Amir Taheri

By : Amir Taheri

Anyone following the Iranian media in the wake of the Saudi decision to break diplomatic ties with Tehran is likely to be puzzled.

Some like Kayhan, reputed to express the views of “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Fars news agency, controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, have actually welcomed the Saudi decision, which they believe removes the last excuse for going full force against the Kingdom.

Other outlets, for example the government-owned daily Iran or Sharq, a paper close to the faction led by former President Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, have expressed regret about the severance of diplomatic ties and came close to criticizing the mob that attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad.

While President Hassan Rouhani’s entourage have equivocated, fielding lower-ranking foreign ministry officials to make statements, senior ayatollahs and military commanders have seized the occasion to sharpen attacks on the Kingdom and the five other Muslim nations who have severed or downgraded ties with Tehran.

Once again, the incident highlights the schizophrenia that Iran has suffered since the mullahs seized power in 1979. There are two Irans, one that sees itself as a vehicle for the Khomeinist revolution and the other, which hopes to return to the international community as a nation-state.

To the first Iran, attacking a foreign embassy is a heroic act designed to galvanize “revolutionary masses.” In fact, the Khomeinists really seized control of the revolution on Nov. 4, 1979, when militants invaded and occupied the US Embassy in Tehran and held American diplomats hostage for 444 days. That day has become one of the most important dates in the history of the Khomeinist regime, marked by government-organized festivities organized with regime grandees attending ceremonies to burn the American flag and effigies of the US president. Attacking diplomatic missions became the regime’s favorite tactic when President Jimmy Carter decided to swallow the humiliation and appease the mullahs by sending flattering hand-written messages to Khomeini.The ayatollah concluded that “America can’t do a damn thing!” That sent a signal to Khomeinists that they could ignore international law. Since 1979 no day has passed without the mullahs holding some foreign hostages, mostly Americans. Even now they hold six US hostages.

Today, several members of Rouhani’s administration are former hostage-holders, including the defense minister, the chief political adviser and special aide for the environment. Rather than being in jail, as the Iranian penal code requires, they are in top government positions.

In successive election campaigns, including the current one, we saw candidates who mentioned attacking embassies and holding hostages as great achievements on their CVs. Perhaps without knowing it, by ignoring the rule of law, whether domestic or international, Khomeini and his successors were imitating Lenin. In his pamphlet “State and Revolution” Lenin insists that a revolution cannot abide by laws promulgated by a state or groups of states. “Revolution makes its own laws,” he states.

However, when it came to foreign diplomatic missions, even Lenin did not go as far as the mullahs. As Soviet Commissar for External Affairs Trotsky published the secret documents of the Tsarist foreign ministry but did not allow Bolshevik militants to attack foreign embassies let alone pillaging them and holding diplomats hostage.

There is another difference between Lenin and the mullahs. The Bolshevik leader wanted the revolution to transform itself into a state as soon as possible. He tried to speed up that process by publishing his famous New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1924. China’s Maoist revolution of 1949 transformed itself into a state in the 1980s when “strongman” Deng Xiaoping promulgated his version of the Leninist NEP. Both behaved as states, observing the broad outlines of international law.

The Khomeinist revolution, however, has not succeeded in transforming itself into a state. Attacking embassies in Iran has been and remains a fast-track to personal career advancement within the establishment.

Jimmy Carter simply brushed the whole thing under the carpet and other leaders, both from Europe and the Muslim world, imitated him, perpetuating the illusion that Khomeinists could do whatever they liked with impunity.

In fact, by insisting that the attack on their diplomatic missions cannot simply be ignored, the Saudis may have rendered Iran a service by forcing it, once again, to contemplate the central problem of its life for four decades: Is Iran a nation-sate abiding by domestic and international law, or a revolution that is free of all laws?

The reaction to the current crisis shows that both versions of Iran are present even within the Khomeinist establishment. Those still drunk on the witches’ brew of “revolution” hope that the attack on the Saudi missions and the subsequent crisis would help them mobilize and win in the next series of the regime’s internal elections in February. In fact it is possible they planned the attacks for that very purpose as they had done in similar cases close to previous elections.

As long as schizophrenic Iran is not at peace with itself, it cannot be at peace with anyone else.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in the Column section are their own and do not reflect RiyadhVision’s point-of-view.

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