Iran Rising

Title: Iran Rising – The Survival and Future of the Islamic Republic

Author: Amin Saikal

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2019 (First)

ISBN: 9780691195551

Pages: 326

The usually volatile Middle East perched dangerously close to an armed conflict last month when the US attacked and killed prominent Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani for his presumed links to state-sponsored terrorism. Iran retaliated with missile strikes at American targets, but luckily for the region and the world itself, both sides did not escalate further. Oil prices shot up in the few days when the crisis raged, because more than a third of the world's oil and gas supply is shipped through the narrow Hormuz Strait on the Iranian coast. Iran is militarily no match against the mighty US, but safe transport of oil through the narrow straits is entirely at their mercy. Both the countries carry an uncomfortable legacy in mutual relations after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 unseated the US-sponsored Shah of Iran and installed a strict, theocratic regime. The relations were never cordial after that and many events came to pass that helped only to bolster the antagonism. The latest point of concern is the US’ unilateral withdrawal from a deal it had entered into with Iran to curb its clandestine nuclear program. This drew considerable ire from Iran at the insouciant walking away from a deal signed by seven nations. This book is a survey of the Islamic republic’s trajectory from the coup of Khomeini to somewhere around the year 2017. Amin Saikal is a professor of political science at the Australian national University and a former director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies. Born in Afghanistan, he has published numerous articles in international journals.

Iran has been oscillating from one source of trouble to the next in its post-revolutionary history. The conservative regime has had to deal with domestic disturbances, foreign intervention and a poor understanding of its nature. Iran is in a hard dilemma to select between its religious legitimacy and pragmatic policies. The central concern of the book is to explore and analyse this oscillation over the last four decades. This book is a sequel to the author’s ‘The Rise and Fall of the Shah’. It summarises the history of Iran in a few pages and brings out the tremendous significance of the events of 1979. The Islamic Revolution was unprecedented in scale and social breadth in modern history before the advent of social media. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini replaced an autocratic, secular monarchy with an autocratic, religious theocracy. But this was not in violation of the spirit of its polity. It nearly perpetrated a political culture of authoritarianism that had underpinned Iranian politics for most of the country’s 2500 year-long history.

It is one thing for religious leaders to sermonize on the moral obligations of the believers and quite another thing to steer the destiny of a modern nation while adhering to the principles he had preached. Khomeini adopted a two-dimensioned approach to Islamic government – jihadi (combative) and ijtihadi (reformist). However, the author does not imply the more violent form of manifestation for the term ‘jihadi’. Here, it refers only to the focus on the Islamic association of politics and everyday life and the term ‘ijtihadi’ denotes a novel interpretation of Islam based on independent human reasoning, to the degree necessary for a strong, modern Islamic Iran. Even with this two pronged approach the regressive ethos lying at the root of a theocracy could not be exorcised. Saikal argues that Khomeini’s Islamic order is a key impediment to Iran’s cultural, economic and national potential as a nation rich in resources and manpower. Had it not been for his establishment of such a highly personalized and religious framework, Iran could have been a far more powerful and respectable nation. This is in spite of a well informed and connected young opposition.

This book offers a glimpse of the facade of respectability jihadi outfits are accorded in the West by its ignorant media and overzealous judicial system. Shah's administration employed repressive measures against the revolutionaries. It was the BBC that regularly carried news of protests against the Shah and the schedule of protest meetings in various cities. This helped to organise the opposition in those days when mobile phones and social media were unheard of. But, when the revolutionaries came to power, this outlet was resolutely blocked. They banned BBC and CNN outright and the few relaxations that have come into being date only to 2015. Another noteworthy feature is the West’s undeserved emphasis on liberal ideals in a society that is unfamiliar with this concept that eventually comes to the rescue of the jihadis. Jimmy Carter, who was the US President during the Islamic Revolution, made human rights a foreign policy priority. His prime target was the Soviet Union, but it also put pressure on the Shah to allow protest and criticism. Many Iranians took advantage of the small window of opportunity to criticize the prevalence of authoritarian rule and the lack of democratic rights and freedoms. Here again, after the clerics took the reins of power, human rights were conveniently buried and the US has no power to influence them.

The author describes some of the compromises made by the hard-line regime on the foreign policy front. Their concessions to the youth on the social front are amusing. Iran’s religion allows temporary marriages (Sigheh). Its officials promulgate this concept as a possible solution to the ‘problems of Iran's youth’ (p.127). This is a euphemism for pre- or extra-marital sex on which former president Rafsanjani’s titillating comments had stunned the Islamic world in the 1990s. This is legal and in accordance with the religious establishment’s rulings as a Shia religious practice. These marriages can also be arranged online.

The author tries his best to portray Iran’s decision-making bodies as a battleground for the fierce tussle between the hardliners and progressives. This two tier system pervades in all levels of bureaucracy and the armed forces. The armed forces are dominated by the IRGC which is responsible only to the supreme leader while the regular army called Artesh is controlled by the elected government. Whatever may be the design, it is always dominated by the hardliners. They allow only those reforms that are necessary for regime survival and national security but that do not harm their political and economic interests and concomitant foreign policy objectives. Saikal also attempts to glorify the conflict between these two factions, but the hegemony of the hardliners is clearly visible from the many examples he suggests.

Saikal tries to appear objective in his analysis, but his marked pro-Iranian mind-set comes to the fore on more than one occasion. It is generally perceived that US President Barack Obama granted unjustifiably liberal terms to Iran while finalizing the JCPOA deal in 2015. There was strong public opinion raised in the US against this generous give-away to a religious orthodoxy that tries to go nuclear. When Donald Trump arrived in the White House, he promptly walked out of the agreement which caused much consternation in Iran. Trump’s act so upset the author that he designates this action as ‘diabolical’! It is difficult to fathom how an impartial observer can give vent to such feelings against what is done by a party in the scheme of things he is narrating. Almost the entire book was prepared before the scrapping of the deal so that its relevance becomes a question mark. Some obvious factual errors are also seen in the text. Gorbachev is claimed to be the Soviet president in 1979 and Narasimha Rao India's prime minister in 1983.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star