The Mullahs And The Ceausescu Syndrome: The Work Of Ahmadinejad's Faction
10 March 2013By Amir Taheri
Ever since human societies developed systems of
government the exercise of power has depended on two
factors: persuasion and coercion. Persuasion is needed
to encourage subjects or, in more modern societies,
citizens, to do the things that government wants them
to do. When persuasion fails, coercion may be needed
to obtain the desired results. Governments also resort
to coercion to deal with threats to law and order.
As a rule, governments in the more developed and
stable societies depend on persuasion, seldom using
their theoretical monopoly or the use of violence as a
political instrument. The politics of persuasion,
however, requires a great deal of hard work. One has
to constantly listen to any Tom, Dick and Harry. A
great deal of time is spent on election campaigns with
the inevitable rounds of hugging grandmas and kissing
babies.
Politics of persuasion helps create an atmosphere of
freedom and that, in turn, nurtures security. When
coercion is the chief instrument of government there
is little freedom and even less security.
This is what is happening in the Islamic Republic
created by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. The wave of
arrests launched against journalists, academics, and
human rights activists is fomenting an unprecedented
sense of insecurity.
"Today, no one feels secure," says Abdullah Nuri, a
mullah and a former Minister of the Interior who also
served as Khomeini's Special representative in the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Nuri, was
speaking about the raids carried out at night on the
homes of two of the daughters of former Prime Minister
Mir Hussein Mousavi. The two ladies were held for
several days while their homes were ransacked by
security men looking for "anti-state material."
Needless to say, Mousavi has been under house arrest
for the past two years along with his wife Zahra.
Nuri knows what he is talking about. He spent five
years in prison on charges of "undermining national
security" because he criticized certain aspects of
government policy in the 1990s.
Using insecurity as a weapon of intimidation, the
regime has tried to silence other actual or potential
critics. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has been
forced to make a deal under which he would say nice
things about "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei. In
exchange, Rafsanjani's son, Mehdi, was released from
prison on bail pending his trial on charges of
anti-state activities. Rafsanjani's daughter Fa'ezeh
remains in prison on similar charges.
Another former president, Muhammad Khatami, also a
mullah, has been silenced by having his passport
withdrawn, becoming a virtual hostage in Iran.
Insecurity could affect anyone. Khamenei has had to
cancel two provincial visits after warnings that he
might face angry crowds. For his part President
Ahmadinejad has also dropped a long-advertised visit
to the southern provinces because of similar concerns.
The fear is not theoretical. Last month a number of
regime grandees had to stop making speeches when they
faced angry crowds. In Qom, Ali Larijani, Speaker of
the Islamic Majlis, the ersatz parliament, was whisked
to safety by his bodyguards as protestors tried to
drown out his speech. Larijani's predecessor as Majlis
Speaker, Ali-Akbar Nateq Nuri, yet another mullah,
cancelled a speech in Mash'had after his bodyguards
told him he might be molested by protestors. A third
mullah, Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of the regime's
founder, had a similar experience, fleeing from an
angry crowd.
All those incidents happened during the traditional
10-day celebration of Khomeini's seizure of power in
1979.
But who were the protestors who tried to disturb the
revolutionary festivities?
Because the protests affected members of all rival
factions within the Khomeinist elite, one may conclude
that the target was the regime as a whole. There is no
doubt that economic meltdown, the spectacle of
Khomeinist infighting and fears about the future have
generated a great deal of anger across the nation.
However, it is also possible that the intimidation
tactics that forced regime grandees to run for cover
may have been the work of rival factions. Larijani's
friends claim that his humiliation in Qom, of which he
is the Majlis member, was the work of Ahmadinejad's
faction. Ahmadinejad blames his decision to cancel
provincial trips on Larijani's scheme to take revenge
against him by sending a rent-a-mob to disturb
presidential rallies.
Regardless of which faction they belong to, leading
members of the Khomeinist elite have developed what
one might call the Ceausescu syndrome.
Nicolae Ceausescu was Romania's seemingly eternal
Communist ruler until 1989 when he was booed out of
office and out of history by an angry crowd in
Bucharest. In one of those ironies of history,
Ceausescu met his end just 48 hours after returning
from a visit to Tehran where he had concluded a
"strategic partnership" with the Khomeinist regime. We
now know that the angry crowd that revealed the
nakedness of the emperor had been organized by
Ceausescu's rivals within the Communist hierarchy.
Those rivals had hoped to drive the old dictator out
while preserving the regime for themselves.
More recently, we have witnessed a new version of the
syndrome in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt where the old
weapon of insecurity, used for years against critics
and opponents, turned against the despots in place.
In the final analysis, in a system based on insecurity
no one is secure. The same crowd that hailed the
despot on his triumphal march could boo him out with a
vengeance.
Amir Taheri was born in Ahvaz, southwest Iran,
and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. He was
Executive Editor-in-Chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran
(1972-79). In 1980-84, he was Middle East Editor for
the Sunday Times. In 1984-92, he served as member of
the Executive Board of the International Press
Institute (IPI). Between 1980 and 2004, he was a
contributor to the International Herald Tribune. He
has written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York
Post, the New York Times, the London Times, the French
magazine Politique Internationale, and the German
weekly Focus. Between 1989 and 2005, he was editorial
writer for the German daily Die Welt. Taheri has
published 11 books, some of which have been translated
into 20 languages. He has been a columnist for Asharq
Alawsat since 1987. Taheri's latest book "The Persian
Night" is published by Encounter Books in London and
New York.
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