Those who are sucked
into big adversarial situations in history always run a number of risks.
However, the biggest risk, I believe, is to have an evil adversary and end up
looking, behaving and even thinking like them. If that happens to anyone, they
could be sure that even if they win many battles, they would end up losing the
war. In contrast, one might be lucky enough to end up resembling an adversary
that is better than oneself.
The effect that “the
other” has on one has been observed throughout history, even at the level of
great empires. When ancient Rome and Iran became adversaries each learned a
number of things from each other. Rome was a republic in conflict with Iran, a
monarchy. When Marcus Licinius Crassus, in his time the greatest of Roman generals,
was killed by the Persians in the battle of Harran in 53 BC, the Roman elite
started thinking of adopting the monarchic system which they eventually did
under Julius Caesar. At the other end of the spectrum, unlike the Romans,
Iranians did not have a standing army. In time, however, they decided to
imitate their adversary by creating precisely such a war machine.
In more recent times,
the Soviet Union and the United States, two great powers engaged in the Cold
War, reciprocally adopted aspects of each other’s system. The Soviet defense
doctrine has been built on the deployment of mass armies, scorched earth and
prolonged fighting on land that had been tested with success during the
Napoleonic wars. The American doctrine was woven around the motto: Get in, Kill
the enemy, Get out! It found its most tragic expression in the nuclear bombs
dropped on Japan. Six years later, the Soviets had built their own atom bomb.
The Soviets had a vast
and brutal intelligence-security system built around the KGB, itself heir to
the Tsarist Okhrana and the Leninist Cheka. In 1945, having disbanded the OSS,
their wartime intelligence service, the Americans had nothing of the sort.
Soon, however, they created the CIA which was to imitate the KGB in as many
ways as America’s open society could tolerate. The Soviets practiced the black
arts against their opponents in Eastern and Central Europe. Americans did
similar things in Latin America.
Trouble for the Soviets
started when more and more of their people, including some in the leadership,
started to talk like the Americans. In 1989 together with four European
newspaper editors we held a number of meetings in Moscow with Soviet leaders,
including Mikhail Gorbachev, Alexander Yakovlev and Yevgeny Primakov. We were
all surprised how all of them talked like western Social Democrats, especially
when they held forth about “universal values.”
“They have been
contaminated by the Western bug,” I wrote at the time, only half in jest.
“Let’s see if they really mean what they say.”
All that came back to my
mind when reading the speech that US President Barack Obama gave in Washington
the other day in defense of his “nuke deal” with the Islamic Republic. The
first thing that struck me was how his discourse echoed that of the mullahs. He
started by building a metaphysical heaven-and-hell duality about a very
this-worldly issue. He warned that the choice was between accepting his deal
(Heaven) and war (Hell). The beauty of life, however, lies in the fact that it
is full of endless possibilities, including doing nothing when doing anything
else could cause more harm.
Next, he imitated the
mullahs by practicing “taqiyah” (dissimulation). He diligently avoided
delving into the details of a convoluted “deal” every part of which is designed
to deceive. He also hid the fact that his much advertised “deal” has not been
officially accepted by the Iranian state.
More broadly, he
practiced another mullahs’ trick known as “mohajah” which means drawing
your adversary into the simulacrum of a battle which, even if they won, would
offer them nothing but the simulacrum of a victory. Having already committed
his administration through his sponsorship of a United Nations’ Security
Council resolution endorsing the “deal”, Obama pretended that his fight with
the Congress might end up conjuring some meaning.
Another mullahs’ tactic
he used is known as “takhrib” which means attacking the person of your
adversary rather than responding to their argument. Those who opposed the
“deal”, he kept saying, were the same warmongers that provoked the invasion of
Iraq and the “Death to America” crowd in Iran. The message was simple: Those
are bad guys, so what they say about this good deal does not count!
He was repeating a
favorite dictum the mullahs say: Do not see what is said, see who is saying it!
That dictum has
generated two immense branches of knowledge: The Study of Men (Ilm Al-Rejal)
and the Study of Pedigrees (Ilm al-Ansab).
Prove that someone is a
good man with a good pedigree and you could take his narrative (hadith)
on the most complex of subjects at face value. On the contrary, he who is
proven to be a bad man with an inferior pedigree should be dismissed with
disdain even if he said the most sensible thing.
Obama forgot that among
the warmongers who pushed for the invasion of Iraq were two of his closest
associates, Joe Biden, his vice president, and John Kerry, his secretary of
state, along with the entire Democratic Party contingent in the Congress.
On the Iranian side, he
forgot that President Hassan Rouhani and his patron former President Hashemi
Rafsanjani built their entire career on “Death to America” slogans. Rouhani and
his “moderate” ministers till have to walk on an American flag as they enter
their offices every day.
The official Iran
Daily ran an editorial the other day in support of Obama’s “campaign
for the deal.”
“Obama is the nightmare
of the Republicans because he wants to destroy the America they love,” it said.
“His success will be a success for all those who want peace.” In other words,
the Tehran editorialist was echoing Obama’s Manichaean jibe.
In any case,
name-calling and accusing critics of harboring hidden agendas is another tactic
of the mullahs known as “siahkari” (blackening) of the adversary.
I am embarrassed to talk
of myself, but I have been more of “Long Live America” crowd than the “Death to
America” one. And, yet I think the Vienna deal is bad for Iran, bad for America
and bad for the world.
I also think that it is
possible to forge a deal that is good for Iran, good for the US and good for
the world.
I have also never asked
the US or anybody else to invade Iran or any other country. I have also never
been a Republican if only because I am not a US citizen, and never studied,
worked or resided there.
I could assure Obama
that, as far as I can gauge public opinion, the majority of Iranians have a
good opinion of America and a bad opinion of the “deal”.
This is, perhaps, why,
like Obama, the Rafsanjani faction, of which Rouhani is part, is trying to
avoid the issue being debated even in their own ersatz parliament. This is also
why Iranian papers critical of the deal are closed down or publicly warned.
Rather than depending on the Khomeinist lobby in Washington, or even assertions
by people like myself, Obama should conduct his own enquiries to gauge Iranian
public opinion. He might well find out that he is making an alliance with a
faction that does not represent majority opinion in Iran. His “deal” may
disappoint if not anger a majority of Iranians who are still strongly
pro-America.
Rouhani’s Cabinet is
full of individuals who held the American diplomats hostage in Tehran for 444
days. Yet, they support Obama. Those who oppose the “deal”, however, include
many Iranians who genuinely desire the closest of ties with the US.
Finally, another mullah
concept, used by Obama, is that of “End of Discussion” (fasl al-khitab)
once the big cheese has spoken. That may work in the Khomeinist dictatorship;
it is not worthy of a mature democracy like the United States.
Amir Taheri
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. Mr. Taheri has won several prizes for his journalism, and in 2012 was named International Journalist of the Year by the British Society of Editors and the Foreign Press Association in the annual British Media Awards.
