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Sun Mar 5 19:51:38 PST 2006

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IRAN'S POLITICS
Feb 23rd 2006  

It will be hard for a real opposition to emerge, even with American
cash 

PITY those Americans, George Bush among them, who long for their ideas
about democracy to take root in Iran. Mindful of the mistake that his
and earlier administrations made in backing Iraqi exile groups that
turned out to enjoy scant support back home, and aware that, for Iran's
democracy-seekers, gifts from America carry the taint of collusion with
the enemy, Mr Bush has often encouraged Iranians to strive for "the
freedom they seek and deserve"--and pretty much left it at that. Until
this month, that is, when his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice,
asked Congress to pledge $75m to the cause.

That is a big increase on the $10m previously budgeted. It is also a
statement of intent by an administration often accused of having no
clear policy on Iran. Helping to establish a "different system", a goal
identified by a senior American official after Ms Rice's testimony, is
a short rhetorical step from the "regime change" to which some American
hawks want Mr Bush to commit. 

So America's challenge now is to find suitable NGOs, trade unions,
human-rights groups and students to receive the $20m they have been
allocated. (The other $55m will help disseminate Persian-language
broadcasts and propaganda on the internet.) Iran's internal opposition
lacks a Nelson Mandela; Iranians in the diaspora (1m in the United
States) cannot even boast of an Ahmed Chalabi, the neo-conservatives'
failed favourite to run Iraq. 

Citing infiltration of Iranian NGOs by government agents, the same
official predicted that the awards would go to groups based outside
Iran. Anyone doubting that his call for unity among expatriates will be
hard to realise need only surf the 20-odd Los Angeles-based
Persian-language television channels which can be viewed by owners of
satellite dishes in Iran. From brilliantined monarchists and religious
eccentrics who have not seen Iran since the 1979 revolution, to
youthful music presenters who have not seen it at all, they have little
in common save their dislike for the Islamic Republic.

Even supposing the promise of cash moves the diaspora to unite, the
credibility of its leading lights is low. Though he has astutely backed
calls for a referendum on a political system to replace the Islamic
Republic, Reza Pahlavi, the personable but reputedly unambitious son of
the last shah, is little spoken of in Iran. 

As for the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which sided
with Saddam Hussein during his war with Iran in the 1980s and is
officially considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and
the European Union, it is widely despised by Iranians back home,
millions of whom lost relatives in that war. The group fosters a cult
of personality around Maryam Rajavi, wife (probably widow) of its
long-time leader. There is growing support in the United States and
Europe for removing the terrorist label attached to the PMOI, which is
widely credited with having exposed several of the nuclear-research
facilities the Iranian government had kept secret for many years. But
that may not endear it to people in Iran either.

Ms Rice cannot even count on the relatively pro-American sentiment that
most ordinary Iranians evinced during the calmer Clinton presidency.
While no reliable opinion poll has been carried out on the subject,
anecdotal evidence suggests that Iranians' scepticism of American
motives has risen since the invasion of Iraq. Mr Bush's determination
to prevent the Iranians from becoming producers of nuclear fuel that
would, if they wanted, enable them to make a bomb has piqued
nationalists. This month, bigger-than-usual crowds gathered in Tehran,
Iran's capital, to commemorate the revolution's anniversary and shout
"Death to America!"

THE PRESIDENT'S NATIONALIST TAILWIND
The combination of a protracted international crisis and last summer's
election of a hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has allowed
Iran's conservative establishment quietly to bury the reform movement
of Muhammad Khatami, Mr Ahmadinejad's predecessor. Their most
interesting newspapers banned and their leading lights silenced or
jailed, the reformists have even fallen in line behind the hardliners'
tough nuclear diplomacy. The once-vibrant student movement is moribund.
In the face of "undemocratic actions", laments Mehdi Makaremi, a
reformist columnist, student bodies content themselves with "issuing
statements".

By banning adventurous newspapers and filtering websites, the
authorities have denied publicity to political prisoners such as Akbar
Ganji. Five years ago, this outspoken critic of the ruling theocracy
was on everyone's lips; now, despite spending much of last year on
hunger strike, he has slipped from public view. In a land of high
unemployment and few effective trade unions, industrial unrest is rare;
strikes are dealt with decisively, and often before they happen. A
recent protest by bus drivers in Tehran, the capital, was pre-empted
with hundreds of arrests; the disgruntled drivers, back at work, have
been promised better conditions. 

NOT ABOUT TO BOIL OVER YET
So Iran is not the hothouse of dissent that American hawks depict. It
may indeed, in the words of one of its leading literary dissidents, be
"bereft of any effective opposition, legal or illegal". But that does
not mean that everyone is content: only that frustrations, inadequately
addressed by Mr Khatami, express themselves in different ways. Threats
now come from two currents, religious heterodoxy and separatist
nationalism, that have intermittently irritated the Islamic Republic, a
Shia state run by ethnic Persians, since its inception. 

Two regions bordering Iraq, Kurdistan in the north and Khuzestan on the
Persian Gulf coast, are rumbling. For the mostly Sunni Kurds, the
Khatami presidency, which they hoped would usher in religious and
political autonomy, was a disappointment; many now covet the
quasi-independence being enjoyed by their Iraqi cousins across the
border. Since the shooting last summer of a dissident at the hands of
the security forces, and subsequent unrest in Kurdish towns, there have
been reports of sporadic attacks on soldiers by Kurdish militants. 

Iran's interior minister says he detects a British hand behind last
month's explosions in the oil-rich, partly-Arab province of Khuzestan,
which killed seven people. Last year, Khuzestan suffered sectarian
rioting and other deadly blasts; these, too, were blamed on the
British, who run a neighbouring chunk of southern Iraq. The British
deny these outlandish accusations. 

Iran's clerical establishment is increasingly exercised by the
Nematullahi-Gonabadi order of Sufis, Muslims who neglect some Shia
practices in favour of a mystic relationship with God. The order claims
to have more than 1m members, many with deep pockets, in Iran and
abroad. Last week the authorities destroyed a prayer hall erected by
the Sufis in the shrine city of Qom; there were reports of serious
injuries and some 1,000 Sufis were briefly arrested. Repression, say
the order's supporters, will only increase its popularity. At last,
music to George Bush's ears--though the Sufis may not qualify as an NGO
deemed worthy of cash from America. 

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