Khomeini's intolerant vision haunts increasingly vulnerable Iran
The tragic loss of dozens of members of the military's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is by itself a compelling reason for the regime in Tehran to pause and reflect on the bloodlust that motivates the chants of "Death to America," "Death to Israel" and "Death to Britain." But if the past is any guide, neither event is likely to shake the dogma that has turned Iran into a byword for religious radicalism, geopolitical expansionism and economic failure.
In a country plagued by a soaring cost of living, high levels of youth unemployment and a tumbling currency, there will sadly be no dearth of young men to replace the 27 soldiers who perished in the February 13 suicide bombing, which occurred near the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. And no matter what private misgivings they might have about being the praetorian guard of a self-serving theocracy, the new recruits will have no option but to put their lives on the line every day as part of compulsory military service.
Yet, stripped of all the sentimentality of honor and duty, many of these young men joining the IRGC effectively sign up for a cause that has long ceased to exist, if it ever did.
The reflexive finger-pointing by the regime at the US, Israel and "their regional agents" following the Sistan-Baluchestan attack, which has been claimed by a separatist group called Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice, was like watching an action-replay of the official reaction to the September 22, 2018, assault on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. That attack left 25 people dead, including IRGC personnel and civilian bystanders.
Every Iranian probably knows deep down that the soldiers targeted in the two attacks had enough violent enemies closer to home to have been fearful of threats posed by the proverbial foreign hand.
By most accounts, Jaish al-Adl is a product of the deep sense of alienation that Iran's minorities feel from a supreme-leader-led clerical regime and its heavy-handed wielding of state power. Not that Iran's rulers are ignorant of these facts: In 2010, they captured and hanged Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of Jundullah, a Sunni armed group of which Jaish al-Adl is an offshoot. But the execution predictably has not put an end to the attacks.
If Iran's political and sectarian divisions are indeed being exploited by its enemies to sow terror, as regime insiders claim, it should be a cause not only for concern but also serious introspection followed by course correction. After all, the history of Iran's revolutionary Shia government since its formative years is, among other things, an object lesson in how not to govern an oil-rich but vulnerable multi-ethnic country in a rough neighborhood.
The fall of the Shah in 1979 triggered a number of uprisings nationwide, of which Arab separatism in Khuzestan was one of the most prominent. Although the insurrection was crushed by Iranian security forces with an iron hand, the unmet demands for autonomy remain a source of discontent to this day.
Then there was the 1979 Kurdish rebellion, which became the most serious revolt against the rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. By the time it ended in December 1982, an estimated 10,000 people were reported to have been killed and another 200,000 displaced.
Given the present inimical climate, Iran had good reason to lash out at the Warsaw summit, which brought Israeli and Arab leaders under one roof and was attended by more than 60 countries. Many of the high-level officials who took part in the meeting did not mince words in their assessment of Iran in their speeches.
While US Vice President Mike Pence described a mechanism set up by Washington's European allies to facilitate trade with Iran as "an effort to break American sanctions against Iran's murderous revolutionary regime," Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, was seen in a video clip of a closed-door session as saying, "Any attempt to be nice to them [Iran's rulers], if anything, encourages them, rather than discourages them."
For its part, what Iran is unlikely to admit is that it has exploited demographic shifts, political feuds and sectarian divisions in a crescent-shaped region stretching from Lebanon to Yemen to project power far beyond its borders and economic capacity. When one considers the havoc caused by Iran's political and military entanglements in said Arab countries, it is no surprise that the public face of its deep state, the IRGC, faces a lengthening list of security threats.
The risks are not mitigated by the fact that large swathes of Iran's own population see migration and exile as their only escape while unelected and unaccountable officials help themselves to the country's oil wealth. Since 1997, peaceful revolts by courageous Iranians through the ballot box and civil movements have been quashed by hardliners using legislative legerdemain and brutal militias.
Names and faces have occasionally grabbed the headlines and gained international sympathy, embodying the hopes of a frustrated population, only to fade away from memory. Neda-Agha Soltan, a 26-year-old student of philosophy, drew worldwide attention after she was shot dead during the 2009 post-election protests. Her death briefly became a totem of Iranians' doomed struggle to overturn the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In the same year, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who had accused the regime of imposing dictatorship in the name of Islam and was seen as the spiritual father of Iran's reformists, died after spending the last 12 years of his life under house arrest in Qom. Ten years on, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the disputed vote's two reformist candidates, remain under house arrest.
Shirin Ebadi, the human rights lawyer who received the Nobel Peace Prize for her spirited defense of political prisoners and dissidents, currently lives in exile in the UK.
None of this is to justify even a single terrorist attack on Iranian soil. Regardless of whether the victims are security personnel or civilians, in the age of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIS, Jash-e-Mohammed and other jihadi groups, violence as a means to achieve an end is universally counterproductive and ought to be abhorrent to the victims of even the most vicious criminal offenses and injustice.
Just because Iranian operatives and Hezbollah agents have been implicated since the 1980s in a long line of political murders and bombings does not automatically confer on their adversaries the right to respond with violent extremism. Put simply, it is past time for all sides to agree that the Islamic Republic's founding ideology and Khomeini's intolerant vision have no place in the modern Middle East.
Arnab Neil Sengupta is an independent journalist and commentator on the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
