I have posted here since 2006, the year I last visited Iran. My parents came from Iran to America in 1978 just before the Islamic Revolution, and I was born in San Francisco in 1979 with dual citizenship. However, I refrained from writing a diary about Iran after the election, as my parents were visiting Tehran for the first few weeks of June and I wanted to hear first-hand accounts before posting.
Last Thursday, after their return, I posted Part 1 about a conversation with my father, which spurred nearly a thousand comments of discussion tackling the fascinating debate of whether internal revolutions are worth the cost. Part 2, posted earlier this week, added my observations regarding GOP belligerence on Iran, as well as the intellectual argument that could one day end the theocracy.
Today's installment is about my most recent conversation with my father now that he has read the initial diary, and includes a number of interesting new observations; I tried my best to ask as many of the questions as possible that were posted in the comments of the first diary.
Source Background: My family, with a few rare exceptions such as my maternal grandmother and great aunt, is not religious in any way; my family is not associated with either the Islamic revolutionaries or Pahlavi monarchists, and my father is a Stanford PhD who could best be described as a secular intellectual.
Internal Revolutions
In response to my father's earlier statement that internal revolutions are bloody and not worth the cost, while gradual and peaceful change is the best way forward, I asked him about some of the counterexamples many of you provided in the comments, such as the argument that French Revolution was worth it. He replied that good things happened in France much later, and only in response to the tyranny in the decades that followed the French Revolution. It takes a perspective beyond our capacity to determine whether the French would have been gotten to the same point earlier or later without the Revolution, because we do not have the benefit of comparing and contrasting history with alternate timelines (an argument I have made myself); he also made a very incisive point that I had not considered, however, which is that if one is to embrace the argument that an event like the French Revolution was worth it in the long term, it is the same as saying that if the struggle for freedom were now to succeed in Iran, the prior Islamic Revolution and the thirty years of oppression that followed were all worth it for the end result. He does not offer this example to say that it makes the point definitively, but rather that it puts into perspective how complex these value comparisons are; in addition, he cited Sweden and Switzerland as examples where internal revolutions were never required to have the peaceful and prosperous societies they have today.
Outside Economic Forces Affecting Iran
Regarding the potential of balkanization in Iran, an idea that was met with some skepticism and surprise (mine included), my father did not want his previous analysis of ethnic tensions to be overstated as something that could boil over on its own, as he agrees Iran does indeed have strong nationalistic tendencies; however he maintains that his worst fear in the chaotic aftermath of a Revolution is other countries exploiting those differences to weaken Iran for their own economic gain, splitting the country into pieces. Iran's control of the Persian Gulf has made it the gateway between East and West since the days of the silk trade, and the country has been considered of vital strategic importance to all the powers in the world throughout that time, including today. With Russia having an interest in splitting off the North, and Arab neighbors trying to split off the South, the economic interests of these countries as well as others (the US included) provide a motive to foment tensions between different groups of Iranians to decentralize the power of the government; any analysis of what is going on in Iran at a given moment, my father said, requires an understanding of these economic and political forces outside of Iran. He added that an ethnic splintering of Iran would be the worst of all scenarios that could result in the aftermath of a revolution, whether for Iran, Iranians, or for all other countries around the world; if such a thing were to happen, he said, the huge amount of bloodshed needed to overthrow the current system of government would pale in comparison to the consequences of a fractured Iran.
Local Government Structure in Iran
In regards to a question one person asked about the structure of government outside the cities, my dad said that they have village boards, with some modicum of democracy, a cross between the town boards/councils in America and the tribal elder traditions of centuries past.
Why A System With A Freely Elected Supreme Leader Would Not Help
One poster asked (and I wondered myself) why protesters would bother putting Montazeri as temporary figurehead Supreme Leader as a demand if such a measure would never happen anyway, according to my father. My dad maintained his earlier answer that such a change would mean altering the Iranian Constitution, and if the protesters got that far, they wouldn't accept a half measure; either the protestors say what they say out of naivete, he said, or more likely, they know this is an impossible measure but ask for it anyway just to tweak the establishment. He points out that while it is technically allowed for in the Constitution for Rafsanjani and the Council of Experts to replace Khamenei, they would only do so if it was in their own interests.
He goes on to say that while The Supreme Leader is the single most powerful person in Iran, he is not omnipotent, as he has to juggle the wants and needs of different factions of Revolutionary Guard, who actually have the guns; while he has their loyalty, he must maneuver and accomodate their different interests on a regular basis to preserve the power and stability of the theocracy. For a crude analogy, he is not king as much as he is a baron to their lords.
Despite the violence so far, my father says the crackdown has actually been extremely restrained so far, compared to what could be happening. I hadn't been aware of this, but apparently the Revolutionary Guards have gotten much more powerful in the last four years, being appointed to every branch, department, and corner of government, with personal slush funds big enough to hire their own cronies and foot soldiers; therefore, any system that would replace the current one in any sort of peaceful manner would have to appeal to and accomodate these people, as the only other routes to change would involve mass bloodshed. What this means is that even if a route to getting a figurehead Supreme Leader without political power was possible, the creation of such a figurehead Supreme Leader would functionally be abdicating all remaining power to the hands of those Revolutionary Guards, removing the power broker that keeps them in check.
Furthermore, my father points out that any analogy between a revolution now and one thirty years ago is misplaced, as many in the Revolutionary truly believe they are fighting and killing for God, and have a loyalty the Shah never received from his troops; this makes revolution now a much more difficult prospect than it was back then.
The Way Forward in Iran
I asked him what it would take for the government to be replaced by something else, in his view, even if in the long term, and he argued that a competing ideology to the current theocratic status quo would be needed - one that had a larger and more unifying appeal. He cannot imagine what such an ideology could possibly be, nor does he think the protestors are necessarily united in one as much as they are rallying against something (on this one point I'm not sure I agree). However, he argues that some sort of competing ideology emerging is the only way for a truly different future in Iran to come to pass; such an ideology would somehow have to contain enough appeal to pick off a large number of Revolutionary Guard and Basiji to be successful.
Communication and Safety
Finally, one detail I have neglected through posting these discussions with my father is any mention of my mother, who also went on the trip, and who actually voted while she was in Tehran (she witnessed some violence/intimidation even during the election). I know many have asked about communications into Iran, and the safety of people there; my mom apparantly WAS able to speak to her mother in Tehran a couple days ago via a land line connection. My father's theory is that while the government certainly has the power to cut land lines, it is likely that through cutting texting, DSL, and cell phones that the demand on the land lines is simply bringing the system to a crawl, making it difficult (but not impossible) to get through.