The Koran and the Ballot Box

The Koran and the Ballot Box

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Prague

WHATEVER happens in Iran in the aftermath of this month’s fraudulent elections, one thing is clear: we are witnessing not just a fascinating power struggle among men who’ve known each other intimately for 30 years, but the unraveling of the religious idea that has shaped the growth of modern Islamic fundamentalism since the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928.

The Islamic revolution in Iran encompassed two incompatible ideas: that God’s law — as interpreted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — would rule, and that the people of Iran had the right to elect representatives who would advance and protect their interests. When Khomeini was alive and Iran was at war with Iraq, the tension between theocracy and democracy never became acute.

Upon his death in 1989, however, the revolution’s democratic promise started to gain ground. With the presidential campaign of Mohammad Khatami in 1997, it exploded and briefly paralyzed Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the theocratic elite. God’s will and the people’s wants were no longer compatible.

To the dismay of Ayatollah Khamenei, who remains supreme leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the candidate whom President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “defeated” in the rigged elections, has become the new Khatami — except he is far more powerful. While Mr. Moussavi lacks Mr. Khatami’s reformist credentials, he is a far steelier politician. And the frustrations of President Khatami’s failed tenure have grown exponentially among a new generation that is less respectful of mullahs and revolutionary ideology.

Yet in the current demonstrations we are witnessing not just the end of the first stage of the Iranian democratic experiment, but the collapse of the structural underpinnings of the entire Islamic approach to modern political self-rule. Islam’s categorical imperative for both traditional and fundamentalist Muslims —“commanding right and forbidding wrong” — is being transformed.

This imperative appears repeatedly in the Koran. Historically, it has been understood as a check on the corrupting, restive and libidinous side of the human soul. For modern Islamic militants, it is a war cry as well — a justification of the morals police in Saudi Arabia and Iran, of the young men who harass “improperly” attired Muslim women from Cairo to Copenhagen. It is the primary theological reason that Ayatollah Khamenei will try to stop a democratic triumph in his country, since real democracy would allow men, not God and his faithful guardians, the mullahs, to determine right and wrong.

Westerners would do well to understand the magnitude of what is transpiring in the Islamic Republic. Iran’s revolution shook the Islamic world. It was the first attempt by militant Muslims to prove that “Islam has all the answers” — or at least enough of them to run a modern state and make its citizenry more moral children of God. But the experiment has failed. The so-called June 12th revolution is the Iranian answer to the recurring hope in Islamic history that the world can be reborn closer to the Prophet Muhammad’s virtuous community. Millions of Iranians said in the presidential election, and more powerfully on the streets since, that they want out of Ayatollah Khomeini’s dream, which has become a nightmare.

No matter what Ayatollah Khamenei does — and at his most recent Friday prayer sermon he gave no inclination he’s ready to stop hammering the reformers — this message isn’t going to change. In the nine years since the reform movement around Mr. Khatami was crushed, it has only grown stronger. It brought within its ranks Mr. Moussavi, a favored lay disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini, who clearly has no regard for either Mr. Ahmadinejad or the supreme leader.

What may seem more surprising is that so many prominent first-generation revolutionaries have sided with Mr. Moussavi. There are many reasons for this, but among the most salient is a growing belief that the Islamic Republic and the revolution are finished unless Iran becomes more democratic. This hope may be naïve (once glasnost starts …), but it is a powerful motivation for those who gave their souls to overthrow the shah.

It’s not clear what Mr. Moussavi thinks about democracy, but it’s a good bet that he’s willing to entrust the people with more power than was Mr. Khatami, who despite some differences could neither really break with his ruling clerical brethren, nor free himself from the age-old Islamic belief that the faithful need clerical supervision. And even if Mr. Moussavi isn’t the ideal reformer — he was prime minister in the 1980s — he is surrounded by the best and brightest of Iran. The regime has lost almost all the country’s intellectual capital. Even among the clergy, the best minds — the ones faithful Iranians talk about, like Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri — have distanced themselves from Ayatollah Khamenei. I can’t think of a serious book written by an Iranian since the fall of Mr. Khatami expounding the Islamic Republic as a model for Muslims.

The reverse parallels here with the rest of the Islamic Middle East are striking. Where secular dictatorships rule, the best and the brightest are often attracted to the Islamist cause. The moral repugnance of these regimes trumps the appeal of their Westernization. Muslim fundamentalists often espouse democracy either because it is the only peaceful means of dethroning their rulers or because they really do believe that most Muslims are “good” Muslims. Democracy would make their societies more virtuous, they feel, more likely to preach and practice the traditional injunction to command good and forbid evil.

Until now, the Islamic Republic has had a propaganda heyday among devout Arabs, depicting itself as a virtuous state with a workable level of democracy — just enough to give the regime legitimacy and stability. Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and the wicked genius behind the crushing of the reform movement during Mr. Khatami’s presidency, loves to emphasize Iran’s democracy when he travels abroad, always highlighting America’s preference for secular dictatorships.

Now the clerical regime can no longer make this argument. As Iranians have come to know theocracy intimately, secularism has become increasingly attractive. Iran now produces brilliant clerics who argue in favor of the separation of church and state as a means of saving the faith from corrupting power.

Indeed, Iranians are on the threshold of turning the Koran’s ethical injunction into a democratic commandment: nothing good can be commanded without a vote of the people. The democracy-supporting clerics of Iraq are trying to do the same thing, but the Iranians, much further advanced in their thinking about church and state, will surely be much bolder. Whether he intended it or not, Mr. Moussavi — and indirectly Ayatollah Khamenei because of his crude determination to keep the former prime minister from power — has probably begun the final countdown on the Islamic Republic.

We can only guess about the effect of an Iranian crack-up on the rest of the Middle East. Although the region’s Sunni rulers were spooked by the aggressiveness of Mr. Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei (not to mention the idea of a Shiite state with nuclear weapons), the birth of real democracy in Iran, always the most dynamic state in the region, cannot but cause acute anxiety. Sunni Arab fundamentalists, whose day has not yet arrived, will be fascinating to watch. They will surely see the awesome power of democracy; they will probably conclude, however reluctantly, that God cannot be the sole legislator of the laws and ethics that good Muslims want to live by.

And American policy? For starters, many of America’s supposed allies may welcome a Khamenei crackdown. This may complicate matters for President Obama. But he should take note: inside Iran, the nuclear issue isn’t what the people are fighting about. They are fighting for freedom. Even if Ayatollah Khamenei proves triumphant in this round, the president should get on the right side of history. He has nothing to lose: the supreme leader is never going to give ground on the nuclear issue. And as the clerical regime gets nastier at home, it will become nastier abroad. Mir Hussein Moussavi is Mr. Obama’s only hope.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is a former Middle Eastern specialist in the C.I.A.’s clandestine service.

I think it was an interesting analysis. Clearly, there are millions in Iran who are not happy with the way things are going and want their voices heard. I'd like the opinions of some in Iran on this analysis.

The Iranian revolution is the best thing happened to Islam, and Iranians won't give it up, but they hung.

How can you be so sure? It is for neither me or you to decide what is best for Iranians. If they can bring this theocracy through revolution, they can depose it though revolution as well. 

what is happening in Iran, will give Iran more power, and makes it stronger than before.

yes… Ultimate winers are the people. 

what is happening now in Ira, prove that there is democracy in Iran, and the people are showing their opinion.

mass protests doesn't mean freedom. even during the shah's reigen there were protests, so does that mean Shah was just? Shah represents tyrany to Iranians.  

Muslims don't want to apply Western democracy.

We saw what USA did in Iraq, it caused of 1 million death, and 3 million Orphan and three 3 million refugee.

Yes, US invasion is the reason for over 1 million death , but it is not the only cause. More people have died as a result bombing of shiait places of worship by sunni extremists.  

If US wouldn't have invaded, the death would have been in in thousands (due saddam's regiem) 

what is this democracy, USA spread terrorisation in Iraq, and not peace, it made this countries go back 30 years, and hurt iraquian people.

That I have to agree with. 

arabhamid : what is this democracy, USA spread terrorisation in Iraq, and not peace, it made this countries go back 30 years, and hurt iraquian people.

Removing Saddam Hussien from the power was a good thing. Saddam Hussien was dictator and sadist. He and his sons loved to tornment the iraqi people.

arabhamid: what is happening now in Ira, prove that there is democracy in Iran, and the people are showing their opinion.

And you shouldent get killed for showing your opinion. Iran is a islamic dictatorship just like iraq was, and
Ali Khamenei should be stopt.

• Gkiss, do you mean by your article that Islam is anti-freedom & democracy ?!
  As usual

  
  I certainly think that the dictatorship in Iran is anti-freedom and anti-democracy.
• 
  

"Couldn't you stop attacking our religion ?

Could you stop Insult out religion and our holly Book ?

Could you stop interference in our religion and business ?"

This a free forum, and we can talk and criticize anything we like. If other people can get away demonizing Jews, Israel, the USA and promote Islam, then we should have the right to the exact opposite.

Fareed Zakaria suggests that we are witnessing the fall of Islamic theocracy in Iran right now:

CNN: As you’ve seen the situation in Iran develop over the last week, what are your thoughts?

Fareed Zakaria: One of the first things that strikes me is we are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy.

CNN: Do you mean you think the regime will fall?

Zakaria: No, I don’t mean the Iranian regime will fall soon. It may — I certainly hope it will — but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. I mean that this is the end of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian regime.

The regime’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laid out his special interpretation of political Islam in a series of lectures in 1970. In this interpretation of Shia Islam, Islamic jurists had divinely ordained powers to rule as guardians of the society, supreme arbiters not only on matters of morality but politics as well. When Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, this idea was at its heart. Last week, that ideology suffered a fatal wound.

CNN: How so?

Zakaria: When the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “divine assessment,” he was indicating it was divinely sanctioned. But no one bought it. He was forced to accept the need for an inquiry into the election. The Guardian Council, Iran’s supreme constitutional body, met with the candidates and promised to investigate and perhaps recount some votes. Khamenei has subsequently hardened his position but that is now irrelevant. Something very important has been laid bare in Iran today — legitimacy does not flow from divine authority but from popular support.

Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy adds:

the clear implication of Mousavi’s actions is that he no longer sees the supreme leader as the legitimate, unquestioned ruler of Iran. I’m sure an increasing number of Iranians feel the same way, even if the regime ultimately beats them into submission as we watch helplessly, glued to our monitors. And that will spell the end of the Islamic Republic in the long run.