System change, what? This isn't 1953 and Ayatollah Khamenei isn't Mosaddeq

The US, which despite a full-fledged 7-year war and terrorist destabilization of Syria that saw the death of an estimated half-a-million people, displacement of several millions, and destruction of entire towns and cities, failed to dislodge President Bashar al-Assad from power, is fantasizing about the collapse of the grassroots Islamic Republic system of government of Iran, which shows its gross inability to comprehend the views of ordinary Iranians.

Now we have an interesting article by Seyyed Mohammad Marandi, professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran, titled: “System change, what? This isn't 1953 and Ayatollah Khamenei isn't Mosaddeq.”

Much wisdom about empire can be acquired by observing the decades of running commentary on supposed Iranian "abnormality" in Western discourse. Subsequent to the Iranian parliament’s almost unanimous vote to nationalise Iranian oil - and until the Anglo-American coup in 1953 - the then Iranian Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq, was widely and relentlessly derided in the Western media as a fanatical and irrational person pushing Iranians towards communism, misery, and destitution.

The British Navy imposed an embargo on Iranian oil, BBC radio Persian was deployed to generate sedition, fear, and despair. Ultimately, the coup was carried out as the CIA paid both pro-communist rioters as well as pro-monarchist counter-rioters to sow fear and chaos in Tehran.

Virtues aside, among Mosaddeq’s fatal flaws at this sensitive and historic juncture were his naive trust in the United States, attempts to preserve a corrupt and subservient pro-Western monarchy, an inclination for monopolising power, and the marginalisation of political persuasions other than his own – especially the Muslim masses led by Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Qassem Kashani.

This is a story of the past when public minds had not been fully awakened regarding national interests and international equations. Today, the parameters have been completely changed, thanks to the mobilization of the Iranian Muslim masses by Imam Khomeini (RA), who led the Islamic Revolution to victory in 1979 and established the popular religious system of republican rule in Iran that has withstood the test of times over the past forty years, including the 8-year war imposed by the US through Saddam of Iraq’s repressive Ba’th minority regime and unabated sanctions.

Fast forward to 2018. Despite the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s warranted mistrust towards US intentions, throughout different administrations, he refrained from impeding presidential initiatives to ease bilateral tensions, even as he would support measures to safeguard the country from the almost inevitable American traditional backstab.

His sensible reservations about proposals from pro-Western liberal policymakers and elites, whose views often mimic those of Western policymakers and supposed ‘intellectuals’ and are also reflected in the Iranian media, did not hamper the extensive negotiations held with the regime in Washington.

Despite endless attempts by Western-backed Persian-language media outlets to reinforce rumours, create anxiety and division as well as subtly encourage violence in the well-kept tradition of their predecessors, Ayatollah Khamenei has successfully kept most politicians and diverse social forces from sliding down the slippery slope of polarisation.

The current heads of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government are of notably dissimilar political persuasions from their predecessors as well as one another, yet all have served or are serving their full terms in office in relative calm.

Reformists, moderates, conservatives, and independents all engage in the highly complicated chessboard of Iranian politics, but unlike under Dr. Mosaddeq, Western powers have had only limited success in manipulating Iranian politics or legitimate protests.

Through Western-funded NGOs, Persian-language television channels, the internet, and social media in 2009 the enemies led by the US encouraged division, violence and sedition by pushing unfounded allegations of electoral fraud after an emotionally charged and divisive, somewhat class-based presidential election.

More recently, in a speech at an event in Paris organised by the MKO, once listed by the US as a terror outfit and is regarded by Iranian people as a terrorist hypocrites whose treason of siding with Saddam is still fresh in the minds, Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer and confidante of US president, Donald Trump, claimed that the riots in Iran late last year – actually a few isolated incidents by miscreants – were not spontaneous but happened because of what he called “our people” in Albania and Paris, that is, the MKO terrorist hypocrites.

Nevertheless, the US recognises that the few Los Angeles-based monarchists, the MKO and the many self-exiled individuals who live comfortable lifestyles thanks to ridiculously expensive "regime change" projects funded by the United States and allied regimes in Europe and the region, are not going to bring about change inside Iran.

That is why former US president Barack Obama's supposedly ‘crippling’ and Trump’s so-called ‘brutal’ sanctions were designed to drive innocent Iranians into economic destitution and suffering (like Yemen without wedding and funeral air strikes), so that a desperate public would put pressure on, or ideally, overthrow the Islamic Republic in order to pave the way for the US comeback to Iran.

The general consensus among Western establishment media, pundits, and self-styled ‘experts’ is that Washington should work to bring about change to what they call the ‘theocratic regime’ in Iran. This language represents a Eurocentric inability to comprehend a sophisticated Iranian political model with a constitution and a complex system of checks and balances.

Iran's political order has successfully withstood 40 years of onslaught from an empire that has unapologetically downed a civilian airliner in 1988 with almost 300 passengers and crew on board, and used everything from chemical weapons to sanctions and terror to break the resolve of the Iranian nation. These are the same people who are, ironically, enraged about alleged (and dubious) claims of Russian interference in the 'Which Corrupt Billionaire Should be President?' show.

If the supposedly ‘collapsing’ theocratic system’ is so inherently unpopular and incompetent, how can it also be a rising threat to global security? Only a powerful and latent orientalism can resolve this seemingly irresolvable paradox.

The question is: If the Islamic Republic is viewed by Iranians as inherently illegitimate, why the need to strangle the population and engage in extensive psychological warfare to force change?

Even as US presidents threaten to destroy Iran, why do British and American state-owned Persian-language media outlets need to struggle to convince Iranians that they do not need a missile defence capability or a strong military?

In the words of the narrator in Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man: "I'm invisible, not blind."

Interpreting economic dissatisfaction and calls for an anti-corruption campaign as public opposition to the constitution or support for external antagonists is a sign of abnormality in the Western discourse on Iran rather than an Iranian abnormality. 

Fantasising about the collapse of Iran stems from an inability to comprehend the views of ordinary of Iranians. Rather than pinning hope on such flights of the imagination like a repeat of 1953, it would be infinitely more prudent to heed the warnings of President Hassan Rouhani and the extremely popular IRGC Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a strong country, based on popular religious rule, with robust conventional military capabilities, exceptional asymmetrical military capabilities that go far beyond the country's borders, and an extraordinary religious-bound resilience against injustice. Perhaps that is what makes their 40 years of successful resistance appear ‘abnormal’ to empire.

AS/ME