Iran

Smoke and mirrors

May 29th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Iran makes it hard even for benevolent outsiders to understand it

THROUGHOUT its 29 years, the Islamic Republic has puzzled, even baffled, observers. Its leaders proclaim peace and war in the same breath, and pretend to practise both democracy and theocracy. But lately the symptoms of schizophrenia have grown more pronounced.

When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, issued a report on May 26th casting doubt on the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear plans, Iran's diplomats first said it proved their government's goodwill. Then they said they had already answered questions raised in the report. Finally, Iran's new parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, himself a former nuclear negotiator, attacked the agency for alleged deceit, charging it with secretly sharing information about the nuclear programme with Iran's enemies. Iran may be forced to reconsider co-operating with the IAEA, he suggested.

After an explosion killed 12 worshippers at a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz in April, officials hastily declared it an accident. Two weeks later, they blamed terrorists, and have since charged a dozen people as plotters variously linked to America, Britain, Israel and exiled monarchists. Some Iran watchers ascribe the flip-flop over the explanation to a desire to divert attention from the fact that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, had been due to visit the city. Others tie the blast to the arrest of six leaders of Iran's 300,000-strong Bahai religious minority, noting that the targeted mosque was a venue for fierce anti-Bahai sermons.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, proclaims himself a champion of the poor and keen to reform the administration. But his spendthrift social policies have sparked painful price rises, say critics, while his shake-up of the bureaucracy has punished competent people and rewarded cronies. This blunderbuss approach has fiercely divided his fellow conservatives, so sowing more confusion. Moreover, the newly elected parliament still has a minority of obstreperous moderates.

The country's foreign policies look erratic, too. Iran has condemned jihadist terrorism, but sheltered al-Qaeda fugitives. It has backed the government of Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, yet has abetted militias opposed to him. It champions Muslim unity but creates division by vilifying pro-Western Muslim rulers, backing Shia factions and expecting Shias everywhere to bow to Mr Khamenei's authority.

Earlier this month, Iran's foreign minister announced an initiative for a wide-ranging dialogue with the UN Security Council, which has imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme. But amid protestations of working for world peace and solidarity between peoples (bar Israel, whose end Iran predicts and desires), the initiative proposed little new. This raised speculation that it was meant either to pre-empt an expected move by the Security Council to ramp up sanctions or simply to dampen criticism at home by creating an impression of diplomatic movement.

Such behaviour frustrates those, both Iranians and outsiders, who want Iran to enjoy more normal relations with the world. Yet for all the confusion of smoke and mirrors, the arch-conservatives controlling Iran have succeeded rather well. They have purged the government of rivals, cowed liberal critics, punished America in Iraq, basked in reflected glory via the success of their proxy, Hizbullah, in Lebanon, and pushed ahead with their nuclear plans. Along with talk from Western diplomats of tougher sanctions come whispers of an offer of bigger rewards to Iran, should it stop short of building a bomb.

Back to top ^^