepted as legitimate parties by Tehran, and as far as I know, they have some adherents in Khuzestan. Since you mentioned them specifically, if you are interested I recommend Ahmad Kasravi’s great books “Five Hundred Year History of Khuzestan” and “The Iran-British War in Mohammarah”. The tribes of the coast, are not related to the Ahwazis and are generally spread out in pockets on the coast; I have never heard or read anything about separatist movements there.
The other major ethnic minority that could actually (potentially) cause trouble (I would put this as third in importance, after the Kurds and Azeris) are the Baluchi. I believe them to be more strategically important since (a) they are Hanafi Sunnis, (b) they are in a part of the country that has historically been difficult to control because of the lay of the land (you have to see it to believe it), and (c) a part to which the government has shown less interest, due to lack of natural resources (as opposed to Khuzestan which is Iran’s cash cow). The Baluchi are considered ethnically Kurdish derivatives, who were sent to settle the Southeastern corner of the Median Empire to defend it from the Toran (i.e. the Mongoloid tribes). Their language is quite similar to the ancient Pahlavi, and shares a lot with Kurdish. Most of Iran’s Baluchi are of the Mammadsani tribe, who are politically savvy bargainers who know how to strike deals with Tehran. Yet, when they don’t get what they want, they have been known to cause trouble, even if just to twist an arm in blackmail. As far as I know, their main request is to receive government aid in infrastructural planning (they have received quite a bit) and be left alone to run the narco-traffic coming through the Eastern border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. So I think in summary, although the Baluchi tribes have a history of rebelliousness against Tehran (the revolts of Jask in 1873, Sarhad in 1888, and the movements of Sardar Hussein Narui, Bahram Khan, Mir Dost Muhammed Khan Baloch, Dad Shah Baloch, and Abdullah Qaaderi are all interesting historic episodes), but I don’t believe that they have much relevance to what happens in Baluchestan today (I don’t think the average college student in Zahedan could even tell you their stories). Tehran has been pouring a lot of money there recently, examples being the opening of two Free Trade Zones and three automobile assembly plants, and the locals seem to be quite pleased. I have heard/read that Zabol, Chabahar, Zahedan and Mirjaveh have changed dramatically over the past 10 years – for the better.
The Turkmen of Iran, estimated at 1.5-2 million are actually quite different from their brethren across the Northern border. Eighty years of non-porous border patrolling by the Soviets and purging the society of its Islamic and Iranian influence, has lead to two very distinct peoples. When you cross the border, the only similarity is the looks and language. The social and civil landscape is as different as the US and Mexico. [I once crossed that border into Ashgh-Abad on Nowruz, the Persian New Year. In the South, everyone was celebrating; to the North, it was a regular day. That was pre-1989, and I have heard that things have changed a bit since the end of the USSR. But, I am sure the difference remains striking.] Hence, I don’t believe that Iran’s Turkmen will have a significant role in the post-Niyazov power struggles. Inside Iran, the Turkmen have generally been a peaceful minority. There was a period of rebellion in Reza Shah’s time, as part of the great Colonel Mohammad Taqi-Khan Pessian insurrection in Khorassan, which was brutally crushed. In 1980-81 there was a brief restive period, mostly instigated by the Marxist “Fadaiyan Khalgh” group; that too, was put down by military means (more threat, less actual force). Since then, I have not heard of any serious challenges to Tehran’s authority. The Turkmen have a few members in the Majlis, and lobby for more rights and infrastructural investment, but all within the government framework.
The other minorities, such as the Lor, Qashqai, Bakhtiari, Gueelaki, and more, each have interesting and interrelated histories, yet I don’t believe them to have any significant geopolitical relevance at this time.
BTW, I forgot to say that the DSPA has formed a coalition with like-minded parties representing Kurds, Azeris, Baluchi, Turkmen, Bakhtiari and Lor. They state that each area’s historically distinct ethnic identity means that the province should be given autonomy within a federal political system, but with full respect for Iran’s territorial integrity. They formed the Congress of Iranian Nationalities for a Federal Iran (CINFI) in London in 2005 (the DSPA, the Baluchestan United Front, Federal Democratic Movement of Azerbaijan, Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, Baluchestan People’s Party, Organization for Defense of the Rights of Turkmen People and the Komeleh Kurdish Party) and have been recognized by the UNPO (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization).
Now, about the second part of your comments, I feel that the vote of the working poor going for Ahmadinejad was a political quirk, and will not happen again. The reform movement has been kicking itself since June 2005, for putting forward a bland and elitist candidate like Mo’in (kinda, Al Gorish). I think the alliance of the reformist technocrats (i.e. the moderate left), the student movement and the trade unions will be a lasting one, for a while at least. Their alliance with those you call the conservative technocrats (the Karbasschi-Hamshahri crowd under the leadership of their godfather Rafsanjani – the moneyed class) is a temporary tactical alliance in the face of the 2005 defeat. In fact, in the 2005 election, the two main rival factions were these two; they ended up breaking up their vote so much that Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani ended up going into the run-off. And Rafsanjani’s Corleone image handed the election to the village idiot. I am quite sure that if Iran is not at war by 2008-9, Ahmadinejad and his crowd in the Majlis will be thrown out, and a combination of the reformists and the moneyed class will take over. Which one depends on how they play their cards between now and then. So far it seems like Rafsanjani is being far smarter than the Khatami brothers. (They are quite smart, but they engage in highly academic debates about how the Kantian worldview can be resolved with Soroush’s democratization of Islam, and such. The students suck it up like mamma’s milk, but it tends to alienate the regular folks. Rafsanjani on the other hand is great in Crawford-style folksy talk.) By the way I like Jelodarzadeh too, although I don’t have mine in any particular order. I wonder who #1 is!
I apologize for the length of the post. And for the many typos and other mistakes; I didn’t have time to reread it all.
I am still paying attention, and no apologies at all for the length of your comment. I’ve been following Iran for some time (I once went to night school with a member of the Bakhtiar family, who got me interested) but I don’t have the advantage of having lived there and seen the mosaic for myself. It’s fascinating material.
One thing that constantly amazes me about the Iranian political system, but probably shouldn’t, is the amount of room it leaves for lobbying, log-rolling and otherwise pursuing local interests. I guess that’s a natural result of the Majlis having authority over the development budget and the system being open enough to allow the voters to punish unresponsive delegates. As long as pursuit of local interest doesn’t stray into challenging the overall political system, there seems to be room for groups like the Turkmens and Baluchis to use politics to their advantage.
The problem I potentially see with the Kurds is that they’re tied into a regional nationalism that (1) exists in competition with other nationalisms, and (2) has achieved unprecedented success in Iraq. I recognize that Iran has treated its Kurdish population better than Iraq, Syria or Turkey (a low bar indeed), but these are the sort of circumstances that, in other places, have led previously quiescent groups to increase their demands. Maybe federalism, or asymmetric regional autonomy as in Spain, might end up being the most viable compromise.
I’d argue that the failure of the reformists to engage with the working poor began hurting them long before 2005. The example I have in mind is the workers’ failure to join the sit-in that the Majlis held in 2004 to protest the exclusion of reformist candidates from the election. From the impression I got at the time, the urban poor viewed the sit-in as a protest over a technical matter that didn’t affect them. If the reformists had maintained their alliance with the trade unions, then the sit-in might have resulted in wider protest, and shows of force on the streets sometimes make the government back down. And then, of course, there are the 2003 local elections. Let’s just say I’m glad to see the alliance back online.
My favorite Iranian is, naturally, Shirin Ebadi, who I once had the honor of meeting before she became a Nobel laureate. Other than Ebadi and Jelodarzadeh, I don’t really rank favorites, but you’ve got to admit there’s something appealing about a labor activist and politician who came up through the shop floor and stands up for working women. It sort of blows all the stereotypes away.
BTW, on an entirely different point, I wouldn’t say that the Fars attitude toward Azeris is “parallel to the treatment of Sephardic/Mizrahi Israelis by the Ashkenazi Zionist elite.” I would say that it’s parallel to the attitude of the “Ashkenazi elite,” full stop. Political Zionism isn’t a basis on which Israeli Ashkenazim and Mizrahim can be distinguished; I’m aware that certain Mizrahi intellectuals regard Zionism as a colonial Ashkenazi invention, but I’ve never met a non-academic Mizrahi who bought into that. The Mizrahim often complain about Ashkenazi racism (which these days comes primarily from CIS immigrants rather than old-line Israelis) but they feel Israeli in much the same way that the Azeris feel Iranian; if anything, they tend to identify more with political Zionism because they were living in a worse situation before they emigrated. Their outlook is somewhat similar to that of the Druze; only in Israel could there be a (former) Likud MK like Ayoub Kara who complains about discrimination one day and quotes Jabotinsky the next.
Israel is as complicated a country as Iran and, also like Iran, often confounds those with caricatured notions. I’m not accusing you of having such notions, because I don’t believe you do, but I’d point out that an overly “sectarian” view of Israel is as erroneous as a similar view of Iran or Iraq.