Far From Zion

Mad Mullahs, again…

So Roger Cohen dove back into the choppy waters of the Israel-Iran relationship again today to criticize Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statements about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and his characterization of Iran as a country run by a “messianic apocalyptic cult.” I think the criticism of the Israeli PM is valid, as the political scene in Iran is maddeningly complex, the messianic Ahamedinejad-type folks are not the only ones with power, and, as Jon Lee Anderson points out in the New Yorker, no one really understands the workings of the Iranian political apparatus.

The one thing we can be sure of is that Iran, which has survived stand-offs and open warfare with several nations in the 30 years since its revolution, while developing technologically and economically, is a nation that is very shrewd about self-preservation. The mullahs may be distasteful theocrats, many of whom are corrupt, many more of whom suffer from a virulent strain of religious chauvenism and, some of whom are indeed anti-Semities. Some of them are also real scholars. Some of them are thoughtful, intelligent men who genuinely want what is best for their people and for God’s creation as they understand it. I have sat down with Mullahs in Iran who are not merely tolerant of diverse religious and political views, but respectful of them (including Jews and humane supporters of Israel). The Iranian regime is not a monolith, though it tries to present itself as one. With a massive population of young people who long for more freedoms and for long lives, I don’t see the apocalyptic strain having much currency in Iranian politics, especially in an election year. I do, however, see it quite a bit in the right-wing of Israeli society. The continued settlement of the West Bank and the support of the most extreme religious settlers by some elements in the Israeli government  has endangered Israeli democracy far more than Iran. In fact, it looks a lot like Iran, with the more extreme elements of both societies providing aid and comfort to those who seek violent conflict in the Middle East. In Iran there has been more open support for Hamas and Hezbollah, the former of which does have genocide as its goal, but there is little sunlight between the ideas of Hamas and the ideas of Israel’s Kach party and its descendants.

But these elements are not the mainstream of either society, and it is wrong to characterize all of Iran as mad Mullahs, just as it is wrong to characterize all of Israel by the Hebron settlers. Of course, policy and politics in both countries needs to account for those elements, but those calculations are part of their bid for survival, not their attempt to martyr themselves on a national level. Just as the courageous young Israelis who serve in the IDF (and the few who refuse to do so) are all struggling for the physical and spiritual survival of their nation and their families–their conception of the good life–so are the young people in Iran. Writing them off in favor of the “mad mullahs” theory writes off a valuable solution to this problem.

Far more accurate than Bibi’s terrifying prognastications and fear-mongering, however, is a little bit of game theory (which is also gaining currency among US officers in Afghanistan ). Have a look at this model of what Iran is likely to do vis a vis its Nuclear Program and its apocalyptic leaders from Bruce Bueno de Mesquita of NYU. Unlike knee-jerk fear and political expediency, this theory at least takes actual societal data into account and has a far better success record than PM Netanyahu. He’d do well to study it. Because it states that, by 2011, the apocalyptic trend in Iran is likley to lose major influence, the moneyed-class is likely to see an ascendency in power, and the nuclear program is extremely likely to tend toward civilian purposes. He’s not basing this on make-believe; he’s got the math to back it up. It may not be correct, but it should not be ignored.