Khamenei throws gauntlet at the West
- by Mahan Abedin
The weekend speech by the leader of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, is one of the most important he has made in many years. His description of the underlying motivations behind the Arab Spring protests is synonymous with the Islamic Republic's understanding of the most important mission of Islamization, namely the quest to remake the geopolitical map of the region with a view to expelling all uninvited or coercive foreign influences, chiefly the massive United States military presence in the Persian Gulf.
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The timing of the "Islamic Awakening" conference and Khamenei's speech are important, as they coincide with the visit of Western leaders to Libya and the regional tour of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the highlight of which was his visit to Cairo.
Attended by hundreds of intellectuals, spiritual leaders and political activists from the Islamic world and beyond, and addressed foremost by the leader of the Islamic Revolution Grand Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the conference was a major event and can be viewed as a significant statement of intent.
The inaugural speech by Khamenei is of prime importance in so far as it clearly and succinctly sets out the Islamic Republic's view on the political upheavals sweeping across the Arab world and the extent to which Iran is determined to frame those changes in an Islamic revolutionary paradigm.
It is important to examine Khamenei's words in detail as this was his most important public speech since June 2009, when he addressed Friday Prayers a week after the disputed presidential elections that triggered unprecedented demonstrations and riots in Tehran.
The quality of that speech, marked foremost by the subtle and complex messages it transmitted, enabled the Islamic Republic and its loyalists to systematically dismantle the political, intellectual and organizational infrastructure of the country's emerging protest movement, widely referred to as the Green movement.
Before examining the speech it is worthwhile to outline the foundational concepts that guide this debate. Khamenei's speeches over the past 21 years, since he assumed the leadership of the Islamic Republic, are essentially designed to outline and expand the ideological understanding and framing of key issues such as economic, social, cultural, political and foreign policies.
These speeches can be considered a statement of intent inasmuch as their ideological underpinnings are concerned, but they are rarely (if ever) implemented without sufficient regard for other key considerations, such as pragmatism and practicability.
In the sphere of foreign policy, Khamenei's speeches are designed foremost to set out the ideological guidelines and goals that should direct the pursuit of external relations. While Khamenei's ideological input is an important element of foreign policy conception in the Islamic Republic - and he has the final say on all important matters of state - it is crucial to note that Iran's foreign policy cannot be defined in ideological terms alone.
The Islamic Republic's views and discourse on Islamization rest on three essential planks. First and foremost, at the deepest level of self-identification Iran's Islamic Revolution draws the roots of its identity and its perennial driving force from Shi'itism and more specifically the real or imagined historical experience of Twelver Shi'ite Muslims.
Second, at the intellectual and political levels, the Islamic Revolution critiques Western modernity not with a view to complete rejection but rather to highlight the divergence of historical experiences separating the Western Judeo-Christian realm from the Islamic world. The result is a profound critique of Western-style secularism, but a qualified acceptance of Western-style democracy, albeit one stripped of its liberal overtones. {IMHO this is where India has an entry point into the Iranian discourse on the semantics of secularism and liberal democracy}
Third, in the external relations sphere, the Islamic Revolution adopts the vision and politics of pan-Islam and ultimately aspires to the political unity of the world of Islam.
The third factor is arguably the most important in so far as it directs the bulk of the Islamic Revolution's energy onto the geopolitical sphere and frames its world view and policies in direct opposition to that of the prevailing Western powers. This is a striking point of departure between Iran's Islamic vision and other notable examples, such as that of the Turks, whose "soft" Islamists, embodied foremost by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), entrench Islamization in the paradigm of deeper democratization and economic development.
Similar to the Turkish AKP, the reformist wing of the Islamic Republic prioritizes democratization and the development of civil society and economic resilience at the expense of foreign policy innovation and radicalism.
But the key point to note is that while the Islamic Republic's reformists have been successful in embedding their ideas and vision on politics and civil society in the fabric of Iran's political and intellectual society, their views and ideas on foreign policy have been judged to be lacking in sufficient conceptual clarity, and subsequently largely excluded from the decision-making processes of the country's foreign policy institutions.
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Both events are perceived as a threat by Tehran, albeit to different degrees of intensity and consequence. British Prime Minister David Cameron's and French President Nicolas Sarkozy's triumphant visit to Tripoli is widely viewed as a statement of intent by the major Western powers to directly intervene - through military force if necessary - in the political processes that are shaping the convulsions across the Arab world with a view to renewing and consolidating Western political and economic influence in the region.
Erdogan's whistle-stop tour of the region is viewed in Tehran as an attempt by Ankara to not only safeguard key Turkish political and economic interests but also to expound on Turkey's vision of indigenous democracy and economic development for the region, one that markedly (but not fundamentally) contrasts with the Western vision.
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In his speech (the full text of which was released by his office and carried by the major Tehran-based news agencies) Khamenei elaborates on three key factors pertaining to what Iran views as the Islamic Awakening. These are the historical roots and ideological identity of the Arab protest movements; the dangers and threats facing these embryonic revolutionary movements; and his suggestions, based on the direct experience of Iran's Islamic Revolution, on ways to counter and neutralize these threats.
In regard to the character of the protest movements, Khamenei links them to the 150-year Islamic revivalist movement in the Muslim world. He distinguishes them from the immediate post-colonial political changes in countries like Egypt, Algeria and Libya which were led by small military elites who merely assumed public support for their actions, by drawing attention to the "mass" nature of these movements and the fact that they involve millions of people clamoring for political change. In this sense, majority public support for change is not only assumed but is visible to the naked eye.
It is in the spirit of celebrating the power of mass movements that Khamenei strongly condemns the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) military intervention in Libya and interprets it as a blatant attempt by major Western powers to gain a foothold in the Arab revolutionary movement with a view to derailing it in a manner that suits Western ideological, political and economic interests.
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By linking mass movements to the 150-year modern quest for Islamic revival, Khamenei is attempting to define the Arab protest movements as closely as possible to the model of Iran's Islamic Revolution. This modeling is taken to a deeper level when Khamenei pontificates on the deepest aspirations of the Arab protesters.
According to Khamenei, the protesters are motivated by four core aspirations; to revive national honor after decades of tyrannical rule often characterized by subservience to the West; to hold aloft the Islamic standard while pursuing the quest for authentic social justice and economic development, which according to Khamenei is only possible within the framework of the Islamic sharia; to resist American and European political and cultural influence; to join the battle against Israel which he describes as an "usurping regime" and a "bogus Zionist government" that the West has implanted in the region in the form of a Crusader Kingdom to displace an entire people from their historic homeland and to keep a knife permanently embedded in the body politic of the region.
Khamenei's description of the underlying motivations behind the protest movements, and presumably his vision of the resulting political effects, is synonymous with the Islamic Republic's understanding of the most important mission of Islamization, namely the quest to remake the geopolitical map of the region with a view to expelling all uninvited or coercive foreign influences, chiefly the massive American military presence in the Persian Gulf.
Khamenei reveals to his audience that immediately after the victory of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the new revolutionary leaders (including himself) expected Egypt to quickly follow suit in view of that country's potential for revolutionary change premised on the deep roots of Islamic revivalism in Egypt and the numerous major Islamic thinkers and leaders produced by that country.
Khamenei explains away the delayed process of revolution in Egypt by claiming that change is coming at a "suitable" moment. The specific focus on Egypt may be incidental, reinforced by the reality of that country's central role in Arab affairs and the common Arab destiny.
However, most likely Khamenei's singling out of Egypt is an expression of the delayed expectations of Iranian leaders and a direct appeal to pro-Iranian sentiments within Egypt's vast Islamic movement, embodied foremost by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The second and third topics, namely the threats posed to the Arab revolutions and the means to combat these threats, reflect the direct experience of the Iranian Revolution and the new revolutionary power's struggle against its internal and external enemies.
Khamenei divides the threats into two broad categories; those that emanate from within the ranks of the revolutionaries and those that are carefully planned by the revolution's external enemies.
In regard to the former, Khamenei warns against general complacency about the progress of the revolution and personal ambition on the part of some tentative revolutionary leaders. He also warns against moderating the demands and objectives of the revolution in the face of real or perceived threats or bribes by the "arrogant" powers, which refers to America and her allies.
In regard to external factors, the Iranian leader identifies the West's quest to penetrate the revolution at all levels as the most pernicious threat. Khamenei claims that after the "inevitable" fall of its stooges, the West will try to keep the "systems" in place and to prevent the fruition of fully-fledged revolutions that will presumably yield entirely new systems.
Khamenei warns against religious extremism and calls for the recognition and management of religious differences in the Islamic world. {The main concern here is with Sunni-Shi'a differences, not non-Moslems} He counsels that Islamization must not be accompanied by reactionary tendencies and religious bigotry and chauvinism, which he says are capable of producing "blind" violence.
This is an expression of the fear by Iranian leaders that one of the immediate effects of the instability caused by the collapse of the Arab order may be to deepen sectarian divides in the region and escalate existing sectarian conflicts.
Beyond listing individual threats, Khamenei advises that the greatest task facing the Arab revolutionaries is designing and building new "systems", which he argues are the surest guarantee against intellectual and political contamination by other ideological-political systems, chiefly Western liberalism and secularism, nationalism and left-wing ideologies.
Finally, he advises that the creation of a unified Islamic umma (community) and the efflorescence of a new Islamic civilization based on "religion, logic, science and ethics", should be regarded as the ultimate aims of the revolutionary movements. The stress on Islamic unity as the ultimate aim is an attempt to harmonize the long-term political trajectory of the Arab revolutions with the aspirational dimension of Iranian foreign policy.
Khamenei's speech is a significant event and should be considered by all concerned as a major statement of intent. Beyond the immediate audience, it is directed foremost at official Iranian institutions and Islamic Republic loyalists in the region and beyond and instructs them, in general terms, on how to interpret the political changes in the Arab world and subsequently how to adjust their engagement with the actors involved.
Beyond its inspirational and ideological aspects, Khamenei's speech implicitly engages with key strategic issues, namely anxiety on the part of major non-Western powers such as China and Russia, and even lesser powers such as Brazil and India, about the potential for increased Western influence in the region, especially in the wake of the NATO intervention in Libya.
By placing Iran in direct opposition to Western views and plans, Khamenei skillfully exploits the rampant anxiety in Moscow and Beijing and increases these countries' incentive to support Iran in its intensifying diplomatic, political and potentially military conflict with the West.
So Iran's Islamists insert their narrative into the Arab Spring's poltical discourse, by...
1. Organizing symposia
2. Creating a historical narrative to contextualize current events
3. Identifying and opposing an enemy
4. Rhetorically pre-empting sectarian categories that could undermine their strategic goals
5. Defining their own categories, posing problems and proposing solutions
Etc, etc. When will India do this more forcefully?