In the ever-unfolding context of Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, the players more astutely silent in its preceding months have come very much to the fore of discussion in the British and American legacy media. One of these regional players is, of course, Iran.

Iran: at the centre of a geopolitical storm

Iran’s foreign policy towards Israel has been greatly exaggerated in terms of its forcefulness and commitment, especially when discussing instances such as the April bombardment of Israel by Iran and the later launching of missiles towards the nation just mere weeks ago.

A largely ineffective gesture of retaliation against the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, it killed no Israelis and minorly-injured few others – acting as a direct challenge to the media’s often-touted view of Iranian diplomacy and wider polity as one motivated by extremism and hyper-religious fervour.

Persia, as it was known until 1930, can perhaps be said to have a brighter life ahead of it than the one it currently leads. Yet clearly the West, in its framing of Iran’s recent history and current events, have analysed it incorrectly, and for a clear reason.

The filthy legacy of the War on Terror has elevated crackpots into public intellectuals and political hawks into great statesmen, who comment incessantly on the subject of Iranian life and politics. Their spew of pseudo-intellectual nonsense on the barbarism of the nation of Iran misses a much easier critique.

A modern tyranny

The Iranian state system is not, as they would believe, suicidally committed to antiquated ideas of Pan-Islamism, Sharia, and the like, but instead a deeply unprincipled and inefficient modern tyranny.

It is a system which can and eventually will be toppled, for it is a certified gerontocracy, whose arthritic puppet-masters grow increasingly unpopular, especially with the youth of Iran. And whilst indeed one can grant the danger they pose to the nominal “international order” we supposedly maintain, they are not exceptional in this due to their religious configuration, and are no more dangerous a regional power than the Israeli state or that of the House of Saud.

The discourse surrounding Iran for the period following the 1979 Revolution has been one focused on the movement of so-called “Islamic Fundamentalism”. This in itself is a misnomer, as the preferred term of the more orthodox movements of political Islam themselves prefer the term Tadjid, or revivalist Islam – suggesting, in its right-wing formulations, a more palingenetic strain.

These movements, which in their European parallels were often historically aligned with fascistic ones, have sought to reclaim pasts which as political scientist Oliver Roy points out, were never materially realised.

This blundering misunderstanding, that ultra-orthodoxy has inordinately effected the politics of the MENA region, has dramatically influenced Western foreign policy and the way it is discussed for the worse.

Diminutive figures

More convincing is the argument that while the revival of a pan-Islamic ideology may have had some sway in the rhetoric of political leaders following the humiliation of 1967, the states themselves are much more turgid, and as much committed to the geopolitical advantage-gaining of their given nation-state.

From the first two years of the post-revolutionary euphoria, the Ayatollah Khomeini was making compromises on the supposed Islamification of his nation. The constitution, derived as it is from the 1906 Iranian one and the constitution of the Fifth French Republic, has deeply secularised principles enshrined into its foundations.

And whilst the Islamic Republican Party cracked down on virtually all leftist and other Tadjid opposition to the point of their extinction following the bombings of 1981, the acceptance of that party and its descendants to recognise and placidly concede to the demands of modernisation and industrialisation is demonstrable.

This compromising attitude is shown today in the diminutive figure of Ali Khomeini, 3rd President of the Islamic Republic and current Supreme Leader.

This man, one who stands as a veritable pilchard next to the great white Ruhollah, frequently sides, and therefore gives his authority to, the conservative forces in the Majles (Iranian Parliament).

He holds this power under the Veleyat e Faqih, the principle of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, which gives him the divinely anointed final say on Iranian law in his withered hands – with nominal political impartiality.

This is not an Iranian problem

There is however, no discernable partiality towards theology shown in his governance, and in himself he tells of the true nature of revivalist conservative movements in Iran and the wider Islamic political sphere. Contrary to standing on first principles, divinely bestowed and communicated, these men are deeply compromised and compromising figures.

Of course, the characteristic is shown to some extent across all states globally. Focusing regionally, however, and the corruption of the Israeli state can be shown to be similarly dangerous, as the Knesset members slaughter tens of thousands in the Gaza strip and light up the Lebanese hills with bombings.

Similar is the reputation of the disgraceful ruling family of Saudi Arabia, who despite their 70+ year long ties with the United States, regularly exploit foreign workers, and proceed to lock up, torture, or otherwise silence opposition in their borders and beyond them.

Iran is no exception in the region, as even their funding of ‘proscribed’ ‘terror’ organisations can be paralleled in the funding of mad Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank by the Israeli government.

If Iran is no anomaly in their diplomatic licentiousness, as they have their moral equivalents mere miles away, then all should be held to account by governments and the media equally, especially in the West with its history of supposed ethical superiority.

A society on the edge

As for Iranian society itself, what can be said is a great deal. The movements of the West, whilst important, will not organically and prosperously drive the Mullahs from power in Tehran. To this point there appears a ground-swell in Iranian society which shows the potential to wrench the current iteration of the state from power.

The Women’s movement, one which has shown great promise in recent years after the hospitalisation of Mahsa Amini and Arezou Badri, is gaining even greater momentum.

On the subject of Iranian womanhood – and the broader subject of which Fanon speaks in Algeria Unveiled – despite the pearl clutching and hand wringing of didactic Western liberals, Iranian women have shown that they are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves.

They’ve denied objectification by the Western press by doffing their hijabs in defiance of the authorities, leading protests and demonstrations in their own right. Their demands for autonomy for the women within Iranian society, and their refusal to stand silently whilst the authorities punish them for their mere existence as subjects with thoughts outside of conservative values is inspiring.

Similar manifestations of this growing tide can be seen in the movement for Kurdish liberation in the nation, subdued as it may be in comparison to that of other Kurdish movements elsewhere. The movement has its members imprisoned and sentenced to death in Iran, and fought for its own emancipation not only during the days of the British empire, but since long after the arrival of white supremacist armies in their territory.

Iran: don’t be fooled by the West – or Iranian leadership either

This drive of righteous men and women will likely come topple what remains of the Shia orthodoxy, illegitimate as it is in the eyes of many young Iranians, and deserves our support as leftists.

We cannot be led astray in believing, for example, as some do, that the support for resistance against the state of Israel itself grants an excuse to act in flagrant disrespect and contempt of the independence of religious and ethnic minorities, and other oppressed groups on the domestic front.

Iranian society is seeking and will continue to seek a higher point than the one which sees an ostensibly divine government ruling cynically over a subdued public.

Featured image via the Canary

By James Horton

This post was originally published on Canary.