Collateral Democracy

Some students participating in the growing street demonstrations in Teheran believe all their anti-mullah movement needs is a dose of American intervention to carry it to victory.

Gosh, Muhammad, one might think that the spectacle of the US army and marines engaged in a bloody occupation next door in Iraq might dissuade you from the idea of getting democracy delivered to Iran on the point of American bayonets.

But it’s more complicated than that.

When I was in Beijing in 1989 at the height of the protests, a man asked me plaintively, “Why can’t America send their B-52s here?” to support the students.

Teheran in 2003 sounds a lot like Beijing in 1989.

A frustrated middle class and idealistic students, disgusted with the limited opportunities meted out to them by a closed, corrupt, and hide-bound hierarchy, take to the streets in an effort to force change in the name of democracy.

Democracy, as in the hope that their voices can be heard, and their talents and energies find outlets and achievements equal to their expectations. The intervention of the US, perceived as the guardian of this vision, is secretly, furtively, and guiltily desired.

The neocons have been relatively discreet with regard to the Teheran demonstrations, doubtlessly realizing that overt support would provide not only a pretext but also a compelling motive for the government and the military/security apparatus to crush the movement. Better to let the whole thing fester until the regime becomes paralyzed and appears to lose its ability to govern. Then, when a significant faction of the ruling elite is ready make a break with the mullahs, the U.S. can step in with the heavy-handed support and intimidation it is so good at.

Again, in the China parallel, CCP secretary-general Zhao Ziyang explored making common cause with the demonstrators in the interest of his progressive faction, but was decisively isolated and outmaneuvered by Deng Xiaoping.

The Communist Party, with decades of experience dealing with dissent and mass movements, then crushed the demonstrations, co-opted the students and the middle class, and dealt with the suddenly isolated workers and lower middle-class participants in the movement with exemplary harshness. Now, apolitical Chinese students regard the idealism of their heaven-storming ancestors with embarrassed derision.

Maybe the Khamenei regime will display similar adroitness in handling the current demonstrations in Teheran.

But with the Bush administration hovering nearby, ready to pour gasoline on the fire, the mullahs may get more than they can handle.

I’d say the odds are pretty good that we’ll be looking at regime change or regime modification in Iran soon. This is welcome news to Arial Sharon, since Israel is intensely aware that the democratic movement in Iran doesn’t seem to care a great deal about Arabs in general or the Palestinians in particular.

In the immortal words of a manifesto of the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, “Leave Palestine Alone, Think About Us!”.

The hallmark of middle-class movements is individualism. The interests of the educated, talented, and self-absorbed people who participate in them run more to laissez-faire than to democracy.

This of course is the version of Middle Eastern democracy the Bush administration prefers. Stripped of Arab internationalism, devoid in large part of nationalism, innocent of socialism, bereft of religious fervor, preserving and protecting the property, rights, and sensibilities of the better-off from confiscation, taxation, guilt, or even troubled reflection — that’s democracy!

It’s not just a matter of the Iranians.

The popular American mental construct of the Arab world consists of tyrants, fanatics, and downtrodden salt-of-the-earth types. But the Arab societies are, surprise, very much like ours, with an educated, conflicted middle class, a feared poor-as-dirt underclass, and a preening, kleptocratic elite.

The script is garbled in Iraq, because the middle class is Sunni Ba’ath up to the eyebrows and has been isolated, impoverished, bombed, unemployed, and disenfranchised by the United States. For now they blend into the great mass of pissed-off Iraqis who hate our guts.

But they want their MTV too!

It is a real pleasure to read Salam Pax and get first-hand news out of Iraq instead of relying on recycled English newspaper reports spread by blog-on-blog incest.

But now he’s got a Guardian gig, and when he achieves the middle class nirvana of airconditioning, high-speed Internet access, an up-to-date collection of CDs by crummy UK bands, and (if he learns how to drive) nice wheels, maybe his reporting will reflect the concerns of his educated, liberal cohort more than the reality of Iraq as a whole.

And when it’s a choice between homophobic, xenophobic, fundamentalist Shi’ite nationalism and laissez-faire democracy, temporarily and unfortunately represented by the cranky Third Infantry Division, I wonder which way he’ll turn?

Will the middle class of the Middle East cleave to the American power that offers security, privilege, and access to the world’s cultural, material, and economic opportunities; will it adopt a wary, unallied nationalism; or go for something in-between?

We don’t know.

So what should we do about Teheran? “Hands off Iran”? And let the nasty mullahs push around those nice students? Endorse US intervention if a Tiananmen-type massacre of the innocents occurs? Push EU-style engagement, to the democracy movement’s impatient irritation?

Or stand aside and let nature and the Bush administration take its course, and watch the Iranian Young Republicans take over Teheran?

The easy, right answer of respect for sovereignty and support for democracy doesn’t work any more, not when the 800 pound US gorilla snarling from Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of exporting democracy or security, we are exporting instability. Just as the neocons planned, the intimidating US presence in the region has raised expectations, heightened fears, and transformed hypothetical questions of risk and opportunity into desperate, existential choices.

Not surprisingly, the choices are all bad. With the catalytic presence of the US in Iraq, a peaceful transition such as South Africa’s is unlikely. What’s more likely is some lethal combination of massacre, revolution, civil war, and invasion.

The Bush administration knows it, too. But they probably just don’t care. Others will bear the consequences of its casual, callous roll of the dice with the lives of 200 million people in the Middle East.

Call it democracy as collateral damage.

For post-mullah Iran, perhaps the Bush administration has something better up its sleeve than the Chalabi-ready mini-Shah in Virginia, or the Porsche-and-Rolex émigré crowd in LA. I tend to doubt it. If Iraq is any guide, the US will settle for political chaos that cripples Iran’s political engagement in the Middle East, just as occupation and social chaos is doing in Iraq.

Let democracy come to Iran, as quickly and painlessly as possible. The quicker it comes, the quicker the Iranians will learn the truth about George Bush. And the sooner they, and we, will find out about democracy in the Middle East.