[iwar] [fc:'Death.To.America']

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-06-24 08:14:07
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 08:14:07 -0700 (PDT)
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Chicago Tribune
June 23, 2002
'Death To America'
Inside Iran, a rift between the people and the clerics
By James O'Shea
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati got them going. As the powerful cleric and key
figure in Iran's Islamic government ripped into America in a fiery sermon
during Friday prayers, a lone voice far back in the crowd yelled "Margbar
Amrika."
Before long, the isolated chant had turned into a roar as thousands of
worshipers screamed "Death to America" in Farsi, taking on the cadence of a
high school pep rally. The owlish Jannati looked on with pride and when the
chants died down, he continued his vengeful sermon a stone's throw from two
Americans watching the spectacle.
Welcome to Friday prayers at Tehran University. Most Americans probably
wouldn't find it too surprising that mullahs such as Jannati lace their
prayers with venom for the United States.
This is Iran, after all, one of the nations that President Bush included in
his "axis of evil," and there's been no love lost between the governments of
the two countries in the 23 years since Iranian students stormed the U.S.
Embassy here and held 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days.
But the hostility voiced by the ayatollah and his flock is not at all
typical of the average Iranian. During a recent trip to the pariah nation by
Tribune journalists, the people of Iran were not only warm to Americans,
they seemed somewhat embarrassed by the attitudes and activities of Iran's
religious leaders.
Indeed, if Iran is part of an "axis of evil," it sure didn't feel like it
among the throngs of Iranians clogging the streets of Tehran, where the smog
is as lethal as the traffic.
"Don't worry," said Ammad Bourghani, a 41-year-old disheveled ex-journalist
who volunteered to interpret Friday prayers. As the "Death to America" chant
reached its peak, he smiled broadly and advised his guests not to take the
situation personally. "They don't mean you, they mean your government."
Bourghani and others, of course, display a profound misunderstanding of
Americans. Political differences may divide the nation, but the United
States remains a government of the people, and it's hard not to take a death
threat personally.
In the context of the political upheaval now under way in Iran, though,
Bourghani's analysis is as rational as things get in this nation of about 70
million still struggling to come to grips with an Islamic state.
Contemporary Iran has evolved from a rigid clerical autocracy to a curious
mixture of theocracy and democracy. The two forces are evolving and
struggling for dominance, one usually at the expense of the other. There's
no question that the theocrats, a collection of Islamic clerics fathered by
the 1979 revolution led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, have the upper
hand. But that doesn't mean they enjoy widespread support.
One Iranian woman, expressing dismay at why President Bush would include
Iran in the so-called axis of evil, spoke of the clerical establishment
dismissively when an American reporter suggested that "Death to America"
chants just might have something to do with the hostile U.S. policy.
"Why do you listen to those people," she snapped. "They represent only about
10 percent of the population. We want better relations with America. We want
jobs for our young people. Don't listen to them. They are a bunch of old
men. They don't represent how we feel."
That may be true. But the clerics make up for their lack of public support
with raw political power. They exercise an enormous amount of control and
routinely ignore the popular will. People such as Bourghani have learned to
live with a government that is apathetic about his dreams and aspirations.
So it's no great leap to advise Americans not to take the cleric's political
bombast seriously.
If the ayatollahs were like American politicians and had to depend on
popular support at the polls, they would be in deep trouble.
Shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini toppled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979,
Iranian clerics accounted for 51 percent of the deputies in the nation's
parliament. Today that parliament is elected, and the clerics account for
only 12 percent of the deputies.
But the adverse numbers obscure a key point. The clerics are able to
maintain their influence in Iran thanks to a complex web of bureaucracies
and religious councils that give them ironclad control over life in Iran.
They control the all-important military and police; dictate who can open a
business in the bazaar, an economic lifeline in Iran; determine what women
can wear and what everyone can read. If the clerics don't like a certain
newspaper, they simply order it shut down, and that's that.
"We are always walking a thin line," said Nik Kowsar, a political cartoonist
who was tossed in jail by the clerics. "And we don't know when we will fall.
That's the bad part." A week after he made his comments, Bonyan, a reformist
paper he worked for, was closed by the government, ostensibly because
another paper in Isfahan had the same name.
Under its constitution, Iran has an Islamic government with three
branches--executive, judicial and legislative.
The legislature is elected under universal suffrage, and its democratic
leanings are bolstered by a thriving reform movement led by President
Mohammad Khatami, a moderate cleric who has promised Iranians to adopt a
rule of law and other reforms anathema to Iran's geriatric theocracy.
Khatami enjoys widespread support, particularly among voters younger than
25, who make up an astonishing 65 percent of the population. And he has won
two popular elections, the last one with a commanding 77 percent of the
vote.
But Khatami is a political leader with little real power. Any measure
championed by the reform president and his democratic followers can be
easily thwarted by the clerical theocracy, even if a reform passes the
290-member Majlis, or parliament, by a landslide.
The instrument of clerical control is the 12-member Council of Guardians led
by Iran's religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who also appoints all 12
of the council's members. The council functions as a Big Brother government
agency that reviews all laws passed by the legislature to ensure they
conform to the 7th Century strictures of the Koran.
The clerics are constantly interpreting what the Koran really says anyway,
and their latitude on the council gives them ample opportunity to annul any
legislative act they find troubling. In effect, they have veto power over
the legislature.
Their power extends to foreign policy too. If the mullahs decide they want
to send money to groups that espouse terrorism, they do it regardless of
whom they anger. And if they anger the United States, so much the better,
for that helps them galvanize support in the Islamic world and divert
attention from any problems at home.
"Khatami may be popular," said one woman who was educated in the West and
now lives in a well-to-do section of Tehran. "But the religious people have
all of the power. They do whatever they want, and no one can do much about
it."
The power of the clerics is not only sweeping, it's self-perpetuating.
Christopher de Bellaigue, a journalist based in Iran and author of an
upcoming book on the nation, says clerics educated in the holy city of Qom
get more than a university degree once they finish the six years of
education that allows them to wear a gown and a turban.
"They . . . have a head start in the race for jobs in the bureaucracy," he
said. "Their children tend to be granted places at the best schools. If they
are suspected of breaking the law, they are tried by other clerics, usually
behind closed doors. In some parts of the government and bureaucracy, such
as the judiciary, an old-boy network favors appointments from particular
seminaries. The senior echelons of the Intelligence Ministry and judiciary
contain many graduates from Qom's Haqani seminary."
The power extends beyond interpretations of the Koran. "Some religious guy
controls the department that's over the bazaar," said one Iranian woman. "If
you want to open a shop in the bazaar, you need his approval. See that shop
over there," she said, pointing to a woman's clothing store with Western
apparel considered racy by Iranian standards. "Shortly after it opened, the
religious leaders closed it, saying it violated Islamic principles. Then
suddenly it opened up again. The clothes were the same; the windows were the
same. Nothing changed. You figure it out."
In other words, there are not many incentives for the clerics to change,
despite the popularity of the reform movement and its followers.
In fairness, religious leaders in Iran from time to time allow a surprising
amount of dissent. The clerics have allowed books critical of the role of
the clergy by respected critics to be published. And there are reports that
the conservative clerics are willing to allow more personal freedoms to keep
the political peace.
In recent months, the conservatives show some signs of willingness to
compromise with reformers because of their waning popularity among the
average citizen.
"In the early 1980s," de Bellaigue said, "clerics were generally treated
with elaborate courtesy. Nowadays, schoolchildren and taxi drivers sometimes
insult clerics, and they quite often put on normal clothes when they venture
outside of Qom. Some are willing to give up the official privileges that
they believe cause the public to resent them."
They also allowed demonstrations expressing sympathy for the United States
after the Sept. 11 attacks, and they were cooperative with the Bush
administration in its war on terror. This has led some to speculate that the
clerics secretly would like better relations with America but want the
reformers to take the lead.
But don't expect any sweeping policy changes soon. The democrats in Iran may
be gaining support at the expense of the theocrats, but few seem to be
willing to go through another wrenching revolution to oust them. What the
world probably will see is a long, slow effort to win policies that
incorporate religion into government rather than vice versa. Meanwhile, it's
a good bet that most Iranians will continue to go along with the clerics as
one man did at the Friday prayers.
As the throngs chanted "Death to America," he joined in, screaming, bowing
his head, thrusting his clenched fist into the air. Before the noise died
down, though, he looked up at two Americans standing on a platform built for
watching the spectacle. He smiled.
James O'Shea is managing editor of the Tribune.

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