The Arab World Reacts (or Doesn't)
By The EditorsWe asked some Middle East experts for their thoughts on the regional reaction.
- Rime Allaf, Chatham House
- Ronen Bergman, author of "The Secret War With Iran"
- Nicholas Blanford, The Times of London
- Daoud Kuttab, Palestinian journalist
Insult to Injury
It has practically become the norm for Arab people and the regimes that rule over them to have different reactions to big events happening in the region. This is also the case with Iran, but in very different ways.
For the most part, unelected regimes first watched, with unmistakable satisfaction, the self-claimed righteousness of their hated rival disintegrate in full view of their people and the world. Having always branded itself as being more democratic, popular and especially more legitimate than any Arab regime could ever be, the founders of the Islamic Republic were now openly challenged and exposed as frauds.
Arabs are subdued in their reactions to Iranian's turmoil, wondering why their own struggles have been ignored by the West.
This schadenfreude comes to a tentative halt, however, with the regimes' collective allergy to popular movements demanding freedom, especially peaceful ones in which every move and every cry is instantly transmitted in this era of digital communication. In each Arab country, people and regimes are surely wondering: Could this happen here? Is the courage of these young Iranians an incentive to follow, or does the Islamic regime's repression curb enthusiasm for freedom?
Images like the distressing video immortalizing Neda Agha-Soltan as she lay dying in Tehran, inexplicably murdered, have also triggered conflicting emotions and sad questions on whether she died in vain. With so many people not actively espousing the position of any side, reluctant to shake a status quo, which, for all its problems, remains safer than the alternatives seen from Iraq to Afghanistan, the burden of experience is heavy. Dissent of any kind — even mild civil disobedience — has been brutally repressed throughout the Arab world replete with its own religious rulings, kangaroo courts and sham elections.
To add insult to injury, not only has people's self-determination never received the backing of the international community, it has also been suppressed with the blessing of the world's superpowers, eager to keep friendly regimes in power.
This is perhaps why Arab reactions to Iranians' turmoil have been somewhat subdued. If the Iranians are so strongly supported in their quest for freedom, they wonder, why have Arabs' own struggles been ignored, their own suffering been dismissed and their own Nedas been nameless? Why were Arabs' own cries invoking God incessantly reported, in English, as calls to "Allah" in a perceived attempt to further alienate them, as if they believed in a different god, while Iranian cries of "Allahu akbar" have been correctly translated as "God is great" and repeated in unison by twitterers around the world?
With the wounds of Israel's war on Gaza still open, many Arabs are particularly stunned that the indifference with which Palestinians deaths were received has turned into an international solidarity campaign for Iranians throwing rocks at their oppressors and shouting "we have become Palestine."
For all the similarities joining the fate of Arab and Iranian people, the general occidental approach, including by mainstream news media and now by social media outlets, has been to differentiate between them. But if anyone can empathize with Iran's frustrated youth, it is those who continue to live nearby with broken dreams, stifled by oppressive regimes that, with minor exceptions, need not worry about international condemnation. While the Arab and Iranian people continue to share aspirations, some regimes remain more equal than others.
Palestinians Know Nothing Will Change
In Tehran the earth is shaking, but in the Arab world there has been no public official response to the post-elections riots. Bernard Lewis, the renowned orientalist, told me on Monday that this is because Arab governments are concerned about backing the wrong horse.
By contrast, debate is lively in the Arab media and on Arab-language Web sites. But there is one exception: the Palestinians seem almost indifferent to what is going on in Iran. This may seem surprising. After all, the Iranian regime is a major supporter of Palestinian hardliners, providing funding, training and weapons, particularly to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of whom owe their ability to confront Israel to direct Iranian support. But surfing the major Palestinian Web sites at noon today (Tuesday, Tel Aviv time), reveals very little interest in what is happening in the streets of Tehran.
Radical groups realize that 'reformist' or not, Iran's government will seek to destroy Israel.
The most prominent Palestinian to have publicly expressed an opinion on the events is a former Israeli Knesset member, Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel and is wanted for questioning for allegedly spying for Hezbollah.
In an op-ed piece earlier this week in Al Jazeera, Bishara concluded that the events in Iran reflect the views of middle-class Iranians, not those of the majority of the population. And to the extent that Iran becomes more westernized, he stated, this process will result from an ideological clash within the regime itself.
Bishara did not say a word about how all of this might affect the Palestinians. Even when his piece was copied to Hamas's most active forum, Paldf, it did not give rise to a discussion on what the impact on the Palestinians would be.
Perhaps this is because the Palestinians realize that what happens in Iran — short of a complete overhaul of the regime, which is highly unlikely — is not going to have an effect on the support they receive from the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence. This is contrary to the view of much the Western media, which sees the events in Iran as a sign of an impending regime change.
The turmoil in Tehran, as far as the Palestinians are concerned, is a dispute between rival political factions; it does not concern them, and it does not interest them.
The Iranian governmental entities in charge of exporting the Islamic revolution will continue to do so under a reformist government just as they do now and just as they did in the past when the reformist Mohammad Khatami was in office. One way or another, the Iranian regime will keep stoking the flames of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Why Hezbollah Is Quiet
Lebanon's Hezbollah is keeping generally silent on the post-election turmoil in Iran, but one can be certain that the emerging power struggle between Iran's clerical rulers is under close scrutiny from Beirut.
Of greater concern for Hezbollah is the emerging power struggle among Iran's top clerical rulers.
Hezbollah's structural ideology is rooted in "wilayet al-faqih," or the rule of the jurisprudent. It is the system of governance developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the godfather of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, in which supreme authority, political and religious, is invested in one man. Hezbollah answers to the supreme leader in Iran, presently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not the state itself, which is why the identity of the president is largely immaterial to the Lebanese party.
Although it maintains a careful neutrality in public, Hezbollah prefers Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary-general, sent a warm note of congratulations to Mr. Ahmadinejad, saying his electoral victory represents "a great hope to all the mujahideen [strugglers] and resistance who are fighting against the forces of oppression and occupation."
For Hezbollah, Mr. Ahmadinejad's confrontational stance helps sustain the popular struggle against Israel and the West. Indeed, the differences between Mr. Ahmadinejad and his challenger, Mir Hossein Mussavi, have little bearing on Hezbollah because those differences are centered on domestic rather than foreign policy issues.
Of greater concern for Hezbollah is the emerging power struggle among Iran's top clerical rulers, which could have consequences for the status of the supreme leader.
Hezbollah receives tens of millions of dollars each year from charitable institutions and private funds under the control of Ayatollah Khamenei. Combined with the party's own extensive funding network, Iranian patronage, which includes arms transfers and training, has enabled Hezbollah to become a political and military powerhouse in Lebanon.
In his only comment on the unrest, Sheik Nasrallah struck a confident tone last week, saying that "Iran is under the authority of the wali al-faqih and will pass through this crisis."
But Hezbollah can be forgiven for feeling a little uneasy the longer the crisis remains unresolved.
Weakening Hawkish Elements
No matter how the standoff in Iran ends up, two things have become clear. The power of digital technology can override analog government efforts of suppression, and the shakeup in Iran has weakened a host of hawkish elements in the region.
The Iranian people, a majority of whom are young, have discovered, developed and perfected every possible available means of communications. All the attempts by a brutal regime, like the one currently in power in Iran, have proved incapable of totally and completely gag ging their own population from being heard.
The shakeup of the Iranian regime and the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon have dealt a blow to radical voices in the Middle East.
The happenings in the streets of Tehran and the angry reaction of a big percentage of the population have proved that the regime's policies have been dealt a heavy blow outside the country as well. Whether Ahmadinejad returns or not, whoever is seen as running the Islamic Republic of Iran has little choice but to show a little humility and a lot less rhetorical radicalism in international affairs.
President Obama's extended hand to Muslims and Arabs, along with the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the shakeup of the Iranian regime, have dealt a severe blow to radical and hawkish voices in this part of the world. Syria has already stated its willingness to restart the indirect talks (through Turkey) that it suspended with Israel. Hamas is also speaking in a much more moderate voice, welcoming Jimmy Carter last week and talking of a Palestinian state within the 1967 border.
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