An encounter between the columnist Roger Cohen and the Persian Jewish community in Los Angeles appears to have taught Cohen nothing. He still believes that Iran is a pluralistic society (tell that to the Bahai's currently persecuted and awaiting execution on trumped-up charges). He still thinks Iran practises a semblance of democracy (tell that to the thousands of dissidents annually executed by the regime); and he still thinks that the regime is 'pragmatic' ( tell that to the Shi'a clerics in power driven by their messianic vision of the advent of the 12th Imam). My comments on his latest International Herald Tribune piece ( Iran, Jews and pragmatism) interposed in italics.
"I have, in a series of columns, and as a cautionary warning against the misguided view of Iran as nothing but a society of mad mullah terrorists bent on nukes, been examining distinctive characteristics of Persian society.
"Iran as compared to Arab countries including Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt has an old itch for representative government, evident in the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. The June presidential vote will be a genuine contest by the region's admittedly abject standards. This is the Middle East's least undemocratic state outside Israel.
What kind of democracy is it where the Iranian Parliament is a rubber stamp for the regime and 1,700 (90 percent reformist) candidates were banned from standing in the 2008 elections?
"Another Iranian exception is that it had its Islamic Revolution three decades ago. Been there, done that. So its lessons are important.
The Islamist revolution is far from losing its momentum. It is still fuelling Iran's desire to meddle in Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq and become the region's superpower.
"From Egypt to Algeria to Afghanistan, Islamist movements are radicalized by dreams of establishing everlasting dominion; democracy is feared because it could prove to be their means to power. In Iran, by contrast, life is a daily exercise in compromises that temper Islam with the demands of modern life. Iran is emerging from extremist fervor as clerical absolutism and pluralism spar.
"While Bernard Lewis, in a recent article in Foreign Affairs, posits an epochal clash between "Islamic theocracy and liberal democracy" whose outcome will be decisive, I don't see any victor in this fight. Rather, beyond the regional autocratic model, a variety of compromises between the two forces will emerge, as in Iran.
A highly controversial statement resting on the false premise that the Iranian regime is to any degree democratic.
"It is therefore in America's strong interest to develop relations with the most dynamic society in the region.
"What autocrats from the Gulf to Cairo fear most is an Iranian-American breakthrough, precisely because it will shake up every cozy, static regional relationship, including Washington's with Israel.
"Another distinctive characteristic of Iran is the presence of the largest Jewish community in the Muslim Middle East in the country of the most vitriolic anti-Israel tirades.
A meaningless and decontextalised statement, given that Jews of Iran used to number over 100,000 before the Shah was deposed in 1979. You might as well argue that Morocco (with 4,000 Jews left of 260,000) is a model of pluralism given that it still has more Jews than any other Arab country.
"My evocation of this 25,000-strong community, in the taboo-ridden world of American Middle East debate, has prompted fury, nowhere more so than here in Los Angeles, where many of Iran's Jewish exiles live.
"At the invitation of Rabbi David Wolpe of the Sinai Temple, I came out to meet them. The evening was fiery; there was scant meeting of minds. Exile, expropriation and, in some cases, executions have left bitter feelings among the revolution's Jewish victims, as they have among the more than two million Muslims who have fled Iran since 1979. Abraham Berookhim gave me a moving account of his escape and his Jewish uncle's unconscionable 1980 murder by the regime.
"Earlier, Sam Kermanian, a leader of the Iranian Jewish community, argued that I had been used, that Iran's Jews are far worse off than they appear, and that my portrayal of them was pernicious in that it "leads people to believe Israel's enemies are not as real as you may think." He called the mullahs brilliantly manipulative: "They know their abilities and limitations."
"On at least this last point I agree. Just how repressive life is for Iran's Jews is impossible to know. Iran is an un-free society. But this much is clear: The hawks' case against Iran depends on a vision of an apocalyptic regime with no sense of its limitations so frenziedly anti-Semitic that it would accept inevitable nuclear annihilation if it can destroy Israel first.
"The presence of these Jews undermines that vision. It blunts the hawks' case; hence the rage.
Not at all. The Jewish presence testifies to them as hostages of their own personal circumstances: inertia, poverty, age, locked assets. Let's not forget that in 1939, one-fifth of the Jewish community still had not yet left Hitler's Germany.
"I think limitation-aware pragmatism lies at the core of the revolution's survival. It led to cooperation with Israel in Cold War days; it ended the Iraq war; it averted an invasion of Afghanistan in 1996 after Iranian diplomats were murdered; it brought post-9/11 cooperation with America on Afghanistan; it explains the ebb and flow of liberalization since 1979; and it makes sense of the Jewish presence.
"Pragmatism is also one way of looking at Iran's nuclear program. A state facing a nuclear-armed Israel and Pakistan, American invasions in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, and noting that North Korea was not hit, might reasonably conclude that preserving the revolution requires nuclear resolve.
"What's required is American pragmatism in return, one that convinces the mullahs that their survival is served by stopping short of a bomb.
"That, in turn, will require President Obama to jump over his own bonfire of indignation as the Middle East taboos that just caused the scandalous disqualification of Charles Freeman for a senior intelligence post are shed in the name of a new year of engagement and reason.
Readers are invited to comment at Roger Cohen's blog: www.iht.com/passages
Cohen spars with Iranian expats: JTA
Roger and me: Jewish Journal blog
Roger Cohen has it wrong on the Jews of IranIran is 'civil' towards its Jews
I think limitation-aware pragmatism lies at the core of the revolution's survival. It led to cooperation with Israel in Cold War days. quoth Roger C.
ReplyDeleteThe Shah's govt seems to have worked fairly closely on some issues with Israel. Now, Israel was somehow involved pragmatically with the Iran-Contra in the USA, and so was Khomeini's Iran and US officials too, such as Colonel Ollie North. But since that affair was meant to get weapons to Iran, it doesn't seem that the mullahs gave up anything for it. Further, Israel may have been prodded into that affair by American personnel.
It does not prove that the current Iranian regime might pragmatically decide to make peace with Israel. Rather, the stronger it gets, the less it needs to pretend to cooperate in any way with Israel.
Cohen also complains at the end of his screed about the criticism of Charles Freeman's appointment to a high post in American intelligence. Freeman was a lobbyist for at least two foreign govts, Saudi Arabia and China. It does not seem clear why a lobbyist for foreign govts should have a high post in the US intelligence establishment. This is in addition to Freeman's extreme bigotry towards Israel. He had the hutspah to complain about being denied the high post by the "Israel Lobby" whereas he himself is a lobbyist.
That throwaway line about Chas Freeman does not follow logically on from the rest of Cohen's screed and only seems to confirm his confused sympathy with appeasers and antisemites.
ReplyDeleteEach of Cohen's contemptible articles may be an opportunity to demand the New York Times and IHT publish rebuttal letters from JJAC or other organisation representative of Cohen's victims.
ReplyDelete