The startling reality laid out here is that Iran
has experienced an era of sound public policy.
This means that the base itself is expanding and also rising. The political solution has run itself out and
begs for reform but I can say exactly that about China.
In the meantime it would serve the West well to
make peace. This is also true for
Cuba. No one needs an unnecessary enemy
and it is apparent that they can have the likes of the last president to then
switch seamlessly to a better solution.
This is all very promising if one tries to be objective at all.
We may need to more directly address our
relationship with Iran simply because the base is improving and engagement is
inevitable. Mended relations could be the simple price paid to end the export of weapons to terrorists as well. Of course we may be dreaming yet rationality says otherwise.
Fruits of Iran's Revolution
Accurately assessing the fruits of the Iranian Revolution is
crucial to understanding Iran today.
February 2014 marks the
35th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution - an epochal event whose ultimate
significance remains unknown. Regarded as the "last
great revolution," one that overturned Iran's political,
economic, social and cultural order, Iranians will endlessly assess and debate
its aftermath, up to and including the clerical rule that soon followed in its
wake. Yet, few will regret the revolution itself. Even among those who most
vigorously dissent from the Islamic Republic's rule, the revolution remains a
source of intense pride - a living testament to the will and determination
of a people to break the chains and assert their independence.
Even among those who
most vigorously dissent from the Islamic Republic's rule, the revolution
remains a source of intense pride – a living testament to the will and
determination of a people to break the chains and assert their independence.
In the United States,
however, the Iranian Revolution has a much different meaning. It signifies,
first and foremost, the fall of arguably the US's closest ally in the Middle
East - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah - and the advent of an assertive and revisionist
state - the Islamic Republic of Iran - which had little regard for maintaining
America's privileges in the region. Far from sympathizing with Iranians'
yearning to cast off the yoke of dictatorship, the United States saw in the
revolution little more than a baffling, chaotic outburst of religious
fanaticism - made all the more threatening several months later when
revolutionary students seized the US embassy in Tehran following the deposed
shah's admittance to the US for medical treatment.
For the past three and
half decades, these events - and the political and media reaction to them -
have catalyzed Americans' perception of Iran,
its government and its people. Describing media coverage of Iran at the time of
the hostage crisis, the late Edward Said perceptively noted, "Clichés, caricatures, ignorance,
unqualified ethnocentrism and inaccuracy were inordinately evident ... with the
result that the distinctive continuities and discontinuities of Iranian
revolutionary life never emerged." For example, The New York Times'
reporting, according to Said, formed "a collection of attitudes displayed
for the benefit of suspicious and frightened readers."
In other words, those in
the United States saw events in Iran in 1979 through their own distinctive
prism, which was far removed from - and often quite antagonistic to - the very
real aspirations and grievances of a revolutionary people. It would be hard to
argue that much has changed in the interim: 35 years of demonization, distrust
and denial have shaped US discourse regarding the revolution and its heir, the
Islamic Republic. Consequently an honest and dispassionate assessment of the
revolution's myriad and measurable achievements has proven elusive, if not
altogether impossible. Meanwhile, exposition of its shortcomings and
unforeseeable consequences (like Iraq's invasion in 1980) has been routinized
to the point of exaggeration and exploitation.
Even now, as we pass the
revolution's anniversary, the US press privileges and amplifies those Iranian
voices that reflect back what Americans have been led to believe about Iran and
its revolution. They speak contemptuously of the 1979 upheaval, either
regretting its very occurrence or bemoaning the lowly place it has brought Iran in the
global order. For the most part, too, their claims are allowed to pass without
challenge or substantiation - the prevailing narrative beating out once more
the inconvenience of historical fact. Fair appraisal, it seems, proves as rare
in 2014 as it was in 1979.
Rewriting History
Two recent cases
underscore this phenomenon. In October 2013, Afshin Molavi, a fellow at the New
America Foundation and Johns Hopkins' Foreign Policy Initiative, declared that, while Iran's revolution
"reordered regional and global geopolitics, and spawned hope, inspiration,
joy, terror, destruction, despair and disenchantment .. [t]he one thing it
didn't do was improve people's living standards."
Seconding the claim,
Iran-born author, Camelia Entekhabifard, wrote of the legacy of the Iranian Revolution in
February 2014 in Al-Jazeera English:
"Ayatollah Khomeini promised his followers free electricity
and cash from oil revenues. ... Now, poverty, unemployment, inflation and a
high cost of living are all what most people, I've spoken to, believe the
revolution has brought them."
Then, in a New York Times piece marking the
revolution's anniversary on February 11, she doubled-down on her contention:
"In an attempt to eliminate what he perceived as Western corruption,
Ayatollah Khomeini mismanaged the economy, setting back development and
widening the gap between rich and poor - while engaging in a devastating
eight-year war with Iraq." (Entekhabifard conveniently thrusts to the side
two basic facts that undercut the premise of her argument: first, Iran has been
living under US-imposed sanctions since 1979, and second, Iraq was the aggressor
during the Iran-Iraq War, as the UN secretary-general pointed out in a report
in 1991.)
With regard to life
expectancy, health, education and living standards – "Iran has made
considerable progress in human development when measured over the past 32 years."
For both authors, the
Iranian revolution - despite whatever promises it may have held - has left
Iranians despondent and desperate, worse off than where they started in 1979.
But this tale, tall as it is, confounds fact and fiction, ignores historical
data on Iranians' living standards, and thus rewrites history. Furthermore,
perpetually casting the revolution as merely a backward embrace of medieval
theology and a stubborn rejection of modernization and development does a great
disservice to the reality (and messiness) of the Islamic Republic and forces us
to question the ultimate integrity of the writers themselves.
Decades of Development
It doesn't take long,
for instance, to undermine Molavi's claim that the Iranian revolution failed to
"improve people's living standards," nor Entekhabifard's contention
that the Islamic Republic "setback development." In its 2013 report,
for instance, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which measures
long-term societal progress in human development around the world, assessed that
- with regard to life expectancy, health, education and living standards - "Iran
has made considerable progress in human development when measured over the past
32 years." It did this while under constant economic siege and military
threat.
Not only is the Islamic
Republic of Iran considered a location of "High Human Development,"
according to the UN's Human Development Index (HDI), but "between the
years 1980 and 2012, Iran's HDI value increased by 67 per cent," virtually
doubling the annual gains of other countries in the same category and more than
twice the global average. The UN notes that "from a human
development standpoint - during the period 1980-2012, Iran's policy
interventions were both significant and appropriate to produce improvements in
human development." In other words, Iran's gains are not haphazard luck
but, rather, a direct result of specific policies of the Islamic Republic.
The media have been
virtually silent about the ravages of the Shah's dictatorial rule, the
brutality of his CIA and Mossad-trained secret police force, SAVAK, and the
surveillance, corruption, and torture that thrived during his reign.
This works to undermine
the predominant narrative - subtly hinted at in both authors' pieces - that
were it not for the shah's illiberal policies at home, which alienated
Iranians, he could have followed through on his modernization scheme and left
Iran in a much better place than it finds itself today. (This narrative may
likewise explain why the media has been virtually silent about the ravages of
the Shah's dictatorial rule, the brutality of his CIA- and Mossad-trained
secret police force, SAVAK, and the surveillance, corruption and torture that
thrived during his reign. Even today, accounts of the shah's Iran border on the
hagiographic - his social policies widely praised for the "modern"
attitudes that they are said to resemble. While Entekhabifard, for instance,
laments what she deems the destruction by the clerical leadership of Iran's
pre-revolution "pluralistic society," few recount, as scholars
Shahrzad Mojab and Amir Hasspour do, that "during the entire rule of the
Pahlavi dynasty, the possession of Kurdish, Turkish or Baluchi publications,
gramophone records or even a handwritten poem was proof of 'secessionism' of
political prisoners." The benefits of the shah's "pluralism," it
seems, were very narrowly targeted.)
In his 1989
study, Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, Misagh Parsa described the
stark living conditions faced by Iran's impoverished citizens pre-1979:
"During the 1960s and 1970s, Iranian society was
characterized by housing shortages, land speculation, and considerable social
and economic inequality. The government's rushed development policy and its
strategy of serving the interests of the upper class and wealthier groups were
largely responsible for these problems. ...
"Despite increased spending, the housing shortage remained
unalleviated for the working classes and the poor. Part of the reason was that
most government investments financed the construction of military and
"national" buildings."
Parsa adds, "On the
eve of the revolution, as many as 42 percent of the inhabitants of Tehran lived
in inadequate housing." Furthermore:
"Whereas 80 percent of the city budget was allocated to
provide services for the wealthy inhabitants of northern Tehran, shantytowns
lacked running water, electricity, public transportation, garbage collection,
health care, education, and other services. The contrast between urban shantytowns and rich high rises was an
embarrassment to a regime that had promised the advent of a 'great
Civilization.' As shantytowns proliferated, the government declared them
illegal. Eventually, in mid-1977, the government sent bulldozers to demolish a
number of shantytowns in large cities, including Tehran."
The Islamic Republic
managed to pull together one of the most impressive rural development schemes
in modern history.
Outside of Tehran and
other major cities, the situation was even worse. In the rural provinces, basic
services proved absent, literacy rates remained at appalling lows, health care
was largely unavailable, and schooling for children was dismal. As Ervand Abrahamian
noted in his magisterial study, Iran Between Two Revolutions, an International Labor
Office report dated from 1972 called Iran "one of the most inegalitarian
societies in the world." Whatever his intentions, then, Iran's
self-styled Ataturk proved himself remarkably incapable of, or simply disinterested
in, meeting the needs and demands of his people.
On the other hand, the
Islamic Republic managed to pull together one of the most impressive rural
development schemes in modern history, despite being under savage attack by
Western-backed Iraqi forces and economic assault from the world's leading
power. In doing so, too, the Islamic Republic triggered a profound cultural
revolution that enlisted women in the fight to remake society from the ground
up and thus undermined the tethers that had for so long tied them to their
religious families – a fact that scholars of Iran's gender politics are beginning to
uncover.
We see its effects when
we look at the hard data. In the two decades between 1984 and 2004, the poorest
25 percent in rural areas saw their access to basic electricity increase from 37 percent to 94 percent and to piped
water from 31 percent to 79 percent, highlighting the substantially increased
access to basic services for Iran's rural poor.
Iranians live longer and
healthier lives than they did under the Shah, having added over two decades to
their average life expectancy (up from 51 years to 73 years).
Improvements in health
care are similarly impressive. During the shah's reign, access to healthcare
was deplorable, with rural populations suffering the most. In addition to a
dearth of both hospitals and doctors, Parsa reveals that
"infant mortality in rural areas was 120 (per 1,000 live births), one of
the highest in the world. ... Malnutrition was prevalent in many parts of the
country, and anemia was almost universal."
"The real
problem," Parsa concludes, "was the regime's failure to commit
sufficient resources to meet society's needs. Instead, resources were spent, or
rather wasted, on military buildup" - a fact overlooked in the hype and
hysteria over the Islamic Republic's meager outlays to its military apparatus.
Today, however, Iranians
live longer and healthier lives than they did under the Shah, having added more
than two decades to their average life expectancy (up from 51 years to 73
years). Infant, maternal and neonatal mortality
rates have dropped dramatically. For every
100,000 live births in Iran today, only 21 women die from pregnancy-related
causes. (The average for other High HDI countries is 47.)
"Poliomyelitis has
been reduced to the point of near-eradication and the coverage of immunization
for children and pregnant women is very extensive," reports UNICEF.
"Access to safe drinking water has been provided for over 90% of Iran's
rural and urban population. More than 80% of the population has access to
sanitary facilities."
More than 85 percent of
Iran's rural and vulnerable populations now have free access to primary health care services through an
impressive system of "health
houses," which have been described by
the World Health Organization as an "incredible masterpiece"
and replicated for disadvantaged communities in the
Mississippi Delta region.
Literacy is practically
universal, thanks to the extensive literacy programs put in place soon after
the revolution.
While commentators -
such as Entekhabifard - are quick to point out that Iran still experiences a wide
rural-urban gap in income inequality, they fail to note, as Djavad Salehi-Isfahani has,
that since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, "poverty has declined steadily to
an enviable level for middle-income developing countries."
Iran's literacy programs
also have proven a boon. In 1975, 68 percent of all Iranian adults were
illiterate; only 35 percent of women were literate; and literacy rates in
Iran's poorest provinces typically hovered around 25 percent. Today, however,
literacy is practically universal, thanks to the extensive literacy
programs put in place soon after the revolution (none more significant than the
Literacy Mobilization Organization, which was an outgrowth of the efforts of
leftist students in the period 1979-81). Women and the rural poor shared these
gains. That is why, for instance, more than 60 percent of college and
university students today in Iran are women,
many of them studying in the sciences.
Only a further
transformation in cultural values can replace the deep misogyny that underpins
much of the leadership's attitude toward women.
Claims that the Iranian
Revolution marked an ideological rejection of modernization are even more difficult to substantiate considering that,
as the New Scientist reported in 2010, "scientific output has
grown 11 times faster in Iran than the world average, faster than any other
country." Moreover, scientific "publications in nuclear
engineering grew 250 times faster than the world average - although medical and
agricultural research also increased." And, far from being an illiterate
and backward ruling elite, Iran's leaders tend, on the whole, to be highly
educated: that Iran's Cabinet employs more American Ph.D.s than Barack
Obama's White House made for a "fun fact" not long ago.
The Revolution, Continued
Acknowledging these
basic facts (of which there are many more) does not, by any means, condone the
very real repression that exists in the Islamic Republic, nor the tension in
values inherent in the Islamic Republic's very name. It is perfectly true that
Iranians face severe limitations on their ability to vigorously engage in
political, social and cultural life; that, despite the rise in women's health
and education standards, gender inequities remain firmly rooted in the Islamic
Republic and only a further transformation in cultural values can replace the
deep misogyny that underpins much of the leadership's attitude toward women;
that access to information in Iran is restricted because of government
censorship; and that upholding human rights remains critical to improving the
Islamic Republic's reputation at home and around the world.
Ignoring what the
Islamic Republic has done right imperils efforts to create a more
promising future for all Iranians.
But, fictionalized
representations of the Islamic Republic perform no service to Iranians, who
struggle for a more just and equitable public space in their beloved country,
and disrespects those who, after deposing a puppet dictator, set about improving
the lives of their fellow citizens. In fact, as discerning scholars have noted,
much of the recent activism in Iran - including the Green Movement - is thanks
to a broadened middle class, "whose empowerment stems from the
developmental push of the Islamic Republic over the past two decades." In
other words, the growth of Iran's reform movement can be traced back "in
part [to] the modernizing efforts of the post-revolutionary state itself."
That is not an analysis that is heard all too much in popular discourse about
Iran.
Besides the damage done
to an honest appraisal of Iran's history, a failure to acknowledge the very
real achievements of the Islamic Republic - including the way it rendered
visible entire segments of the population that had before been scorned and
denigrated (the rural poor, the religious classes, etc.) - risks exacerbating
the rampant ignorance about the country here in the United States, serving only
to further cultivate the damaging Manichean view of Iran so prevalent in our
politics and press.
Moreover, ignoring what
the Islamic Republic has done right imperils efforts to create a more
promising future for all Iranians - a lesson unlearned and thus doomed to go
unheeded. Accurately assessing the fruits of the Iranian Revolution not only
respects the value of truth but also the will and determination of the Iranian
people to throw off the shackles of autocracy and continue their long
revolution.
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