self-hating academics

[I have had second thoughts about the position I expressed in this item. Although the American politicians like to call such reflection 'flip-flopping', I find it is the sign of a thoughtful person.]

A lot of obvious arguments have been rolled out against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University yesterday: that he's a hatemonger, a Holocaust denier, a homophobe, and so on. These are all valid criticisms of the man, for he is all those things. He certainly did his credibility no help yesterday with these remarks, reported by the BBC:

'Asked about executions of homosexuals in Iran, Mr Ahmadinejad replied: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

Reacting to laughter and jeers from the audience he added: "In Iran we don't have this phenomenon, I don't know who you told this."'

Universities have a special place in public life. They are the one place where intellectual freedom is taken most seriously. That is not to say that universities ought to invite rude individuals with bad ideas to speak, but it is understandable that they sometimes do.

Despite all of that, Columbia was wrong to allow Ahmadinejad on its campus, and it's not because he hates Jews, gays, and men with stylish haircuts. There are surely members of the Columbia community—faculty and students alike—who hold these and other prejudices. And it's not because he has blood on his hands. If that were the rule, it would be hard to find an important figure in world politics who qualified. Besides that, we might not agree on which international bloodletters were terrorists and which were freedom fighters. No, there is an even more fundamental reason than that: Ahmadinejad is the enemy of universities.

Since taking office in 2005, Ahmadinejad has purged Iranian universities of dissidents and tried to de-secularize them as institutions. The BBC reported on December 20, 2006 that

'According to student activists 181 students have received letters warning them not to get involved in politics, while 47 student publications and 28 student organisations have been closed in the last year.
[...]
"It seems this is the start of a project to clean the slate—to get rid of those intellectuals who are secular opponents of the government," says student activist Abdullah Momeni.
He believes the purge started after President Ahmadinejad spoke about the need to remove secular and liberal thought from the universities.'

There are other widely reported news items of purges of faculty, arrests of students, and so on. Some readers may object that firing some professors and jailing some students is small potatoes compared to other nefarious activities committed by the Iranian government under President Ahmadinejad. But Columbia is a university. Everyone there ought to feel a special commitment to stand in solidarity with their colleagues at Iranian universities.

Martin Luther King famously wrote in 1963 in his Letter from Birmingham Jail that 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I don't know if King would agree with my extension of his idea—probably not—but I would like to offer Columbia and all the universities of the world a rule to follow: if a tyrant closes universities anywhere, then universities should be closed to him everywhere. No one who purges universities at home ought to be welcomed at any university abroad, particularly not at a great university with a strong commitment to academic freedom like Columbia.

Ayatallah Guevara

Part two of two on Iran. See yesterday's entry for part one.

If some part of the Iranian government is sending weapons into Iraq, as Bush stated on February 14, to whom are they sending the matériel and how do we know? First of all, Iran is obviously not arming the Iraqi Sunni insurgents that U.S. troops routinely engage. How could they when the Sunnis are murdering Iraqi Shias and Iran is run by a Shia theocracy? It would be Shia suicide.

Second, we know that Iran is arming Iraqi Shias not thanks to any great achievement by American intelligence but because it is public knowledge. As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo reminds us, Abdul Aziz Hakim has publicly acknowledged that his Shia political party SCIRI receives weapons from Iran. SCIRI stands for Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. It was founded in Iran by Iraqi exiles in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq War, it occupies the most seats of any party in the new Iraqi parliament, and it is currently a U.S. ally. And let me say it again: SCIRI acknowledges receiving weapons from Iran. If, as he said, Bush does not know who in the Iranian government orders the weapons for Iraq, then all that he does know is nothing more than what has been reported in newspapers. That's not encouraging.

Instead of dwelling on what Donald Rumsfeld used to call the known knowns and the known unknowns, let's use this moment as an opportunity to consider the ideological sources of revolutionary Iran's international conduct over the years. It might help us further distinguish between the Iranian government's aims and those of al-Qa'ida, something Bush and the neocons seem unable to do.

Let's start by recalling that the Iranian Revolution occurred in 1979. And what was happening on the world stage in the 70's? The 1960's and 70's were decades of revolution and de-colonization all over the world. Self-styled anti-imperialist thinkers erected a pantheon of national liberation figures: Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Ahmed Ben Bella, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Robert Mugabe et al. Most anti-imperialist leaders simply replaced foreign occupation with homegrown dictatorship, but that's besides the point. What matters is that there was a global culture and discourse of revolution and national liberation that swept the world and that its appeal to many was still quite robust in 1979.

The Iranian Revolution remains a strange hybrid of one part religious extremism, one part Shia empowerment, and one part national liberation struggle à la Che Guevara. Reader, I know that last part raised some eyebrows, but let's consider the evidence: the establishment of a revolutionary republic; the proud overthrow of a foreign-backed puppet regime; and a foreign policy based on 'anti-imperialist' international solidarity, especially where Shia populations are concerned. (Let me say for the record that I do not condone anything Iran does nor am I calling the U.S. an imperialist power. I am simply trying to characterize a state of mind common to 'anti-imperialist' discourses and Iranian attitudes of recent decades.) Let's also consider actual cases of Iranian foreign policy.

1. Hizballah in Lebanon
Iran sponsored the formation of Hizballah, the Lebanese Shia militia, in the early 1980's when U.S., French, Italian, British, and Israeli military forces were operating in Lebanon. Iran's goal: to expel what it deemed imperialist occupation. After the barracks bombings of October 23, 1983 that killed 241 American soldiers and 58 French, they succeeded.

2. Palestinians
The Palestinians' struggle is not a religious cause, let alone Shia. Palestinians are Sunni Muslims and Christians, and in the 1980's, before the emergence of Hamas, the movement's leadership was entirely secular. To its supporters, it was and remains a national liberation struggle. Why else would a revolutionary Shia republic support a secular-Sunni-Christian movement?

And if you ask me, this is precisely the reason that al-Qa'ida, despite its anti-Israel rhetoric, has never done anything to assist the Palestinians. (I made a similar point in my entry of January 27, 2007.) Nor, except for Saudi-born Abu Zubaydah, do Palestinians join al-Qa'ida. Why is that? Because Al-Qa'ida has no interest in nations, national liberation struggles, solidarity, alliances, or even politics. Iran, on the other hand, is happy to play a Shia version of Che Guevara by supporting 'anti-imperialist' revolution abroad even when it is not Islamic and not Shia.

3. The rest of the world
Whether it was opposing apartheid in the 1980's or building alliances with the new leftist presidents of Latin America today, Iran has always adopted an 'anti-imperialist' posture on the world stage. I know this sounds incredible given how right-wing Iran is within its own borders, but don't take my word for it. Here is the New York Times's January 14, 2007 coverage of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second visit to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela:

'President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran arrived here on Saturday for talks with President Hugo Chavez, on the first leg of a Latin American visit to enhance Tehran's stature with governments where distrust of the Bush administration already runs deep.
It is Mr. Ahmadinejad's second visit to Venezuela in the past five months, and the two leaders were scheduled to talk about strengthening their economic ties. From here, the Iranian president is to visit Ecuador and Nicaragua, where leftist presidents aligned with Mr. Chavez are taking office this month.
[...]
''Welcome, fighter for just causes,'' Mr. Chavez said in a speech here before the National Assembly, describing Mr. Ahmadinejad as a ''revolutionary'' and a ''brother.''
[...]
Iran seems to have also found a welcome in Ecuador, an oil-exporting country where Mr. Ahmadinejad will attend the inauguration of Rafael Correa, a leftist economist elected president last year. And in Nicaragua, Mr. Ahmadinejad will meet with Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla leader who assumed the presidency this month.'

Yes, that's the same Daniel Ortega that led the Sandinistas in the 1980's.

Surely, Hugo Chavez is no Muslim. But he does style himself an anti-imperialist revolutionary and he does arrogate to himself the mantle of Guevara. Now, can you imagine Osama bin Ladin standing alongside Hugo Chavez? Of course not. To al-Qa'ida, Chavez is just as much a 'crusader' as George Bush. Al-Qa'ida has no goals other than a caliphate run on Salafist grounds. They seek purity, not allies.

Iran, on the other hand, has dual agendas: Shia solidarity and 'anti-imperialist' solidarity. To the Iranians, arming Iraqi Shias accomplishes both goals, neither of which al-Qa'ida shares.

Reader, we desperately need to understand these differences. Bush and Cheney do not and apparently cannot. We can't let the most ignorant among us frame the questions for public debate. I began yesterday's entry by quoting Bush on what 'what we do know' and 'what we don't know'. Reader, let's disseminate knowledge as widely as possible and not be fooled by the foolish. Whatever happens, we cannot lose faith that knowledge makes a difference. Knowledge is the only thing that can save us from being fooled by people too stubborn to learn.

who's running this thing?

Yesterday, February 14, Bush held a press conference at which he accused forces in Iran of sending weapons to Shia militants in Iraq. Unusually, he admitted not knowing who in Iran was responsible for the decision:

'What we do know is that the Quds force was instrumental in providing these deadly IEDs to networks inside of Iraq. We know that. And we also know that the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. That's a known. What we don't know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds force to do what they did. But here's my point: Either they knew or didn't know, and what matters is, is that they're there. What's worse, that the government knew or that the government didn't know?'

This is a rare admission of ignorance on Bush's part, but what could it mean? How could Iran be sending weapons to Iraq without knowing about it? Like the old saying about a stopped clock being right twice a day, I for once believe that Bush is right on both points. In order to understand how this can be and what it means, let's review what we know about Iran.

The Iranian Revolution that brought Ruhallah Khomeini, the famous ayatallah, to power in 1979 was a strange thing and the Islamic Republic that it founded remains equally strange. Let's think about that name for a second: Islamic Republic. There are many Islamic-majority states, like Turkey and Syria, that are governed as secular republics. Other states, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have Islamic polities, but they are run by hereditary emirs or kings, not republics. The Iranian Revolution did not create an emirate, let alone a caliphate which is a Salafist dream that Shias do not share. It led instead to an Islamic Republic. But what does that mean?

In practice, it means two things. One is that Iran holds fair democractic elections for executive and legislative offices. Elections there are 'fair', meaning that the votes are accurately counted, but they cannot be called 'free' since only candidates approved by religious authorities can stand for office.

Which brings us to the second feature: the Islamic Republic of Iran is ruled by both political and religious authorities, currently President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. These dual authorities are not always in accord with each other, and competition occurs between them. U.S. intelligence agencies are often unsure as to who decides what in Iran, and Iranians themselves don't necessarily know either. In a scenario like that, whom are the Iranian intelligence agencies and elite units likelier to follow: the elected president or the religious ruler? No one can say for sure, and therein lies Bush's uncertainty.

So we don't necessarily know who, but we can say quite a bit about why. Reader, the answers may surprise you. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for part two , entitled 'Ayatallah Guevara'.