Asia Times Online


	May 29, 2002	atimes.com

Front

THE ROVING EYE
IRAN DIARY, Part 4: Follow the leader
By Pepe Escobar

Part 1: Sea of peace or lake of trouble?

Part 2: Knocking on heaven's door

Part 3: Knocking on democracy's door

TEHRAN - As president of the Kayhan Group of Newspapers and Publications, Hussein Shariatmadari is an unusually well-positioned player on the Iranian political chessboard. Kayhan is one of the top Iranian media groups - publishing a daily paper in Farsi, dailies in English and Arabic, a sports daily, a weekly targeting the Iranian diaspora, a women's weekly, a children's weekly, a cultural monthly and an academic monthly, this one very popular in the Middle East. The group "does not belong to the state directly", says Shariatmadari, "it belongs to the public".

At ease talking about Islamic jurisprudence or quoting Rousseau and US hawks, Shariatmadari's most important asset, though, is the fact that he is directly appointed by the supreme leader himself, Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseini Khamenei. He has known Khamenei intimately for many years.

Shariatmadari deplores the fact that the Western press, unlike in the case of the charismatic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic revolution in 1979, does not make any effort to understand Khamenei - the man, his character and his worldview. "I believe Ayatollah Khamenei is just like Ayatollah Khomeini. But he is younger. He thinks the same regarding the poor and the oppressed, US policies, the globalization of Islamic points of view and the Israeli Zionist regime. The supreme leader has a very simple way of life. He doesn't let any of his children hold any government positions. Two of his sons in fact participated in the eight years of the imposed war of Iran against Iraq [1980-88]."

Shariatmadari recalls that Khamenei belongs to a clerical family with a very long history of fighting the Shah's regime. He studied theology in Qom - and became one of Khomeini's closest friends, although still very young. Among these friends there was Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani - a former president and nowadays the powerful head of the Expediency Council (which arbitrates disputes between the parliament and the Council of Guardians), and usually referred to by conservative sectors of the Iranian press as "Iran's top politician" (instead of President Mohammed Khatami).

Before the revolution, Khamenei was arrested many times by the Savak, the Shah's secret police, and exiled todifferent cities around the country. He is considered to have an outstanding knowledge of literature, poetry, music, Iranian history and philosophy - including Western philosophy. He routinely discusses Immanuel Kant and Max Weber, the Paris Commune and the history of Marxism, and compares the great Persian poet Hafez with French romantic poets. Says Shariatmadari, "I don't know anyone like him who knows so many facts."

But how does Khamenei think? Shariatmadari echoes the ayatollah. "We have been very determined to establish an independent country according to the basis of Islam and sovereignty of true justice. This is a need of all Muslims in this country and all over the world. At the very first stage, Americans started showing their animosity and their belligerence toward us. Americans want to take advantage of other countries. We, as Muslims, do not believe in this kind of domination. This is one of our main differences with the Americans. There are two alternatives: we may accept this domination by US governments or US governments will have to abandon this kind of cruelty towards different countries."

From the point of view of the Iranian leadership, it is impossible to talk to these arrogant Americans. "The Americans say we are among the axis of evil [with Iraq and North Korea]. [George W] Bush threatens us with a military attack. The American Congress votes to prevent Iranians from entering the US because all are considered terrorists. Americans announce to the world that one of their main strategic objectives is to eradicate the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's hard in the present situation not to consider negotiations with the US either as stupidity or treason." On April 7, 1980, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran following the seizure of American hostages in Tehran the previous year. This remains in effect, including a ban on most trade between the two countries.

Rafsanjani himself repeated the idea of no negotiation with the US when speaking as a substitute Friday prayer leader last week at the Tehran University campus. He hit back at the usual US accusation that Iran was "sponsoring" terrorism by accusing the White House of being "the axis of disorder". "They still have not announced a precise definition for terrorism, and yet are leading a war aimed to uprooting it." Rafsanjani emphasized that the conduct of the US military in various parts of the world is a serious threat against the world of nations, and in a way it should also be regarded as terrorism.

So Ayatollah Khamenei has established the official line. "To accept negotiations [with the US] is to accept our inferiority." Shariatmadari once again regrets that "the Western press has not examined all the facts - especially the Zionist press". And he is adamant: so-called secret talks between Iran and the US are nothing but rumors. "They don't have any support inside the country, neither from Ayatollah Khamenei nor from the Majlis [parliament]."

The leadership considers that "the Americans don't really want to establish a relationship with the Islamic Republic. We were never freightened by US threats. Our behavior has become a symbol for other Muslim nations". (But not exactly to Pakistan, which was eager to accept the American embrace). "The Palestinians of the Intifada consider Iran as a symbol of resistance against the US. They don't want to live in their occupied territories under the domination of the Zionist regime. The US is trying to eradicate this symbol of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They want to say to other Islamic countries in the world - and especially to the Palestinian Intifada - that after 23 years of resistance by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the US we accepted their negotiations. They want to say that the supreme leader of Iran did not have any alternative but to surrender."

Shariatmadari uses Francis Fukuyama and his thesis of liberal democracy as the end of history to challenge the concept of liberal democracy itself. "I believe that today Bush, after the accident of September 11, killed liberal democracy in the US. He says that one of the main principles of execution of liberal democracy is the building up of dialogue. But when he was asked if al-Qaeda had perpetrated September 11, he said this was a time for building up war. If someone is not with us, then he is our enemy, and we go to war against him. I'd like to know whether Western theoreticians consider this as liberal democracy." In the current climate of ideological confusion, "Western intellectuals and official authorities don't know what liberal democracy is anymore. So how do they want to transfer it to the whole world?"

Shariatmadari also quotes Samuel Huntington, during a seminar on demography in Nicosia, Cyprus, widely featured in the international press. "He said that the most undemocratic country in this region, Saudi Arabia, was the closest to the US. At the same time, the US has taken the most belligerent attitude toward the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has the most democratic regime in the region."

Shariatmadari prefers to skip cultural differentiation between Western countries and Islamic countries when engaged in a defense of the crucial concept of velayat-e faqih - or the role of the supreme leader. "Velayat-e faqih has been elected by the people. As the people are Muslim, they want a jurisprudent. In the referendum in the very first stage of the revolution in the 1980s, 98.2 percent of the people cast their votes in order to have this same system of government. In the latest referendum, during the presidential election of 2001, more than 30 million people also voted, 80 percent of registered voters. This is a high percentage. Under the framework of the constitution, all the candidates knew the jurisprudent was at the peak of the system, and so they were defending the constitution."

Shariatmadari emphasizes that "in every system of government, Islamic or non-Islamic, there must be a center that says the last word". He is in favor of a fluctuation of power, but does not consider that "the head of the judiciary power should be elected by uninformed people; he should be elected by an intellectual [in the Islamic Republic, this is one of the attributes of the supreme leader]". The problem remains though: any progressive legislation in the Majlis can still be vetoed by the Council of Guardians - composed by six ayatollahs and six lawyers, but in fact controlled by the ayatollahs. Shariatmadari defends the guardians as "the representatives of the public and the constitution whose function is to support public opinion".

The bottom line according to the leadership is that "as long as the people are Muslim, they want the present system. They want Islam. We don't want the same democracy in the Western countries that often can go astray."

Inevitably, the discussion has to turn to the concept of individual freedom. "The difference between us and the Western countries is we believe in the divine sovereignty of God. It is the opposite of the secular approach. Islamic democracy cannot be compared with Western democracy. We believe that individual freedom has been more emphasized in Islam. We consider that some freedoms in social life can be hurtful to the individual, like suicide or some sexual practices. In Islam, we do not consider the opinion of the majority in all cases."

So ultimately who decides? "In Islam we believe it is God. Inside our Majlis, when there is a law that goes against shariah [Islamic law], it will not be approved. What is forbidden by God is prohibited."

So half-jokingly, Shariatmadari comes to the conclusive punch line, "What the Americans want is to eliminate the jurisprudent. Maybe after that they will leave us alone."

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