Jan. 2, 2007
 
COMMENTARY: Democracy, Moderation Are Alive in Iran
 
By John M. Crisp
Scripps Howard News Service
 
An interesting story out of Iran last week merits attention. According to an Associated Press article by Ali Akbar Dareini, in Tehran's municipal elections moderates won seven out of 15 council seats and reformists won four. One seat went to an independent. Supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won only three seats. This was only a local election, of course, but its surprising result suggests a couple of things.
 
First, our natural tendency to think of Iran as a more or less homogeneous theocracy of Islamic radicals led by an autocratic president who wants to destroy Israel may be an oversimplification. In fact, the Tehran election could be read as nascent disenchantment with Ahmadinejad's belligerence. This would imply a desire by at least a part of the citizenry to ratchet down some of the inflammatory international rhetoric. It appears that some Iranians, particularly among the young and the middle class, favor moderation, modernization and secularization.
 
Second, the election is a reminder that Iran has a legitimate democratic tradition that dates back to the late 19th century, when merchants, clerics, and others became fed up with Iran's decadent monarchy and initiated the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911, which produced a genuine constitution and a parliament.
 
In 1911, the parliament was suppressed and the shah was strengthened by outside powers, particularly Russia and Britain. Democracy lay dormant until the early 1950s, when nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh opposed the autocratic power of the shah, as well as economic domination by the British. Mossadegh was overthrown and imprisoned by a coup that was orchestrated and financed by the United States C.IA. Once again democracy was suppressed under the oppressive rule of the shah until he was deposed by the Islamic revolution in 1979.
 
Iran's democratic tradition is described in detail by journalist Sandra Mackey in "The Iranians." While the Islamic revolution in 1979 sent Iranian democracy into retreat, Mackey suggests that the events of 1905, 1950 and 1979 were all driven by the same concerns: "opposition to a corrupt, unjust king and resentment against the intrusion of foreign powers." She contends that the theocracy that resulted from the 1979 revolution had its roots in the same strong populist and nationalist forces that led Iran toward democracy in 1905 and 1950.
 
Vali Nasr, a scholar at the Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on Islamic politics, argues convincingly that a democratic tradition is still very much alive in Iran. In "The Shia Revival" he points out that Iran has held nine presidential elections and seven parliamentary elections since 1979. While the candidates are vetted by the country's clerical leadership, the campaigning and elections, Nasr says, are taken very seriously by the people. The system is far from perfect, but reformers and moderates are elected often enough to indicate that a genuine democratic strain still runs through Iranian politics.
 
Furthermore, Nasr argues that a significant segment of Iranian society is attracted to modernity and reform. Citing the Wall Street Journal, he points out that after English and Mandarin Chinese, Persian is the third most popular language on the Internet and that Iranians operate more than 80,000 blogs. He argues that interest in Western thought is active, noting that Immanuel Kant has been translated into Persian more often than into any other language during the past decade. And Kant sells well in Iran.
 
The Bush administration's reluctance to engage the Iranians is understandable, but is it realistic? Iran is a large, dynamic, oil-rich country with an ancient heritage that the Iranians are proud of. It's certain to be a force in the Middle East that cannot be ignored or controlled militarily. Iran is probably the key to resolving Iraq. The bizarre holocaust-denying rhetoric of the current president shouldn't prevent us from examining real conditions in Iran closely, and we should be careful not to weaken the forces of moderation and democracy in Iran with excessive belligerence.
 
After all, Ahmadinejad notwithstanding, the United States will not allow the destruction of Israel. And I suspect that even most Iranians, especially the moderates and reformers that we want to encourage, recognize that Ahmadinejad will be gone, voted out of office, long before Israel is destroyed. In the meantime, resolute mutual diplomacy, rather than hard-nosed confrontation, is called for with Iran.
 
John M. Crisp teaches in the English Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. E-mail: jcrisp@delmar.edu
 
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