Stirrings in Iran

Occasionally, you win one. I have learned since my chat with Mr. Wen at the Chinese Consulate that an invitation was extended by China to Kin Jong Un, the youngest son of the Dear Leader, Kin Jong Il. He accepted, and is now in the process of (one hopes) getting an earful from North Korea's firmest ally. The youngest Kim has an education and has travelled internationally, and may just be conducive to bringing his nation one or two steps closer to sanity. We will see.

I had just started to plan a dinner party for the Clintons, who were in town and wanted my input on bringing a sane health plan to the U.S.A. without having a "single payer" system. This would be an impossibility, but the conversation would be worth having. However, the process was interrupted by an excited call from Matilda Hatt, my colleague in the CIA. Tilly was all agog about developments in Iran.

"Isn't it wonderful, Simone!" she exclaimed. "They're becoming a democracy!"

Oh dear, I thought. Tilly has gone overboard again. I mean, the woman is crackerjack in the field with an M16, but geopolitics is another thing entirely. I had to, not without some sadness, disabuse her. The following contains the gist of my remarks.

Tilly had likened the Iranian post-election clamour to that of Lech Walesa's activities in the Gdansk shipyard and referred as well to the coming down of the Berlin Wall. This argument doesn't hold. Iran is not Poland or East Germany (neither has an oil field) and Communism is not Islam.

Iran is, at the present moment, a theocracy, and the people involved with disputing the recent election of Ahmadinejad are up against the words of Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenai, who characterized the results of the election as "divine". In effect, then, any person who takes issue with this is disputing Mohammed's mouthpiece, a step not far from disputing the word of Mohammed himself. (Allah appears to be silent on all this.) Therefore, unless all the disputers have suddenly seen the light and become atheists, something unlikely in the extreme, the result will hold. Sorry, Tilly.

Moreover, I tend to believe that Ahmadinejad actually won the election. The man is enormously popular in rural areas, where the populace is much more conservative than those living in urban areas, and where his semi-insane fundamentalism is well-received. Also, he handed out free potatoes. Who can resist that?

There are, however, some interesting stirrings that are occurring. One is the Mullah's ignorance of modern electronic communication in the form of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It must have astounded them that a rally could be held here or there on very short notice. How did all those citizens know the exact time and place? And all this stuff is flying around the world. The Taliban are a step ahead here, banning every form of communication.

The second interesting thing is that so many were prepared to confront the religious authorities. They are brave souls indeed, to start questioning "divine" edicts. In this context I recall words from my great aunt Maud, who was worried about my tendency to question the validity of organized religion. "Well, Simone," she said, "just remember, if you're going to kill God, be sure you do it on the first blow."

Finally, I think the challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, will survive -- he is now too well known around the world, and the Mullahs are all too conscious of the power of a martyr. (I worry more about his wife, who had the guts to campaign publicly for her husband. Given the vicious nature of the thugs who comprise the Islamic militia, the Basij, along with the creeps who make up the Revolutionary Guard, well, I worry for her.)

Tilly's response to all this?

"Well, Simone, you could be wrong. I think they're going to pull it off."

Deep down, I wished that, just this once, to be wrong

But I'm not.