Hitchens On Iran

Christopher Hitchens talks up our advantage in the battle against the Iranian regime in the new edition of Word Affairs Journal.

Consider our advantages. To begin with, all visitors to Tehran report an extraordinary level of sympathy with the United States among the general population. The availability of satellite-dish and cell phone-born information (which the regime unsuccessfully attempts to repress) fuels much of this. Perhaps even more of it is the result of the large and talented Iranian diaspora in the United States, as well as Canada and Europe. On my own visit to the country, I was astonished by the sheer number of people who had relatives overseas, and who wished they could join them. Most especially among the young, pro-American cultural and musical “statements” are as common as they were in Eastern Europe before 1989. Is it not significant that, in recent frame-up trials against local dissidents, the clumsy and stupid regime has made the charge of fomenting “velvet revolution?”

Second, we have removed from power the two most hated enemies, not of the Iranian mullahs alone, but of the Iranian people. It is true that many Iranians feel nervous about having American forces on their Afghan and Iraqi frontiers, but it is equally true that our ability to demolish the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein tyrannies has greatly impressed many Iranians. Though evidence exists to support the idea that Iran has invested in the destabilization of the American projects in both neighboring countries, evidence also exists that this investment is somewhat half-hearted, and that Iran is aware of the gruesome alternative of a recrudescence of Taliban or Baathist influence.

Third, Iranians are acutely aware of the backwardness of their country and society when compared with other neighbors, most notably Turkey, which with few natural resources has modernized itself into a candidate-member of the European Union. In contrast, Iran may be floating on a lake of oil, but still conducts much the same backward rug-and-pistachio economy that it was operating when the mullahs seized power almost thirty years ago. I mention the Turkish comparison for another reason: many Iranians are actually Azeri or Turkic and feel, as well as a resentment against Persian chauvinism, a kinship to a society more advanced and more secular than their own.