Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Ignatius: Reading and misreading Iran
Journalists, like the rest of us, see what they want to see. David Ignatius' column on Iran this morning contains two interesting observations about Iran, one of which strikes me as spot on, and the other of which is asinine.
Spot on:
Sageman's focus on the generational arc of violence got me thinking about my recent trip to Iran. The revolutionary intensity hasn't disappeared there, but it is certainly further down the curve than is the Sunni world. When I attended Friday prayers at Tehran University, I was struck by how old the people shouting "death to America" were. I would guess the average age was well over 40. The generation of the Iranian revolution is getting long in the tooth. The only sure way to ignite revolutionary zealotry in the younger generation would be for America to go to war with Iran -- something I dearly hope we can avoid.
I agree with this, at least as far as it goes. Fear of polarizing the youth of Iran is not a reason to avoid a war that is otherwise necessary, since it is axiomatic that wars polarize people who otherwise are not zealous (something that many people on both the left and right forgot in advance of the invasion of Iraq). We need to acknowledge, though, that if we do take overt military action against Iran, patriotism will destroy the allegedly warm feelings of Iran's youth toward America. If we bomb Iran, its people will hate us for a century or more. That may be a price worth paying, but we should know and comprehend that price before we pull the trigger, rather than after.
Then there is this bit of tedium:
There's another small detail about Iran that strikes me as relevant, now that I'm back home. As I explained in an earlier column, Tehran is a city of crazy drivers who nearly collide at every intersection. But the police are quite strict about requiring seat belts -- something I don't often see in the Muslim world. Even fatalistic taxi drivers buckle up. Another surprise: When I was traveling last week from Tehran to the holy city of Qom, there were actually police on the highway with radar guns, stopping pilgrims who might be tempted to speed. And I'm told the new mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Qalibaf, who succeeded the rabble-rousing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has created a special hotline so people can call and get potholes filled and trash collected.
Now I submit to you: A nation that is wearing seat belts is probably not a mortal enemy of the United States.
That is the single stupidest thing I have read in a month of Sundays. Fascist regimes are all about social control. If they order people to wear seatbelts, they are going to enforce that order. If they exhort people to strap on bomb belts, many people will follow. More substantively, it is idiotic -- idiotic -- to believe that even suicide bombers do what they do because they place a low value on their lives. That is absurd. I would be amazed if suicide bombers weren't as concerned about dying in an automobile accident as everybody else. They don't blow themselves up in terrorist attacks because they do not value their own lives. They blow themselves up in the act of killing their enemy because they value their lives. Prospective martyrs are motivated by their sacrifice to God. You have to value your life in order for it to be a sacrifice to give it up.
The great challenge of the West is that its chattering classes -- especially Europeans but also many highly educated American liberals -- simply do not understand the fundamental human motivation that springs from faith. Until they do, they will not comprehend our enemy.
10 Comments:
By 
GreenmanTim, at
Wed Sep 13, 12:27:00 PM:
TH's last line is worth a good long ponder.
"The great challenge of the West is that its chattering classes -- especially Europeans but also many highly educated American liberals -- simply do not understand the fundamental human motivation that springs from faith. Until they do, they will not comprehend our enemy."
...or our neighbors. But then, those motivated by faith have an equally difficult time understanding the motivations of those who are not. The important thing it to recognize that these motivations exist, unintelligible though they may be to those who do not share them, and how they drive individual and group behavior.
By 
, at
Wed Sep 13, 12:45:00 PM:
GreenmanTim: you're right. On a basic level, I don't understand what motivates Islamic fascists any more than Christian fundamentalists.
Which is why I have such trouble voting for a party that has gotten into bed with the latter. In the short term, Islamic fascists are the greatest threat to our society because they want to kill us. But Christian fundamentalists have a long term plan to rob America of its tolerance, which is its greatest asset.
I believe that we will beat the Islamic terrorists. But will our society survive the work of the faithful within our own borders?
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Sep 13, 12:55:00 PM:
Phrizz11, I think you can take some comfort from history. Religious awakenings occur in the United States every three or four generations, almost like clockwork. We have been in the middle of one for fifteen or twenty years, and probably have another fifteen or twenty years to put in. Then it will face for fifty or sixty years. It has been this way in America since colonial times, and there is no reason to think that the current "awakening" will be any more persistent than previous ones. That may not be comforting for secularists living today -- they may have a couple of decades of tedium and occasional annoyance -- but it is reassuring when thinking about the country in the long term.
By Jason Pappas, at
Wed Sep 13, 01:15:00 PM:
Excellent points from TH. The first is the more important. But I’d like to ask everyone (including Mr. Ledeen if he reads this site) if the positive feelings among the young for America is merely something superficial. Would anyone say that bombing Serbia would make them hate us for 100 years and double their support for the fascist regime? Are the Serbs a sponsor of international terror?
One has to wonder if the pro-American sentiment is merely a symbolic way of expressing their [the Iranian youth’s] hate for the current Iranian regime. Sure they like our pop-culture but there’s little depth in that. What do they know about liberty and if they have such knowledge, why would they give-up the struggle just because of the actions of a foreign government?
We rebelled against the British but we didn’t turn away from Locke’s philosophy of individual rights and the British tradition of parliamentary procedures. Just the opposite, we wanted to be even more British than the British … if we consider classical liberalism the distinctive contribution of English political theory.
I’m very suspicious of any real and deep sympathy for liberty in Iran but I’m open to evidence to the contrary.
(Of course, our defense comes before their liberation.)
By Steel Monkey, at
Wed Sep 13, 06:29:00 PM:
TigerHawk,
We need to acknowledge, though, that if we do take overt military action against Iran, patriotism will destroy the allegedly warm feelings of Iran's youth toward America. If we bomb Iran, its people will hate us for a century or more.
America bombed Germany and Japan more ruthlessly than it has bombed any foreign country (with the possible exception of Vietnam). But did the Germans and Japanese go on to hate us for 100 years (or even 60)?
And if they do hate us, how has German and Japanese hatred really affected modern America?
I guess I have to question that comment of yours. It is, of course, possible that young Iranians will hate America if America bombs Iran's nuclear facilities and other military facilities. But it is also possible that these young Iranians might view the American bombing as weakening a regime that they would prefer overthrown.
I imagine that the views of Iranians, old and young, could be diverse. Heck, even some Americans like Professor Ward Churchill applauded the September 11th attacks.
By miriam sawyer, at
Wed Sep 13, 08:32:00 PM:
There are only two kinds of males in Iran--the young and the old. Those who would be middle-aged were killed in large numbers during the Iraq-Iran war which followed the downfall of the Shah.
The Japanese don't hate us and we beat them. The French hate us and we saved them. It's a mistake to wonder what hypothetical future Iranians will think. We only have to make our own country safe. Tht's a big enough job.
By , at
Wed Sep 13, 09:21:00 PM:
That is a great point about social control among totalitarian states. In communist countries they used to erect traffic barriers to prevent people from crossing the street in certain places. I believe you can still see such barriers in places like Prague.
By Reliapundit, at
Wed Sep 13, 10:40:00 PM:
miriam is right.
and also: if the mullahs fear that they are losing their youth to the great satan, then this only motivates them MORE to eradicate the great satan, so they can save their nation/sect.
i think it might even be a major secondary factor - after all that 12th iman crap.
By , at
Thu Sep 14, 05:46:00 AM:
A quick comment on the seat belt point that may be lost. One of the greater challenges many oil companies had when they first started drilling in the Middle East was the mortality rate of its workers. Many of the muslim workers would take little precaution in the some times dangerous tasks that exist on an oil rig. After being reprimanded for near tragedies the Western Managers would often hear from their workers the comment "If it is Allah's will..." (basically nothing I will do will protect me.)
I throw this out, only because Mr. Ignatius' point maybe that Iran has evolved from being as fatalistic as other Muslim countries he has visited?
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Sep 14, 08:06:00 AM:
Last Anon: Perhaps, but I have never known "fatalism" to be correlated with a proclivity to war or peace. Hitler's Germany was a lot of things, but it certainly wasn't fatalistic.
