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wsmith215 · 4 years

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How the Coronavirus Crisis Exposed the False Promise of Iran-China Partnership

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Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani recently warned that coronavirus-related restrictions that were recently loosened on economic grounds might be reimposed if a second wave of the virus erupts across the country. Iranian health officials reported 3,134 new coronavirus infections on June 3, which marks the highest contagion rate since March 30 and brings the total number of cases to 160,696. The Rouhani administration’s impatience with the resumption of domestic economic activity was partly due to the stifling pressure of U.S.-led sanctions coupled with disruptively low oil prices. Fears of economic instability and public unrest as a potential consequence also affected the Islamic Republic’s permissive early response to the outbreak originating from China, with ultimately cataclysmic ramifications.

The fact that Iran is the nation in the Middle East hit earliest and hardest by the coronavirus pandemic is no accident. While most governments ostensibly failed to take the public health threat seriously in the early stages of coronavirus spread beyond China’s borders, Tehran went the extra mile of allowing Mahan Air flights to and from China to operate as usual, even after it belatedly confirmed Iran’s first virus-caused fatalities on February 19. Among other things, the Iranian government’s handling of the virus crisis has demonstrated, more clearly than ever before, its increasingly alarming dependence on China in an era of American “maximum pressure.”

A “Negative” Test of Iran-China Partnership

In fact, it was this heightening dependence that partly inhibited the Iranian leadership from adopting decisive action against Chinese vectors, although Beijing itself alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) to the new disease as early as December 31 and moved, on January 23, to enforce a complete lockdown on tens of millions of inhabitants in the Hubei province, including the city of Wuhan where coronavirus erupted. Mahan Air flights from Tehran to China and vice versa continued until at least February 24.

Story continues

In a sign of efforts assuage mounting concerns in Iran over the possible impact of the outbreak on Tehran-Beijing ties, Chinese ambassador Chang Hua posted a tweet in Persian of his meeting with Mahan Air CEO Hamid Arabnejad on February 2, confirming the latter’s expression of willingness to “continue cooperation” with China. Around two months later on April 5, when the coronavirus public health crisis had reached a critical point across Iran, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur took to Twitter to denounce Beijing for “mixing” science with politics and producing inaccurate information about the nature of the novel coronavirus threat. “It seems China’s statistics were a bitter joke as many in the world thought this was a flu-like disease with a smaller mortality rate,” he said at a news conference on the same day. “All these [measures] were based on reports from China, [but] now it seems China played a bitter joke with the world.”

Chinese ambassador’s public response was unconventional. “The Ministry of Health of China has a press conference every day. I suggest that you read their news carefully in order to draw conclusions,” Chang Hua wrote, indicating the extent of influence Beijing wields in the Iranian corridors of power. Unsurprisingly, the rhetoric evoked memories of “capitulation” to foreign powers among many Iranians—which the Islamic Republic had pledged to end after the 1979 revolution—and provoked an unprecedented public outcry over Beijing’s condescending and “colonialist” treatment of Iran.

Yet, the Iranian foreign ministry’s reaction was one of unmistakable appeasement. In a tweet that was warmly received by the Chinese ambassador, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi commended “Chinese bravery, dedication & professionalism” in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and stressed that Iran “has always been thankful” to China. Significantly, most hardliners and media outlets close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) took a similar stance, inveighing against the Iranian health ministry for its inappropriate criticism of Beijing. “While China has been the biggest aid-provider for Iran in its fight against the coronavirus and supplied Iran with several strategic products by circumventing sanctions, [Iranian health ministry spokesman] Jahanpur suddenly becomes the spokesman of Trump and Israel,” wrote Hassan Soleimani, Editor-in-Chief of Mashregh News affiliated with the IRGC. Others even went as far as to call for the dismissal of Kianush Jahanpur from the health ministry after his public protestations against Beijing and its handling of the virus crisis.

If anything, the coronavirus controversy revealed the tip of the iceberg of uneven strategic relations between Tehran and Beijing, where the more powerful partner increasingly determines the rules of the game and how the partnership should proceed, often at the expense of the weaker partner’s national security, independence and long-term interests. Mahmoud Sadeghi, a member of parliament and vociferous critic of hardliners, was quick to point out that Tehran’s appeasement of the Chinese government does not correspond with the revolutionary tenet “neither East, nor West, but the Islamic Republic,” and runs roughshod over the “principle of dignity” in Iran’s foreign policy.

Iran’s Uyghur Silence

Yet, public health is not the only policy area where Iran’s decisions have been affected by its “comprehensive strategic partnership” (CSP) with China. The partnership also accounts for the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s conspicuous silence and inaction on Beijing’s reprehensible treatment of Muslim Uyghurs.

Though not the sole actor within the Muslim world that has turned a blind eye to China’s state-sanctioned atrocities against the Uyghur minority, the silence of the world’s most populous and powerful Shia nation resonates widely. The international press has extensively exposed China’s systemic violations of human rights in the Xinjiang province, which go as far as to set up concentration camps under the label of mass reeducation and deradicalization programs. Recently, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a loud voice on the fate of Muslims around the world, urged India to stop “the massacre of Muslims” in the subcontinent while he has chosen to condone the Chinese government’s systemic abuse of Uyghur Muslims’ fundamental human rights.

Unsustainable Resource Exploitation in the Persian Gulf

A similar type of expedient silence and inaction have also been partly extended to the Chinese firms’ notorious exploitation of natural resources off the southern shores of Iran in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, through what is commonly known as “bottom trawling.” The industrial method of fishing is widely believed to deplete marine reservoirs in the coastal areas, damage the natural ecosystems where it is practiced, and undermine the local economy that is in important part based on small-scale traditional fishing. The public outcry over the issue gained so much traction that the IRGC was compelled to intervene and limit the operations. “I came to believe that there is a mafia behind bottom trawling [by] Chinese ships,” General Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the IRGC Navy warned in February 2019. “One cannot close their eyes to these realities and we have to stand up firmly against those who seize bread from the table of traditional fishermen.” Echoing similar criticism, Iran’s Minister of Culture Mahmoud Hojjati pointed out in November that Chinese trawlers operating in the southern waters have not secured an official permission from the Iranian government. Yet, it seems the practice still persists.

Pre-JCPOA Sanctions against Iran

Another sign of Iran’s secondary position within China’s strategic priorities can be traced back to its pre-JCPOA voting record at the U.N. Security Council. Between 2006 and 2010, China has indeed voted in favor of all six UNSC resolutions addressing Tehran’s nuclear program. Notably, four of them included the imposition of progressively expansive sanctions on Tehran.

China’s voting record at the Security Council could be observed from two different angles. The first is Beijing’s general attempt to be seen as a responsible stakeholder that respects the international consensus generated around important matters of global security. The other is that China tends to prioritize its ties with the United States at the expense of Iran. Given China’s global ascent and the level of interdependence between Beijing and Washington, this is far from surprising. The result is that, despite the pompous claims of unmatched friendship and solidarity, China’s Iran policy has often turned into a dependent variable of its relationship with the United States—a reality that could hardly fulfill Tehran’s expectations.

Oil Purchases under U.S. “Maximum Pressure”

The establishment of the CSP in 2016 does not seem to have changed that pattern substantially. In the last two years, China has vocally opposed the reintroduction of secondary sanctions against Iran by the Trump administration. However, Beijing’s will to protect its partner from sanctions has remained subject to the evolution of its trade war with the US. For instance, after the U.S. Treasury issued the Executive Order 13902, sanctioning Iran’s construction, mining, manufacturing, and textile sectors, Bank of Kunlun informed its Iranian clients that, from April 9, it would not accept payments related to those industries. As aptly noted, the new U.S. sanctions and the change in Bank of Kunlun’s compliance policies were issued days before President Trump and President Xi signed the Phase One of the trade deal on January 15. It appears that, once again, Beijing has sacrificed its relationship with Tehran in favor of securing bigger interests with Washington.

Further evidence that China has a rather disappointing score in protecting its ties with Tehran has emerged from the recent collapse in oil imports from Iran. Figures released by Chinese customs administration have shown that crude deliveries reached a 20-year low in value in March 2020. While the situation reflects a general contraction of domestic demand due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is worth noting that China’s oil imports from Russia and Saudi Arabia decreased only by 15 percent, a far less alarming figure compared to the 60 percent fall in deliveries from Iran.

A “Positive” Test of Iran-China Partnership?

The next litmus test for Iranian-Chinese partnership is expected to come in October or maybe September. The U.S. has already announced its intention to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran and menaced to trigger the snapback mechanism enshrined in the UNSC resolution 2231 if other Security Council members refuse to support its initiative and let the embargo expire in October. China’s mission at the U.N. has stressed that Washington, which unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA before reimposing sanctions, has no right to extend the arms embargo or activate the snapback mechanism against Tehran. Arguably, China’s treatment of the issue—an extension of the US “maximum pressure” policy against Iran—in the coming months will mostly demonstrate how reliable and substantive its “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” with Iran is. The partnership has so far failed its major tests.

Maysam Behravesh is a doctoral student of political science at Lund University, Sweden, Middle East security and a political analyst at the U.S.-based geopolitical risk consultancy, Gulf State Analytics (GSA). He was an intelligence analyst and policy advisor in Iran from 2008 to 2010, and mostly writes about Middle East security.

Jacopo Scita is H. H. Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah doctoral fellow and Sir Peter de la Billière scholar at the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, Britain. His research focus is on China-Iran relations and, more broadly, China’s presence in the Persian Gulf.

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gibsongirlselections · 4 years

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Bolton’s Book is an Instruction Manual for How Not to Do Foreign Policy

Anyone who has followed the long career of Donald Trump’s ex-national security advisor John Bolton knows of his hostility toward multinational agreements and hard line toward so-called rogue states. His solution to difficult countries like Iran and North Korea is always regime change: through sanctions if possible and military action if necessary.

President Trump hired Bolton in April 2018 to help get rid of the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) negotiated under Barack Obama, which Bolton—and many others particularly in the Republican Party—regarded as insufficiently tough. Trump formally withdrew the United States from the JCPOA in May 2018, but entertained ambitions of obtaining a “better deal.” In July 2018, he even declared that he was willing to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani without preconditions in order to get one.

Bolton did everything he could to frustrate such ambitions until Trump unceremoniously ejected him in September 2019. Bolton also encouraged acts that could have dragged the U.S. into a third Middle Eastern war. It is telling that of the several times Bolton claims that he was ready to quit the Trump administration, one was when Trump changed his mind at the last minute about retaliating for the Iranian downing of a U.S. drone—because it could have killed 150 Iranians—one was when Trump considered inviting Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to the White House, and one was when Trump toyed with meeting Zarif at a G-7 summit in the French resort of Biarritz.

A skilled bureaucratic infighter who, in the George W. Bush administration, helped torpedo a 1994 nuclear agreement with North Korea and push America into war with Iraq through selective use of what turned out to be bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, Bolton is a product of an era when the U.S. truly dominated the international system. But years of American military blunders and disregard for the opinions of allies and partners—as well as the rise of China—have eroded that dominance. The current era requires multilateral diplomacy more than ever—persuasion rather than intimidation. Ironically, the details in Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, underline just how outmoded and counterproductive his views are.

Bolton seems to assume the reader will take his side in his many battles with bureaucratic rivals and members of the “High Minded”—his disparaging term for the U.S. foreign policy establishment. He also assumes that readers will appreciate his efforts to circumvent Trump. But what comes through just as strongly is the ineffectiveness of Bolton’s approach. His agenda did not mesh so perfectly with Trump’s. Other administration officials, such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, had a better sense of the president’s desires.

Mnuchin, Bolton writes, slow-walked the re-imposition of economic sanctions on Iran—to give U.S. allies and the oil markets a chance to absorb them without disruption. “This was a perennial problem with Treasury under Mnuchin,” says Bolton. “He seemed as concerned with mitigating the impact of sanctions as with imposing them to begin with.”

According to Bolton, “The right way to impose sanctions is to do so swiftly and unexpectedly; make them broad and comprehensive, not piecemeal; and enforce them rigorously, using military assets to interdict illicit commerce if necessary.” But history shows that sanctions rarely compel determined adversaries to make concessions, or alter their conduct—especially if they perceive that doing so could expose them to existential harm. Effective sanctions must be combined with skillful diplomacy, the widest possible international buy-in, and a willingness to relax the punishment when conditions warrant.

Bolton appears to disdain the very idea of such negotiations. In his book, he scorns Mnuchin for working behind the scenes with France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, to arrange a slight relaxation of Iranian sanctions to get new talks started between the U.S. and Iran—something Trump clearly wanted and Bolton evidently regarded with horror. When Bolton found out about this nefarious diplomacy, he phoned a friend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “encouraging Netanyahu to call Trump…to stiffen his spine.”

Bolton also disparages Mnuchin for expressing reservations about the American sanctioning of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). “Mnuchin worried that this designation for the elite wing of the Iranian military…would have widespread consequences, a concern I didn’t understand,” Bolton writes. “I thought the whole point was to inflict as much pain as possible on these terrorists.” In fact, as Bolton himself concedes, “there was a legitimate concern that action against Iran could increase the risk to US forces in Iraq and across the region.”

Bolton’s prescription in this eventuality is to increase American forces in Iraq. Similarly, he opposes a U.S. withdrawal from Syria, not so much because it might benefit the Islamic State, but because the United States has to stay in Syria to prevent Iran from further strengthening its presence there.

Bolton has a similar rationale for staying in Afghanistan, even though the U.S. troops there have given Iran another venue to pressure America and retaliate for any military strikes on the Iranian homeland.

Given its chaos and conflicts, the Trump administration has struggled to achieve any big diplomatic successes. But Bolton did his part to block Trump’s few good instincts. In this sense, The Room Where It Happened is essential reading for those who want to create a new brand of American global engagement based on trade, diplomacy, and mutually beneficial cultural exchange. Bolton shows us what not to do and what does not work.

Barbara Slavin directs the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council. She tweets @BarbaraSlavin1.

The post Bolton’s Book is an Instruction Manual for How Not to Do Foreign Policy appeared first on The American Conservative.

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courtneytincher · 5 years

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Trump’s Iran Policy Needs a History Lesson

Soon Hossein’s voice will be heard everywhere...Do not threaten us with war, we are aliveWe have entrusted our swords with our answer to youThe word ‘surrender’ has been erased from our vocabulary These were the words passionately chanted by a Shiite Maddahi performer in Iran in September 2018. As a part of commemorating the holy month of Muharram, Shiites often gather and listen to eulogistic tributes to their archetypal hero, Imam Hossein. Ashura—marking the tenth day of Muharram—is a day of lamentation, as Shiites the world over memorialize the martyrdom of Hossein and the epic tale from seventh-century Karbala that came to define their religion and inform their worldview. As the opening verses illustrate, the legacy of Hossein is still invoked as a source of strength when Iranians face insurmountable challenges, such as threats of war. While President Donald Trump may claim that a war with Iran would not “last very long,” U.S. policy decisions do not exist in a vacuum. The Iranian perspective, including its national and historical psychology that drives the country’s decisionmaking, is integral for U.S. policymakers to understand if they are intent on formulating sound Iran policy. The history of Imam Hossein’s legacy and how it has shaped Iranian sensibilities is key to understanding the Iranian psyche in a context of heightened escalation. The Impact of KarbalaSplit on the issue of succession after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, a minority upheld the claim of the Prophet’s son-in-law, Ali, and continued to oppose the leadership that they believed to be illegitimate. This minority came to be known as Shiat Ali, partisans of Ali—today commonly referred to as Shiites. In 680 CE, when called upon by Shiite followers to fight against the oppression of the Umayyad caliph, Yazid, Hossein—Ali’s son and Muhammad’s grandson whom Shiites exalted as the rightful leader—heeded the call and set off to Kufa in modern-day Iraq. On his way, Hossein’s caravan was intercepted by Yazid’s forces in the desert of Karbala. After a ten-day siege, he faced either submission or certain death for himself and his seventy-two devotees. Refusing to surrender, Hossein chose the path of martyrdom and died a martyr’s death. To put it plainly, the successors to the Prophet Muhammad beheaded his grandson.This watershed moment had two important implications for Shiites: first, Imam Hossein became the quintessential symbol of martyrdom and resistance against oppressors. Second, the failure of the Kufans to fight with Hossein left a scar of shame on Shiites, who would vow never to refuse the call again. In 1501, Shah Ismail founded the Safavid Empire in Iran and subsequently established Shiism as the empire’s religion. Today, over 90 percent of Iranians hail from the Shiite sect of Islam. Over the centuries, Shiism intertwined with other elements of Iranian culture, becoming one significant thread in the rich tapestry of Iran’s cultural history and identity. In fact, Shia leitmotifs were utilized by Iranian dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s as an indigenous cultural signifier in defiance of the Shah’s imposed nationalism that favored Aryanism, royalism, and a Western standard of modernization. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the architects of the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) consolidated their power by silencing the many factions that partook in the historic upheaval and appropriated the revolution’s discourse for their own use. Claiming to be the flag bearers of Hossein’s centuries old quest for justice, the IRI continues to portray itself as protectors of subjugated people and aligns itself with resistance movements around the world. Trump as Yazid The Trump administration and Iran hawks in Washington, DC continue to tout the view that a war with Iran would be swift and easy. National Security Advisor John Bolton proclaimed in front of an MEK crowd—a formerly designated terrorist organization—that before 2019 they would have a similar gathering in Tehran, implying that a collapse of the regime was imminent. Notorious anti-Iran hawk Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), flippantly stated that the United States would win a war with Iran in two strikes, “the first strike and the last strike.” Trump himself has threatened “the official end of Iran” and indicated that a war with Iran would be short lived. Despite the confident rhetoric, evidence is not on their side. The last full-scale war Iran fought was after the invasion of Iraq in 1980. Similar to the current thinking of the Trump administration, Saddam Hussein calculated at the time that he could capitalize on Iran’s weaknesses and instability soon after its revolution. Though Iraq made initial gains and quickly occupied Khorramshahr, the foreign invasion galvanized the nation to action and solidified the Islamic Republic as Iranians shifted their focus to protecting their homeland. Iran’s defense was perceived in highly nationalist terms but was also infused with Shiite symbols. While Iraq was better prepared, better organized, and had the support of the most powerful nations in the world, Iran had a potent ideology. The IRI certainly harnessed the religious propensities of its people for the cause, but it was only able to do so because the state was using an existing inclination. Unlike the disgraced Kufans who had abandoned Hossein in battle, Iranians rejected submission, prepared to sacrifice their lives, and fought under the banner of Hossein. Armed with the formidable strength of their beliefs and love of their nation, hundreds of thousands of Iranian men and young boys became martyrs in an eight-year war. It is only because of their sacrifice that Iran was able to mount a defense, which eventually ended the Iraqi occupation of Khorramshahr and moved the fight into Iraqi territory. Though Iran felt vindicated for overcoming a tremendous challenge against all odds, the loss of life was severe. After eight years of bloody war, and an estimated one million people died; there were no winners.Today, Iran’s armed forces are organized and well-equipped, larger, and have greater power in the region. Although there is great discontent amongst Iranians after forty years of authoritarian rule, the policies of the Trump administration have played directly into the hands of Iran’s hardliners. By abrogating the JCPOA without provocation, imposing brutal sanctions that hurt ordinary Iranians, and insulting their prideful sensibilities, Trump has made himself a modern day Yazid—an image of oppression and injustice. Iran’s reactions to these policies have followed an expected path. After the United States violated the nuclear deal, Iran continued to comply with it for over a year, giving time to deal’s other parties to fulfill their commitments. After a year of “strategic patience,” Iran shifted to a more offensive strategy. Like Hossein who challenged Yazid when he was called upon by his followers, Iran acted after no benefits materialized and Iranian people began to suffer more under sanctions. Iran’s calculated breaches of the JCPOA are easily reversible with the intention of gaining leverage—not a bomb. Though drone strikes and tanker seizures may appear like risky moves that may spark conflict, those incidents are seen strictly in defensive terms where Iran is protecting its land and national waters. In fact, the Iranian government has clearly indicated that it is willing to negotiate, however, it is not willing to do so under duress, nor is it willing to compromise on matters of sovereignty. The language of Iranian officials is all too familiar to its contemporary history, emphasizing its independence. As President Hassan Rouhani recently stated, “we will always be ready for a negotiation that is just, legal, and has respect for the Iranian people and their rights.” He added, “But we aren’t ready to sit at the table of surrender under the guise of negotiations.” Echoing the cries of the Maddahi performer, the message is plain: surrender is not an option.The epic of Karbala is ultimately a legacy of resistance against injustice, with a central hero that is easy to revere for his repudiation of tyranny. Hossein’s moment of sacrifice immortalized him. The power of this imagery is crucial to recognize in any analysis that considers the costs of war with Iran. As Hamid Dabashi aptly states about Shiism, “It thrives and is triumphant when it is combative and wages an uphill battle.” The Trump administration must act prudently by ending its “maximum pressure” campaign and pinning its hopes of a resolution on dialogue, not capitulation. Trump should be mindful of Saddam’s experience invading Iran nearly forty years ago, lest he endure the same fate. Assal Rad is a research fellow at the National Iranian American Council. She received her PhD in History at the University of California, Irvine. Follow her on Twitter @assalrad.Image: Reuters

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mideastsoccer · 6 years

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Support for US Iran policy out of left field: China dramatically reduces trade with Tehran

By James M. Dorsey

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn and Tumblr

China has dramatically reduced its trade with Iran in line with US sanctions, raising questions whether Iran will remain committed to an international agreement that puts severe limits on its nuclear endeavours.

Reduced Chinese trade also suggests that Iran is likely to face increased obstacles as it seeks to blunt the impact of the harsh US sanctions imposed last year in a bid to force the Islamic republic to change its regional and defense policy.

China’s apparent willingness to accommodate the sanctions is remarkable given Beijing’s declared efforts to salvage the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program as well as its escalating trade and technology dispute with the United States.

Bourse & Bazaar, a self-described media and business diplomacy company operated by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of the Europe-Iran Forum, disclosed China’s reduced trade on almost the same day that the US Justice Department filed criminal charges against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

The Justice Department asserts that the company and Ms. Meng violated Iran sanctions in addition to stealing US robotic technology.

Based on a review of trade data from China’s General Customs Administration, Bourse & Bazaar concluded that Chinese trade with Iran had dropped by 70 percent in the first two months after the re-imposition of US sanctions.

In addition, China’s Bank of Kunlun, the vehicle China used in the past for business with Iran because it had no exposure to the United States and as a result was not vulnerable to US sanctions, said in December that it would restrict its business with Iran to humanitarian trade, effectively excluding all other transactions.

China replaced Europe as Iran’s main trading partner in 2012 at a time that Iran was under United Nations sanctions. Those sanctions were lifted with the conclusion of the nuclear agreement in 2015.

Bourse & Bazaar said Chinese exports to Iran had dropped to US$400 million in the period from October to December of last year compared to US$1.2 billion in the same period in 2017.

“China may be abandoning the policy of sustaining trade with Iran in direct contravention of US sanctions, introducing both economic risks in regards to Iran’s continued industrialization and political risks in regards to Iran’s continued compliance with the JCPOA,” the report said, referring to the nuclear accord by the initials of its official designation, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The report said that Iran relies on China for the import of badly needed industrial machinery and technology funded by its oil exports.

Iranian oil exports to China rebounded after the US gave China and seven other countries a six-month waiver but that did not revive Chinese exports, the report said.

Chinese compliance with US sanctions, at least in terms of trade could put to the test Iran’s declared commitment to the nuclear agreement in the wake of US President Donald J. Trump’s withdrawal from the accord last May.

Iran has said its continued commitment would be determined by whether the accord remained in its interest, determined primarily by the ability and willingness of the other signatories to the agreement --China, the European Union, Britain, France, Germany and Russia – to help it blunt the impact of the US sanctions.

The signatories have so far maintained that Iran has complied with the agreement even if the European Union recently sanctioned Iran’s intelligence ministry for allegedly targeting Iranian dissidents in the Netherlands, Denmark and France.

Germany subsequently banned Mahan Air, an Iranian airline sanctioned by the United States, from landing at its airports, asserting that Mahan Air had ferried fighters and weapons to Iranian-backed forces in Syria. Mahan Air operated four flights a week to Duesseldorf and Munich.

The signatories’ position appeared to be supported by a Worldwide Threat Assessment by the US intelligence community that in effect concluded that the Trump administration’s Iran policy had so far failed.

"We continue to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device,” Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats told the Senate Intelligence committee in a hearing on the 42-page report.

The report warned that US policy could empower Iranian hard-liners; had sparked at best only sporadic uncoordinated anti-government protests in the Islamic republic; had failed to persuade Iran to change its regional and defense policy; and could prompt it to pursue more aggressive policies to counter perceived US, Saudi and Israeli attempts to destabilize the regime in Tehran.

Disclosure of Chinese willingness to comply to some degree with US sanctions as well as the European sanctions come in advance of a conference in Warsaw next month convened by the United States to discuss peace and security in the Middle East.

The conference, to which Iran has not been invited, is widely seen as a US effort to bolster support for its Iran policy. Russia and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini have said that they would not be participating in the meeting.

An article in China’s state-owned Global Times discussing the Warsaw meeting under the headline, Poland is getting closer to US, but should China be worried? noted that Poland had arrested on espionage charges a former Chinese employee of Huawei and was considering banning the company.

The European Union, in a bid to blunt the impact of the US sanctions, is believed to be on the verge of launching a financial clearing house known as the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that would allow European companies to continue to trade with Iran in accordance with EU law and could be open to other partners such as China.

The vehicle is being conceived as an alternative to the Brussels-based Society for the Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) international financial messaging system used by more than 10,000 banks worldwide.

The US has blacklisted tens of Iranian banks and pressured SWIFT into agreeing to steer clear of handling transactions of those banks.

The Bourse & Bazaar report warned that continued Chinese refusal to buck US sanctions and ensure Iran has the necessary industrial machinery and technology to keep its economy running would fuel unemployment in the country that could be “devastating and destabilizing.”

The report said Iran was more likely to withdraw from the nuclear agreement in a move that could significantly raise tensions in the Middle East as a result of Chinese rather than European compliance with US sanctions.

“If the nuclear deal collapses due to extraordinary economic pressures in Iran, China may be to blame,” the report said.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title and a co-authored volume, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa as well as Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa and recently published China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom

#china #China (PRC)#Iran nuclear deal #Iran sanctions #iranregimechange #iran #Trump #United States #europe #eu

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interkomitet · 6 years

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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen,

The speeches delivered during the general discussion at this session of the UN General Assembly confirm the fact that international relations are going through a very complex and contradictory historical stage.

Today, we are witnesses to a collision of two opposing trends. On the one hand, the polycentric principles of the world order are growing stronger and new economic growth centres are taking shape. We can see nations striving to preserve their sovereignty and to choose the development models that are consistent with their ethnic, cultural and religious identity. On the other hand, we see the desire of a number of Western states to retain their self-proclaimed status as “world leaders” and to slow down the irreversible move toward multipolarity that is objectively taking place. To this end, anything goes, up to and including political blackmail, economic pressure and brute force.

Such illegal actions devalue international law, which lies at the foundation of the postwar world order. We hear loud statements not only calling into question the legal force of international treaties, but asserting the priority of self-serving unilateral approaches over resolutions adopted by the UN.

We are witnessing the rise of militant revisionism with regard to the modern international legal system. The basic principles of the Middle East settlement process, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear programme, commitments under the World Trade Organisation, the multilateral climate agreement, and much more are under attack.

Our Western colleagues seek to replace the rule of law in international affairs with some “rules-based order.” These rules, which are made up as political expediency dictates, are a clear case of double standards. Unjustified accusations of interference in the domestic affairs of particular countries are made while simultaneously engaging in an open campaign to undermine and topple democratically elected governments. They seek to draw certain countries into military alliances built to suit their own needs, against the will of the people of those countries, while threatening other states with punishment for exercising freedom of choice in their partners and allies.

The aggressive attacks on international institutions are accompanied by attempts to “privatise” their secretarial structures and grant them the rights of intergovernmental bodies so that they can be manipulated.

The shrinking space for constructive international cooperation, the escalation of confrontation, the rise in general unpredictability, and the significant increase in the risk of spontaneous conflicts – all have an impact on the activities of this world organisation.

The international community has to pay a high price for the selfish ambitions of a narrow group of countries. Collective mechanisms of responding to common security challenges are faltering. Diplomacy, negotiation and compromise are being replaced with dictates and unilateral exterritorial sanctions enacted without the consent of the UN Security Council. Such measures that already affect dozens of countries are not only illegal but also ineffective, as demonstrated by the more than half-century US embargo of Cuba that is denounced by the entire international community.

But history does not teach the same lesson twice. Attempts to pass verdicts without trial or investigation continue unabated. Some of our Western colleagues who want to assign blame are content to rely on assertions in the vein of the notorious “highly likely.” We have already been through this. We remember well how many times false pretexts were used to justify interventions and wars, like in Yugoslavia in 1999, Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011.

Now the same methods are being used against Syria. On April 14, it was subjected to missile strikes carried out under an absolutely falsified pretext, several hours before international inspectors were supposed to arrive at the site of the staged incident. Let the terrorists and their patrons be warned that any further provocations involving the use of chemical weapons would be unacceptable.

The conflict in Syria has already lasted for seven years. The failed attempt to use extremists to change the regime from the outside nearly led to the country’s collapse and the emergence of a terrorist caliphate in its place.

Russia’s bold action in response to the request of the Syrian Government, backed diplomatically by the Astana process, helped prevent this destructive scenario. The Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi, initiated by Russia, Iran and Turkey last January, created the conditions for a political settlement in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2254. The intra-Syrian Constitutional Committee is being established in Geneva on precisely this basis. Rebuilding ruined infrastructure to enable millions of refugees to return home as soon as possible is on the agenda. Assistance in resolving these challenges for the benefit of all Syrians, without any double standards, should become a priority for international efforts and the activities of UN agencies.

For all the challenges posed by Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, it would be unacceptable to ignore the protracted Palestinian problem. Its fair resolution is critical to improving the situation in the entire Middle East. I would like to warn politicians against unilateral approaches and attempts to monopolise the peace process. Today, the consolidation of international efforts in the interests of resuming talks on the basis of UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative is more in demand than ever before. We are doing everything to facilitate this, including in the format of the Middle East Quartet and in cooperation with the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Mutually acceptable agreements should ensure the peaceful and safe co-existence of the two states – Israel and Palestine.

Here in the UN that was built on the lessons of World War II we are all obliged to think about the future and not repeating the mistakes of the past. This year is the 80th anniversary of the Munich conspiracy that crowned the criminal appeasement of the Third Reich and serves as a sad example of the disastrous consequences that can result from national egotism, disregard for international law and seeking solutions at the expense of others.

Regrettably, today in many countries the anti-Nazi vaccine has not only weakened, there is a growing campaign to rewrite history and whitewash war criminals and their accomplices. We consider sacrilegious the struggle against monuments to the liberators of Europe, which is going on in some countries. We are calling on UN members to support a draft resolution of the UN General Assembly denouncing the glorification of Nazis.

The growth of radical nationalism and neo-Nazism in Ukraine, where criminals who fought under SS banners are glorified as heroes, is one of the main factors of the protracted domestic conflict in Ukraine. The only way to end it is consistent and faithful implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures that was unanimously approved by the UN Security Council. We support the activities of the OSCE mission in Ukraine and are ready to provide UN protection for its members. However, instead of fulfilling the Minsk agreements and engaging in dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk, Kiev still entertains the illusion of introducing an occupying force in Donbass, with the support from the West, and increasingly threatens its opponents with scenarios based on force. The patrons of the current Ukrainian authorities should compel them to think straight and end the blockade of Donbass and discrimination against national minorities throughout Ukraine.

In Kosovo, the international military presence under UN Security Council mandate is morphing into a US base. Kosovo armed forces are being created, while agreements reached by Belgrade and Pristina with EU mediation are being disregarded. Russia calls on the sides to engage in dialogue in accordance with UNSC Resolution 1244 and will support any solution which is acceptable to Serbia.

In general, we are against turning the Balkans once again into an arena of confrontation or anyone claiming it as a foothold, against forcing the people of the Balkan nations to make a false choice or creating new dividing lines in the region.

An equal and undivided security architecture also needs to be created in other parts of the world, including the Asia Pacific Region. We welcome the positive developments around the Korean Peninsula, which are following the logic of the Russian-Chinese roadmap. It is important to encourage the process with further steps by both sides toward a middle ground and incentivise the practical realisation of important agreements between Pyongyang and Seoul through the Security Council. We will keep working to put in place a multilateral process as soon as possible, so that we can build a durable mechanism of peace and security in Northeast Asia.

Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula is among the challenges facing the world community in the key area of international security – the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, serious obstacles continue to pile up on that road. Lack of progress in ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and in establishing a WMD-free zone in the Middle East has been compounded by the unilateral US withdrawal from the JCPOA in violation of Resolution 2231, despite the fact that Iran is fully in compliance. We will do everything to preserve the UNSC-approved deal.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is being pushed in an increasingly negative direction as the West attempts to turn its Technical Secretariat into a tool for punishing undesirable governments. This threatens to undermine the independent professional status of that organisation and the universal nature of the CWC, as well as the exclusive prerogative of the UN Security Council.

These and other issues related to non-proliferation were discussed in detail at the September 26 Security Council meeting, convened by the US chair not a moment too soon.

We are convinced that any problems and concerns in international affairs should be addressed through substantive dialogue. If there are questions or criticisms, what is needed is to sit down and talk, produce facts, listen to opposing arguments, and seek to find a balance of interests.

The debate on abuses in cyberspace has sharply escalated in recent years. I would like to remind you that as far back as twenty years ago Russia initiated the discussion on international information security at the UN. In view of recent developments it is becoming increasingly relevant to work out under the UN auspices global rules of responsible behaviour of states in information space, including the principles of non-use of force, non-interference in domestic affairs and respect for state sovereignty. We intend to submit a draft of such resolution to the First Committee of the UN General Assembly.

We also think it important to start developing a convention of fighting cybercrime, making provisions for respective discussions in the Third Committee.

Searching for commonly acceptable agreements and respect for each other’s interests are needed more than ever in the area of world trade and economic relations, which today tend to be the subjects of unprecedented politicisation. The values of free trade have become hostages to trade wars and other forms of unfair competition.

Russia has been consistently advocating the philosophy of indivisible economic development, which is enshrined in the Greater Eurasian Partnership concept put forward by President of Russia Vladimir Putin. This large-scale project is open to all nations in Europe and Asia, regardless of their membership in various integration associations. Its steady implementation could contribute to the establishment of a space for broad economic cooperation in Eurasia and in the long term it could become the foundation for a reformed architecture of the continent’s security corresponding to the realities of the 21st century.

Russia continues to do its utmost to build a world based on the principles of law, truth and justice. We are not alone in this aspiration. Our allies and partners in the CSTO, EAEU, CIS, BRICS and SCO, and the overwhelming majority of countries in the world stand for democratisation of international life in all of its manifestations and in the interests of all nations without exception. The West is also compelled to heed their voice, which is increasingly reflected in the G20 activities.

Under the current turbulent conditions the role of the UN, an indispensable venue for overcoming disagreements and coordinating the international community’s actions, is objectively increasing. The priority of collective work in the interest of coordinating solutions acceptable for everyone was enshrined in the foundations of the UN. This potential was left unrealised due to the bipolar confrontation of the Cold War era. At the current stage, we must not fail to reach the high goals and principles of the UN Charter and the commitments of the founding fathers to the future generations.

To be worthy of their legacy, we should recall the art of negotiating. Numerous modern challenges can only be resolved on the basis of equality and mutual respect. Dictate and coercion typical of the colonial era should be relegated to the archives once and for all, or better yet to the ash heap of history.

Statesmen of the past left plenty of enlightening messages for us that have become maxims. Let me quote one by President Harry Truman: “Great nations lead by the force of example rather than domination.”

I hope the culture of mutually respectful dialogue will ultimately prevail. Russia will do its best to promote it.

http://interkomitet.com/news-of-the-day/foreign-minister-sergey-lavrov-s-remarks-at-the-73rd-session-of-the-un-general-assembly/

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Iran’s Basij: Reconstructing society via class warfare

by Ramin Mazaheri

In this 11-part series, which began as a response to the World Socialist Web Site’s 3-part series against my views of Iran and also Iranian Islamic Socialism in general, I have included a 4-part sub-series on the Basij: I think that the total ignorance of the Basij demands it amid the crumbling JCPOA pact on Iran’s nuclear energy program and the increased worries of war.

The previous three parts have laid out the structural, ideological-political and (very minor) security aspects of the Basij; given the only comparison of this mass organisation I can find – the Chinese Communist Party; and now this final part will discuss the domestic cultural, economic and social aspects of the Basij.

In any objective analysis, there is no doubt that the Basij is rebalancing the social and economic power in Iran in favour of the lower classes. One’s view of this may be “positive” or “negative”, either “right” or “left”, but it does not change the fact of “rebalancing”.

Perhaps, as a leftist, I am predisposed to always see things in terms of class.The reader will have to judge this for his or herself if my analysis here is correct. I have been emphatic that this sub-series on the Basij is simply to objectively inform and neither to condone nor promote.

I have relied, but certainly not solely, on the only book available in the West on the Basij, Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Iran, it is a book about the Basij and it is also a book against the Basij, as the title indicates. It is useful because – the author’s obvious personal bias (and thus proof of “poor scholarship”) aside – it is a huge data dump on the Basij.

What Golkar makes clear, with plenty of statistics and research on the Basij from inside of Iran, is that the Basij mainly come from lower and middle class families, and that the majority do not have a college education. This verifies the common assumption among Iranians, which Golkar acknowledges:

“As of the social origins of Basij forces, there is a general view that they come from the poorest and most marginalised groups of society”. Elsewhere: “In fact, Iran’s ‘oppressed’ appear to be the major source of recruits for the Basij.”

In 2003 more than half of Basij summer camp members came from a family with a minimum of 6 members (including parents and quite possibly grandparents); 76% of their parents did not graduate from high school; many have been recent movers from country to town; these are all likely indicators of a lower economic status.

Golkar provides no shortage of statistics which prove: the main source of Basij recruits are people who need government welfare programs.

Indeed, the full Farsi title of the Basij uses the term “oppressed”, which in Iran refers to the exploited and underprivileged classes who suffered under the aristocrats and monarchy. To use a common theme of mine, 1979 was a “Trash Revolution”, or to use an Iranian term which means the same thing: “A Revolution of the Barefooted”. Modern history is clear: Trash Revolutions are the best ones. Many Basiji are Iranian Trash, and Trash everywhere is denigrated by their nation’s rich, technocrats, their so-called “Talented 10th Percent”, and their fake-leftists. It is inherently reactionary to judge someone’s merit by their completed level of education, their parents or their neighbourhood.

So we are finally at the end of replacing the usual & wrong definition of the Basij – the idea that it is a military-minded militia is nonsense and propaganda: The Basij is a group which serves as a government-supported welfare and affirmative action program, with the majority of its members hailing from the lower classes, in return for supporting and propagating the ideals of the 1979 Revolution and Iranian constitution.

Poor people are the backbone of the Basij & the government supports the Basij, so do the math…

I remind the reader that Iran’s middle class was 5% in 1976, but it is now well-over 30%. In the previous article I posited a unique thesis: the 2009 unrest was actually a good thing because it, 1) heralded the permanence of this new middle class, and 2) showed that the lower classes will not tolerate discussing changes to the political trajectory of Iran until they reach the same level of moderate prosperity. I will explain this analysis in detail later in this article, but I bring it up because the Basij is clearly playing a major role in reshaping Iran’s class structure.

Obviously, over a timeframe where the Western middle class has been gutted, the Islamic Republic of Iran has undeniably lifted over 20 million people out of the lower class. All will agree that this is the primary goal of socialism – government concern goes towards the poorest members of society first.

However, we should see – from a class analysis – why support for the Basij is less often found in the middle and upper classes: they simply do not “need” what the Basij offers its members.

Indeed, from a class analysis, the upper and middle class may even feel the Basij threatens their gains, or from increasing their gains further.

In the previous part I described the educational and cultural training sessions for Basiji, and also how they are divided into “Resistance Bases” where members can focus on a broad range of activities for the social, personal and neighborhood improvement. What I did not mention is that how all these activities necessarily require government subsidisation of the following: classrooms, educational materials, paying salaries, recreational facilities, camps (sports, religious, language, cultural), the chance to visit religious sites (travel expenses), entertainment clubs, and much else.

These are obviously especially prized by the lower classes who cannot afford them as much as Iran’s middle class. Thus, at the lowest grassroots level, the Basij clearly provides something to those without much means. The importance of this cannot be under-estimated, even if middle- and upper-class citizens can take such expenditures for granted.

The government also does a LOT of “affirmative action” programs for the Basij; given that the Basij are mostly from the lower class, this logically has an undeniable impact on the class structure of Iran. We must remember that this is not the open class warfare of “open socialism” because it is granting priorities based on Basij membership, not based on class. The effect is the same, but the intent is different. Iran is not an openly socialist government, of course, but that does not mean there is “no socialism”.

For example, according to Iranian law, 40% of undergraduate and 20% of post-graduate university admissions are reserved for Active-level Basij members – this is obviously of huge importance for poor people trying to advance their socioeconomic station. Western affirmative action is mainly based on race or ethnicity, and sometimes class as well – regardless, such policies have declined precipitously in the last two decades.

No group joins the Basij more than students – children and teenagers (age 11-18) make up 30%. Golkar relates how for poorer students the Basij is clearly a way to advance and succeed:

“Being a Basij gives students special privileges, allowing them to enroll in schools that are often the best public schools available in their city….” They also get discounts on text books and prep courses.

The Basij is more popular among rural students, as half of rural students are in the Basij. As is common worldwide, rural areas are more likely to be poorer than urban areas.

One-third of university students are Basij, showing that the Basij-prioritisation programs are being applied almost fully. We can objectively see how the Basij are getting “smarter”, and this makes their ascent and permanence even more likely in any objective analysis.

Western journalists love to talk about the youthful demographics of Iran’s population, and they love to talk to Iranian youth…but almost only from the upper class. This is primarily because mainstream Western (and thus capitalist) publications are only interested in supporting the rich, comprador & bourgeois classes in foreign nations. So Iran is not alone – read about any primarily-youthful non-Western nation in a Western media, from Cambodia to Caracas, and you invariably find it is the upper-class who is quoted, with the accompanying photos just as invariably being of pretty young women. But IRI-supporting Basiji youth are a huge counterweight inside Iran to this oft-quoted upper-class, and play a very important role. Of course, Western journalists systematically ignore or self-censor Basij students out of their stories, but by ignoring the Basij non-Iranians have received a fundamentally unbalanced picture of Iranian youth.

For employment in the public sector Active-level Basij members also get a priority, which is – in effect – another affirmative action program. In 2003, 65% of government employees were Basiji.

From an objective view, this makes sense: the only requirement to support the Basij is to support the 1979 Revolution and thus the government, so it is natural that Iran wants civil servants who are the most committed and supportive. This is also exactly what China does, and I detailed the similarities between the Chinese Communist Party and the Basij in the 4th part of this series, Parallels between Iran’s Basij and the Chinese Communist Party. The Basij is essentially the CCP plus a far, far more moderate form of the Red Guards (disbanded 1968).

I think a major problem with Golkar is that he seems to rather obviously want anti-government (anti-Revolution) citizens to be promoted in government; but what government hires and then promotes citizens who are open political dissidents? In my effort to provide the first objective analysis of the Basij in the West, I make no judgment here – I just think Golkar is asking for the very unlikely, if not the impossible; on a theoretical level, every government primarily exist to protect themselves…but the good ones include their People (and many governments do not).

In multiple 5-year plans all firms, factories and pubic companies have been ordered to allocate 1-2% of their profit to development of the Basij. There are also tax breaks for donations to the Basij.

Working-class Basij have a very compelling reasons for joining – it’s another state-protected resource to defend their job and their working conditions in solidarity with their colleagues. In the previous part I described how, by law, every company over 30 employees must have a Basil; how the Basij essentially serves as a “union”; that the Workers’ Basij has 1 million members, or 1/7th of the working class; and that there are Basijs (“Basijes”? Nobody has cared or dared to write about the Basij in English so that may be the first time Basij has even been pluralised in English journalism, LOL. I’m sure the Associated Press will take note and update their 2018 stylebook accordingly….) in over 20 branches in seemingly all major sectors of society.

There are undeniable, direct economic benefits one gets for joining and being active with the Basij, and these will be discussed later: what I have listed are ways in which the poorest levels of society are uplifted if they join the Basij.

Some things are abundantly clear: the Basiji is primarily staffed and supported by the lower classes; the government is using the Basij as a way to uplift the lives of the lower classes; political ideology plays a part, and that is opposed by many in Iran who feel that not being a Basiji should not exclude them from the same government aid. I imagine many in China feel the same about the Chinese Communist Party – however, the big difference is that the Basij is open to all as it is a genuine mass-membership organization and that all that is stopping them from getting Active-level benefits is the willingness to donate their time for free.

Women like and participate in the Basij more than men

Being a mass membership organization, women obviously must have a huge role.

The Basij is – I would say – an essentially feminine organisation: After all, the Basij is primarily a social group, and women are undoubtedly more socially-oriented than men, in general. It is also idealistic, and thus quite romantic. For most it is Islamic faith-based (though open to non-Muslims), and women make up the backbone of every faith, after all.

Furthermore, the Basij is akin to the Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in that it can act as a neighbourhood watch; neighbourhood watches are mostly gossip and not physical confrontation, and women like to gossip more than men, generally. Even furthermore, telling people “not to do this little thing” and to “do that little thing” – in a “mother hen” aspect I describe later – is also more anathema to men, who generally prize personal latitude and freedoms more than women.

Add in the social welfare aspects, and it’s little wonder that, “For example, they (women) participate more frequently in Basij maneuvers then do their male counterparts.”

Polls also show women have a higher opinion of the Basij and welcome the prospect of membership more than men.

This probably blows Western people’s minds: “Women like the Basij? I thought they were being forced into straightjackets from which they had to somehow cook lavish meals and impeccably clean the house?”

In fact, what seems objectively clear is that joining the Basij is liberating and not restrictive for women:

“Equally important to these social activities, being a Basiji provides women, especially those who come from conservative families, with opportunities for social mobility. In addition to finding a better job and earning a higher salary, these opportunities include the chance to marry well and forge a space in society independent of their families.”

By law, Basiji women have priority in section for government or semi-government jobs – again, de-facto (or ideological) affirmative action. For example, they get licenses to start nurseries easier, a major source of female employment. They certainly can expand their social network out from the usual (quite extended) social network in Iran – the family.

Non-Iranians have a deranged view of Iran when it comes to women – mainly because they think Iranian women hate modern Iranian culture, that Iranian culture was made entirely without their input, and that all Iranian women find it repressive. Iranian men can back me up on this: If repression exists, it is women who are the-equal-if-not-better agents of repression in the home and neighbourhood! This is acknowledged by Golkar, who I’m sure knows exactly what I mean:

”Generally, women are seen as agents of social change, but their roles as agents of political order are rarely studied.”

Yes…quite.

Of course, Western women are paragons of progressive virtue and could never even subconsciously act as agents of a reactionary-imperialist-racist political order. That’s why Iran should scrap the Revolution and emulate the West, right? Yes…quite.

So…when there was a recent 1 million-signature campaign to decrease societal discrimination against women, Basiji women – while of course not opposing such a campaign – concurrently initiated a 4.5-million-signature campaign to protect the hijab law and other things we Iranian men get ALL the blame for, LOL.

Basij women study Iranian revolutionary and philosopher Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari’s book Women’s Rights in Islam, and it is significant that in the long-ago, bourgeois revolutions of the US and France there were NO women’s rights components, whereas in Iran women’s rights books are foundational texts.

In Islam, as should be well-known, men and women are equal, but have different rights and duties.

It is my humble opinion that Western women perceive “modernity” to mean that they have only “rights” and not “duties”. Men, however, still have “duties”, mainly because they are falsely assumed to have always had “rights”; such an analysis of Western men is faulty because it is fundamentally based on gender instead of class.

This idea of men and women being equal but different is perhaps typically Asian, as it is the exact same philosophy behind yin and yang: neither is superior to the other; both have attributes and strengths the others have less of; it is all a question of time and place as regards to what is the appropriate strength to apply.

Golkar, like many men and women in the West, but unlike in the Muslim world, appears to believe that Islam and feminism are incompatible:

“By increasing the quality of the education, ability, and socioeconomic position of the female Basiji, the regime ultimately weakens its foundations, influencing its traditional religious interpretation of the role of women.”

Well, many will view that sentence as nonsense in many ways – Islam in 2018 is not the result of women being uneducated – but when it comes to Iran and women no view is too outlandish. Golkar quotes Golnaz Esfandiari, a journalist with Radio Free Europe, which is a 100% anti-Iranian propaganda tool of the US, just as BBC Persian is from England.

“The ‘Basij Babies’ program suggests that some in the IRI believe that children should be indoctrinated not only at elementary schools but even before that – as soon as they are born, in order to prevent them from turning into potential critics or independent individuals who want to decide about the way they live and do not base their decisions on the rules set by the Iranian establishment.”

Obviously, it is scientifically impossible to indoctrinate a baby…the idea itself is absurd. A baby has no capacity for political thought, and have been scientifically proven to be stupider than dogs until at least two years old.

Such wild hyperbole, with logic and common sense totally thrown out the window, is expected from Radio Free Europe but not from academics.

However, Golkar’s book proves that he is not an objective academic just as Esfandiari is not an objective journalist – both have an agenda, and in their apparent zeal for counter-revolution they fatally assume that all readers are dumb enough to swallow whatever they say, and thus they invent or reprint such nonsense.

The Basij Babies program is, of course, a place for like-minded mothers in the neighbourhood to congregate, and where mothers can find other local like-minded mothers for day care. Maybe they put “cute” Basij uniforms on their babies, as women often like to do with children, but it is certain the baby would not perceive themselves as being any ideologically different than if he or she was wearing a potato sack…because babies cannot have ideologies. (Perhaps that is why everyone likes babies?)

Furthermore, all elementary schools worldwide have elements of social & ideological-political indoctrination, and to deny that is to show either naiveté or immaturity. It is also impossible to prevent…unless you can get kids to stop asking questions.

Both Golkar and Esfandiari (who also writes for the popular American magazine The Atlantic) illustrate that the only way for an Iranian – or anyone covering Iran – to be successful in the West is to be not just anti-Iran, but to be willing to wildly exaggerate or invent the most heinous accusations about Iran they can think of. I include Esfandiari’s quote not because we learned anything about the Basij, but because it shows how Golkar is repeatedly willing to offer the unsympathetic view of the Basij without ever even discussing the sympathetic view. That is unbalanced scholarship. I have already noted that Marxism nor other typically-leftist ideas are ever broached in this work of political science, which also makes it bad, unbalanced scholarship.

How does the Basij have the economic power to provide welfare programs and jobs?

Perhaps a tough question is: why are these welfare programs only open to the Basij, and not everyone? Quite a fair question….

We must remember that the Basij began as a fighting force: 2 million Basiji fought in the Iran-Iraq War (75% of Iranian fighters, with 550,000 of them students), and, like the G.I. Bill for the US in World War II, there was a tremendous political and democratic consensus that these veterans deserved priority in the postwar era to reintegrate them into society.

In part 2 – How Iran got economically socialist, and then Islamic socialist – I explained the nonsense behind the WSWS’s indignant-yet-uninformed statement regarding the recipients of the “huge sums paid over to the Shia religious establishment” – the bonyads or state charity cooperatives. Just as Iran took 10-15% of the economy from the capitalists and monarchy and gave it to charity, so they used the same resources to create the the Basij Cooperative Foundation (BCF), which is the huge entity which oversees all Basij operations, veterans included.

The BCF has over 1,400 companies and firms as of 2007. During the postwar “privatisation” process many state-owned companies were assigned to them, and they were also given priority in buying stocks of state-owned companies. In a common refrain I make whenever trying to talk Iranian economics with Westerners: state-affiliated organisations buying state assets is not “privatisation” in the way the West means it whatsoever. This was explained in detail in Part 3 of this series – What privatisation in Iran? or Definitely not THAT privatisation – and the bonyads, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij have been the biggest recipients of these intra-government economic transfers. Economically, the Basij are present in a significant way in many key sectors, but they are the least influential of what I call the “1B Sector” (1 being Public, 2 being Private), behind the bonyads and the Revolutionary Guards.

So, for example, when in 2004 and 2005 some Iranian state companies saw their shares privatised, many of the shares were bought by the Iranian Investment Company, which is owned by the Mehr Finance and Credit Institution, which is merely the new name of the Interest-Free Financial Institution of the Basij…so we should see that privatisation is not at all what you thought previously.

Furthermore, not only are these shares not foreign owned, they are not even privately owned! Mehr Bank is the “biggest private bank” in Iran…and yet is owned by the Basij Cooperative Foundation, which primarily exists not to make money but to care for Basij members and activities, adding yet another layer of “this is not Western-capitalist privatisation at all”.

What is exceptionally unique is how anti-capitalist their directive and practices are in all their ventures: Banking (interest-free and low-fee loans to members), construction (“In fact, the IRI has used the CBO (Construction Basij Organisation) as part of its economic populist policies.”), real estate (where they provide low-cost housing), medical industry (“…the IRI pays 80 percent of members’ medical and health care expenses”), retail via the Consumer Goods Provision Institution of the Basij (“With hundreds of stores and hypermarket chains, this institution is primarily responsible for providing cheap goods for Basij members.), telecommunications (free internet access for members) – the list goes on and on.

“Although the Basij commanders have garnered financial privileges by controlling companies, it seems that the economic activities of the Basij are less profit-centered and more oriented towards populism.” Considering just how opposed Golkar is to the Basij, we can fairly imagine this to be quite an understatement.

But make no mistake: this is the exact same statement made by any Western capitalism-oriented analyst when it comes to viewing the BCF, the bonyads, the companies of the Revolutionary Guards…or the companies of the Chinese Communist Party, for that matter. None are designed to be efficient, in something which deranges a Western stockholder, but are all basically cooperatives designed to fuel employment, distribute wages, create cheap goods and reduce the ability of foreigners to destabilise the domestic economy.

This is probably all quite surprising to Westerners but, as this series (and many other articles of mine have proven) – the West does not understand these economic practices of Iran which are obviously socialist in nature. Perhaps the mind-meld Westerners needing order to understand the Iranian is economy is this: The Iranian economy is state-owned, therefore it is natural that the Basij run a part of the economy.

“Together, all these institutions, including the BCF and its 1,400 clusters, provide many employment opportunities for the Basij….The Basij enterprises are owned, operated and staffed by Basij members…. In fact, the economic activities of the Basij create jobs for both active members and their dependents.”

That is why the BCF is a cooperative, and not capitalist. If cooperatives are not “socialist” enough for Western leftists, I guess I should just give up!

“With all the financial assistance provided by the BCF, it seems strange that more people do not want to join the Basij.”

That statement has never been made about any capitalist corporation. Keep that in mind the next time you read about Iranian “privatisation” – the large majority of it is going to places like the Basij. Of course Iran isn’t privatising more than 1/3rd of any company, nor privatising any key industrial sector, and it’s absolutely fair to say that Iran’s economy is 100% controlled (not owned) by the state & that the only pure or Western-style capitalism in Iran is in the Black Market sector (10-15% of the economy). All of those statements have been proven in the previous parts of this series.

But this does return us to the first question I posed in this section: Why is the Basij getting priority instead of all citizens? The answers to that, and the justness of those answers, I leave up to the reader, but we can get into a fair and common public discussion….

Why do people join the Basij? It’s complicated

We have answered the “Who”, “How”, “When” and “What” regarding the Basij, but “Why” has been left for the end.

“The primary function of the BCF in the Iranian economy is to provide for the welfare of the Basiji in different ways. Because materialistic motivations are the main incentive for joining the Basij, the BCF is responsible for overseeing and meeting the material needs of its membership.”

Golkar claims “materialistic motivations” are the main incentive, and not just here but throughout his book. Objectively, this is clearly the most cynical analysis possible, and it essentially calls all Basiji hypocrites and opportunists.

Objectively, I will add: it is also quite often true, and no Iranian would deny it, nor do many Basiji.

This reality does enrage some people about the hypocrisy of such Basiji. It does for some Iranians, especially as Basiji may often claim – on an individual basis – to be morally superior to non-Basiji: they often give the impression of being more revolutionary, more religious, more moral, more societally-involved, less selfish, etc.

However, I am not enraged. This does not make me unobjective about the Basij, and I am happy to explain why: It’s better than Western neoliberal capitalism, at least!

I’d rather have the BCF in charge of a company than some self-interested CEO, right? Iranians all know that Basiji are those who need government welfare more than others – I say: let them take it, because many of them give something back to society; some gave all during the war.

And what’s wrong with the government “buying off” their citizens? That’s what they are supposed to do – not just keep our taxes and the People’s resources for themselves and the 1%!

These things the Basij get – a reduction in military service, discounts for some goods, the chance to visit religious sites, a membership card which they can produce to not get hassled by other Basiji, educational materials, etc. – these are often only highly valued by those with little. Maybe some poor Basiji – many of whom are religious – will sell their soul for them…but I doubt it. Many are clearly in a position of social & economic weakness, so I am not about to begrudge them some advantages. At 40 I’m so old and boring that I don’t get hassled much by society anymore (something all young men experience) nor can I serve in the military, anyway.

Golkar never makes such defences or rationalisations; never focuses on the class redistribution aspects; never even broaches the idea that many Basiji are sincere – he focuses only on the most cynical rendering possible after he divides the Basij into three groups: the true-believers, the opportunists and the thugs.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume they are evenly divided (which Golkar does not assume): Even if we use Golkar’s clearly-biased arrangement (2 out of 3 groups are objectively “bad”), 1/3rd of Basiji sincerely joining for ideology still likely makes a minimum of 3-4 million people, and that is a very formidable group to deal with for foreign invasion, which is my main point to impart to Westerners in this series. I am not here to defend or condemn the Basij, just to examine them objectively. But the idea that 33% of Basiji – and thus 5% of all Iran, at a minimum – are “thugs” seems like very unscholarly reasoning, to me. I would not call one of out every 20 French people I have met here a “thug”, and Iranians are – to my perceptions – far more mellow.

“It is widely accepted that for many people, the most important motive for joining the Basji during the first decade after the Revolution was their belief in the IRI and its leader, Ayatollah Khomenei.”

Golkar desperately and repeatedly urges readers to believe that after the war dissatisfaction and alienation became so rampant that these motivations disappeared, and disappeared completely.

That seems highly unlikely. How many people joined because they were true revolutionaries, i.e. “their belief in the IRI”? How many people joined the Basij because their father, brother, cousin or friend was killed or hurt? Given Trump’s JCPOA pullout as simply the latest in an unbroken policy of aggression, how many join the Basij because they perceive Iran as being under attack, still?

Golkar cites a study of Basij members which said that 66% of their friends joined the Basij for reasons other than ideology, while 97% of Basiji self-reported that ideology was in fact the main reason.

I must first LOL, because this is all very Iranian…”your revolutionary outlook is not as good as mine, your Ramadan month is not as pure as mine, my family suffered more during the war than yours, your family prospered more under the shah,” etc. Basiji or not Basiji – Iranians are just as difficult as anyone else!

But reality is never black-and-white: for Iranians to say 66% of their fellow Basiji are all hypocrites and opportunists is likely a mixture of over-condemnation, arrogance and misunderstanding. I do not doubt that material reasons are a major consideration – and I do not think that is incorrect – but I think it’s unfair to say that Basiji are all selling their soul completely to join and get benefits.

I also think that this number is likely inflated by the fact that the largest group in the Basij are the youth, and that it is simply not “cool” to admit that you love your country, the establishment, your neighborhood, God, etc. What I mean is: I think young Basiji don’t talk about these “sensitive” things that much among themselves – they, being young, talk mostly to show off. This would naturally lead to them saying things like “Oh I just joined for such and such materialistic reason – please don’t consider me uncool”, and then actually being believed by their peers. Such an explanation is not hard to believe, nor master psychology – it sprouts from a sympathetic view of a Basiji’s common humanity, which Golkar does not have.

As Golkar asked – why isn’t everyone joining?

Golkar may just be an economist-type – the “dismal science” – who sees everything in cost-benefit equations, but I remind the reader that joining the Basij means you must have some ideological – and thus moral – reasons for joining. Indeed, how could one tolerate hanging around Basiji on a regular & weekly basis if there wasn’t a kinship? It’s like a Republican hanging out at the local Democrat center, or a boss hanging out at the local union hall – that never happens (though it should).

Because Golkar is clearly campaigning against the Basij, he cannot accept the obvious reality that one can be in the Basij and yet also be partially upset with the government.

Do Americans in the army or the Republican Party all adore their Republican president? Of course not. Are they willing to scrap their entire system and start over – not any I have ever met.

I know people who are Basiji and who are in it only for some material benefits, they say…but I have never met any Basiji who wants to smash the Iranian system and replace it with something else, i.e. they all support the government on a fundamental level, no matter how much they may complain about it.

I work for the Iranian government – do I agree with every thing they do? Of course not – I’m a human being.

(I am not even an “apologist”, as the World Socialist Web Site accused me of being, because I do not defend policies which I do not agree with; the explanation of policies is not a defense. Doing exactly that is a huge part of what is called “journalism”.

Indeed, a smart journalist once told me: “If you support 50% of your media’s editorial policies, consider yourself lucky.” Promoting someone else’s ideas – that’s the gig in paid journalism, and that “someone else” runs from the CEO to the man on the street, both of whom are equally likely to say something quite smart or quite stupid.

Giving a balanced justification of policies one may or may not agree with is paid journalism, and there is no shame in this socially-useful act; what you are reading now is exactly that, minus the paying part. What Golkar has done is to write unbalanced, biased scholarship to advance his personal ideas and interests.)

So it is in fact normal for someone to join the Basij, accept the materialistic and social positives, and yet still be unhappy with parts of the government – what government is perfect? But this does not mean that they want to subvert the Islamic Revolution or that, under threat of invasion, they will not fight to defend their home.

That idea essentially undermines Golkar’s thesis: That all Basiji are being socially controlled. People are not as stupid as he may believe – Basiji are getting something out of what they volunteer to do, no? Are all Chinese Communist Party members rabid communists? At the lower levels no, but you can bet at the top they are. It’s the same as the Basij.

The most interesting poll Golkar relays is one which said that 75% of Basiji said the opportunity to give public service was a factor influencing their decision to join: truly, it’s always this mix of selfishness and selflessness in politics.

As a journalist I can say with some experience that: Politics cannot be absolutist or else it ceases to work. Philosophers can be absolutist, however. Factions of interest and principle exist not just in political bodies but in individual bodies. It is humanly impossible to always act in perpetual & total alignment with one’s stated principles, and thus in all revolutionary societies the issue of “hypocrisy” and “opportunism” comes up often. This issue does not in capitalist societies, because they profess no actual beliefs which are not explicitly cynical and assume everyone is only looking out for themselves.

Maybe eternal accusations of “hypocrisy” and “opportunism” is the price of living & participating in a revolutionary society? That question leads us to the next section….

Why is there internal opposition to the Basij?

Because membership in the Basij clearly has a lot of privileges.

Iran’s government may run what I call “Iranian Islamic Socialism”, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t Iranians who disagree with that philosophy; who favor a Western model for Iran; and who dislike the “inefficiencies” of Basiji businesses they must put up with.

Basiji are performing public works they consider to be good for free and they often come from a poor background, but they are indeed being compensated. That compensation can be financial, or in affirmative actions program, and also in social status and power.

I think it is mostly the last one – “power” – and the domestic policing of the Basij which rubs many the wrong way.

However, I must stress: The Basij’s role and presence has drastically, drastically declined from the 1990s heyday, when they came back from the front and were obviously far more severe. But things change, and faster than we often realise. No Iranian would deny that in many parts of cities in 2018 you hardly ever see a Basij – it is mainly in poorer areas to prevent drugs, fighting, ensure security, etc. The Basij have basically become computer geeks – their main task seems to be policing the internet. Only around religious holidays are you likely to see Basij on the streets.

Keeping in mind the new reality, let’s examine the Basij history as a whole:

“Informers” or “revolutionaries” – it really depends on your view. Somebody who knows of a Pahlavi loyalist or an MKO/MEK member – should they be questioned by the government or roam free? The Basij uncovered the Nojeh Coup Attempt in 1980 by Pahlavi loyalists – imagine if that had succeeded? Certainly, the Revolution decided that the Basij-worldview was essentially democratically correct, so “informers” is rather harsh, no? The Basij are not there just to harass and annoy people into following the law – they are there to challenge counter-revolutionary forces. To counter-revolutionaries, this certainly makes them internal spies.

However, the Revolution and the war was long ago for many (but certainly not to all). The government is aware that the People resist giving the Basij the powers they had during wartime, thus they are now limited to acting as neighbourhood watches in their security role. Therefore, the Basij do not operate above the law. When the police are not present, or to prevent the disappearance of evidence, only in such cases can Basij get involved and then they have to send a report to the judicial authorities.

They have also been specifically denied the powers to meddle in citizens’ personal lives. Many Basiji wanted this right – they were democratically, officially and publicly denied it. However, it doesn’t mean that this doesn’t happen occasionally – I must be objective here. Certainly, it is naive to believe that some Basiji are not corrupted by power and break the laws they are supposed to be such exemplary followers of. The Basij is a mass-membership organisation and the People are not always consistent.

The Basij also do not do what they are told to do – the most obvious of this is their refusal to take down the innumerable TV satellite dishes. These are banned by law, but many of the People want them, and “the People” include millions of Basiji. Some satellites do get destroyed – it all depends on a neighbourhood’s sentiment.

Let’s get real: In all neighbourhood watches there is, shall we say, an “informal democratic consensus” which reigns about what is tolerated and what is not, and which varies from region to region.

As I mentioned, the Basij is an essentially feminine organisation in that it fundamentally social, but they also all play “mother hen” to everybody in a very typical and annoying Iranian fashion. Scratch your head just once in Iran and a female relative is already out the door to get you the proper shampoo for an itchy scalp! One sneeze means they are begging you not to leave the house for three days! Of course, Basiji can fairly point out to me that the chicks survive mainly because of Mother Hen and Father Rooster…. The Basij checkpoints are not there to offer you shampoo, but they will cut your down to size if you mess with them, and they might even cut your hair! That is no joke….

“Basij membership also offers a sense of empowerment to marginalised strata within Iran society,” and this creates conflict.

In a major failure and major proof his biased scholarship, Golkar doesn’t give an everyday anecdote about the Basij – certainly none about Basiji helping a family member or improving the community. Golkar does relate a good anecdote which illustrates the cultural class warfare part of the Basij, which is also undeniable. Golkar relates his following interview with a young male Basiji relating a checkpoint story:

“It was just to have fun to tease a rich sousol (effeminate) kid of north Tehran. With some of my other Basiji friends, we jumped in a car an drove to Sharake Gharb or Miydan Mohseni, we put a stop checkpoint sign up, and annoyed ‘rich kids’ in their kharji (foreign) cars, and if one had a beautiful girl in his car, we teased him even more. Sometimes, if we didn’t like one, we cut his hair to belittle him before the girl.

This is obviously unacceptable and juvenile behaviour, and which can lead to permanent resentments or even other anti-social practices. On the other hand, it is also reminiscent of Cultural Revolution as practiced in China.

The reader can decide for themselves if this is acceptable collateral damage for empowering a marginalised strata of society or not. I am merely objectively presenting both sides and am staying out of it: I work in TV and thus cannot have long hair.

For many Iranians the Basij are enforcing the Cultural Revolution…every day. “Revolution every day” – is that what revolution truly is? Is that good? The reader must decide that for themselves.

However – knowing Iran – it’s not as if this “mother hen” mentality and neighbourhood self-policing wouldn’t exist without the Basij, and didn’t exist in spades before the Basij. This is something – that Iranians are moral and annoying, and annoyingly moral – which no non-Iranian can really understand. Non-Iranians unfairly pin all the blame for “moral and annoying, and annoyingly moral” on the 1979 Islamic Revolution as if it was all something created by Imam Khomeini himself!

The Basij, I am saying, have not created something totally foreign to Iran. During Ramadan this year in Paris I saw a young Muslim guy standing next to his hijab-wearing sister (I assume) and smoking! In the daytime! Let me tell you, I almost went up to him and I almost said, “Brother I don’t think you should be doing”…but I didn’t…because I’m not in the Basij, LOL!

But the Basij step up their patrols during religious holidays like Ramadan, so when one is already tired and doing the best they can to be a good Muslim, such Basjii interference can be met with a cheery, “I wish it was Ramadan year round!” or, “Give me a break and mind your own business!” This judgment must be left up to the reader, yet again.

Golkar points out that more than 80% of new police in 2008 were drawn from the Basij. I am not surprised. In China all police are Communist Party members. Frankly, I think both Basij and CCP membership for cops is far better than France, where 60% of the police force voted for the far-right’s Marine Le Pen, and it was likely not for her economic stance but because she would certainly have given them even more freedom to bust Muslim and Black heads. Cops are cops around the world, but I do not see the French police as struggling to be righteous, pure, religious, revolutionary or caring about the emancipation of anything but their early pensions – at least the Basij and CCP pay lip service to such ideas at a bare minimum. Readers must judge for themselves, however.

The Basij, the Green Movement and the unrest of 2009

The Basij’s role in the unrest of 2009 was undeniable, and I’m not really going to get into it here other than stating this totally ignored reality, which Golkar relates:

“In fact, the Basij response to the Green Movement is the most illustrative example of the Basij’s control over civil riots, which continues to this day. Although the government effectively crushed the Green Movement, it was widely rumored that many Ashura (male) and Al-Zahra (female) battalion members (which have no serious security role) refused to participate in suppressing the dissidents, especially during the first months of the crisis. Likely, many did not participate because they had joined the Basij for materialistic or opportunistic reasons rather than out of ideological devotion.”

While his last claim is possible, the Basij voting record indicates that, undoubtedly, not only are many Basiji not about to get violent, but also that many Basiji actually supported the Green Movement. The Basiji are clearly on both sides of the political spectrum, but the idea that there could be “Green Movement-supporting Basiji” is a possibility which Golkar cannot permit to exist, even thought it is part of reality. I know Basiji who supported it!

So, yes, many Basiji did not fight in 2009. The vast majority are not “fighters” or in security at all, after all; the vast majority are teenagers and women. And many were siding with the protesters; indeed, I’m sure many were protesting! Because the voting patterns of the Basij are, as I showed in the previous part of this series, all over Iran’s political map, there is absolutely no legitimate reason to believe they ALL supported Ahmadinejad’s re-election.

This is the type of “nuance” about Iran which is not nuance at all, but which is never reported.

The irony is that Western leftists will openly admire the Committees to Defend the Revolution (who would certainly get physically involved were Cuba ever to actually have protests) or even the Chavista brigades, yet the Basjii who opposed the Green Movement – which most leftists, including the World Socialist Web Site, agree was a mostly upper-middle class phenomenon – receive none of this support but only scorn, fear and condemnation.

I realize that people are not made aware of the leftist aspects of Iran, its economy, or the Basij, but I chalk this up to the intense hatred of religion by Western leftists. I also chalk it up to the fact that Western leftists do not see Iran as the obvious leftist success it is, and thus cannot see that many people are willing to fight to preserve it. These are all objective realities, to me.

Thus I am not making a value judgment on the Basij in 2009 nor will I – this series is simply to discuss the Basij as it objectively exists. Want to protest for a long time in Iran? Then you may eventually have to deal with the Basij. Most of them are students and women, but a small portion of them are trained to deal with external threats, and what they perceive to be internal threats. A larger part of them are people who are not inclined to violence, but who will do so when pushed to a certain point.

People have, I believe, a fundamentally biased and incorrect view of the 2009 protests because they take an ideological approach – “for” or “against” the government – instead of the far simpler “class” approach. Of course, Western capitalist media never takes a class approach and, being ordered to completely oppose Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, they can only present coverage of Iran with the angle of, “How can this lead to the downfall of the Iranian political structure?”

People fundamentally fail to see what 2009 really meant: In my view, the 2009 protests showed emphatically that the middle-class in Iran (which used to be so tiny) had arrived and would not be pushed around, and it also showed that the larger lower class in Iran would not allow a counter-revolution. To me, these are both positive things, and these problems can be smoothed by greater class awareness in Iran. It is unfortunate that people were killed, to say the least, but Iran is by no means unusual in this, to also say the least.

Golkar acts as if there are 2009-sized protests thrice a month in Iran when there certainly are not. That was an exceptionally tense time, and most certainly the worst time for Iran as a whole since the war. I had a ticket to return to Iran but Air France refused to fly there – I cannot relate to you the anguish I felt every morning as I started up my computer to find out the latest news; I also cannot imagine how much worse it was for expat Iranians in 1980. Golkar may want there to be 2009-sized protests on regular basis, but he hasn’t gotten them.

The recent economic protests are not at all as large, nor as culturally-revealing, nor as structurally significant as the 2009 protests – they are primarily the result of foreign economic war designed to punish Iran’s revolutionary choice.

Conclusion : Is the goal to change Iran to ‘Basijistan’?

“At one pole, a small group of people have positive attitudes toward the IRI, join the Basij, and internalize their Basij mentality. At the other pole, a majority of people share a negative attitude toward the IRI and reject the Basij and its culture.”

The only undoubtedly true statement in there is that a majority of people indeed do not join the Basij: 13-30% of the entire country has (and that includes the children, who are not eligible to join) and that is a huge, huge amount.

I include Golkar’s quote to set up the following sentence, which follows the above and which also terminates his preface (and thus primes the reader to swallow Golkar’s forthcoming analysis of the Basij along with his data).

“The result has been a widening gap between the Basiji and the non-Basiji, which has led to the increasing alienation of Basiji members from society.”

This exemplifies the height of intelligence about the Basij in the West, and it is a very low peak they have attained; it is their desire to depict Iran as “Basij versus non-Basij”. Black versus white; oppressed Iranian women versus horrible Iranian men; enlightened liberal Greens versus troglodyte Basiji conservatives.

But the objective reality is: Just from the low estimate of their sheer numbers, at 10 million strong – how can the Basij be alienated from society? Can 1 out of 7 citizens in a society be alienated from society? Sure, the Blacks in the US are a similar number and they are alienated and live in a world apart, but there is no modern Jim Crow in Iran for Basiji.

Furthermore, Golkar only looks at 10 million members (high estimate, 25 million) – the Basiji have spouses, and I’m sure they must bless their involvement and thus are likely sympathetic. The Basiji have family members – let’s conservatively estimate that half their family members are sympathetic. The Basiji have friends – let’s conservatively estimate that half their friends are sympathetic. What we now have is a nation of 10 million Basij members….but also a nation of 50% Basij sympathisers as well, right? Fifty percent could be a low estimate! If the government reaches its goal of half of Iran being formal Basij members…when you add in the Basij sympathisers, or Basij “tolerators”, it’s impossible for the Basiji to be alienated from society because they are society.

That is a drastic statement, filled with class, cultural and political implications, but that is where I must conclude this sub-series on the Basij.

There are people who will never join and who will never support the Basiji…but it appears likelier that it is they who become alienated from society, and not the other way around. Golkar has it backward: It is the anti-Basij Golkars who are more likely to become alienated and flee, as he appears to have done. I say this purely based on simple, objective logic, math and common sense.

And I think, to show my objectivity, a fair point to make is: If the Basij keeps expanding, is it no longer “Iran” but “Basijistan”?

LOL, that is hyperbole, but the point should be made because it shows how the Basij is no “militia” of religious fanatics but a huge phenomenon and a mass-membership organisation drawn from all levels & present in all sectors of society. I have illustrated its massive cultural, political, economic and class effects, and also shown how deeply rooted these have become. Iran has changed a great, great, great deal in 40 years…but I would say it is still “Iran”. I would also, again, look to China in order to predict the Basij’s trajectory: once the Chinese Communist Party had proven its worth to domestic society, it began changing from a mass-membership organisation to one that is now harder to get into than the Ivy League in the American university system.

From any objective analysis the Basij exists mainly to preserve the Islamic Republic of Iran…which is a modern, democratic nation whose People support in a massive democratic fashion the system of governance they recently created.

So the question becomes: Is the government & society wrong to support an organisation dedicated to supporting the ideals of the Revolution (which created the government)? This is essentially the ongoing question inside Iran about the Basij.

I return to a previous point from Part 4: If there is something fundamentally misguided about the Basij, then the Chinese Communist Party must share much of the same traits. Because both groups are so representative of all levels of their respective societies, if there is something wrong with either group then there must be something wrong with the Iranian and Chinese Peoples themselves.

I find that very hard to accept.

I may be a leftist, but I am not a mindless populist or class-worshipper: But unlike, for example, the German Nazi Party, neither Iran nor China tolerates imperialism or racism, much less promote or ally with it, and I am unfamiliar with any enduring or whole-hearted effort at socioeconomic redistribution led by Western fascists. But the time for explaining the Basij is done – I hope it was informative.

Even though as an Iranian I am well-qualified to judge the Iranian case, I leave the question of the Basij’s democratic and ideological legitimacy up to the reader – I must remain neutral if this to achieve journalistic scholarship, as I intended.

I will only note that a government earns legitimacy based on the quality of its policies towards its People, and also towards the world at-large — at least now some of Iran’s policies towards the Basij have been described and can be examined & judged.

My whole point with this sub-series was, simply: The Basij IS. You deal with it.

***********************************

This is the 7th article in an 11-part series which explains the economics, history, religion and culture of Iran’s Revolutionary Shi’ism, which produced modern Iranian Islamic Socialism.

Here is the list of articles slated to be published, and I hope you will find them useful in your leftist struggle!

The WSWS, Iran’s economy, the Basij & Revolutionary Shi’ism: an 11-part series

How Iran Got Economically Socialist, and then Islamic Socialist

What privatisation in Iran? or Definitely not THAT privatisation

Parallels between Iran’s Basij and the Chinese Communist Party

Iran’s Basij: The reason why land or civil war inside Iran is impossible

A leftist analysis of Iran’s Basij – likely the first ever in the West

Iran’s Basij: Restructuring society and/or class warfare

‘Cultural’ & ‘Permanent Revolution’ in Revolutionary Shi’ism & Iranian Islamic Socialism

‘Martyrdom and Martyrdom’ & martyrdom, and the Basij

‘The Death of Yazdgerd’: The greatest political movie ever explains Iran’s revolution (available with English subtitles for free on Youtube here)

Iran détente after Trump’s JCPOA pull out? We can wait 2 more years, or 6, or…

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television. He can be reached on Facebook.

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