Five Myths on Iran

Reza Zia-Ebrahimi — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 06:51:37 +0000

For the last few years, Iran has been making headlines on an almost daily basis. However, the country’s complex political system seems to be difficult for outsiders to grasp. Indeed, many commentators seem to lack a deeper understanding of Iran and are therefore unable to consider the broader reasoning behind Tehran’s decisions. The situation has created a number of myths about the country, some of which are in dire need of being stamped out.
‘Iran is a dictatorship and Ahmadinejad is a dictator.’ Sloppy thinking. Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger introduced his guest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “cruel and petty dictator,” and many Bush administration officials have often referred to the Islamic Republic as a “dictatorship” or a “tyranny.” Commentators and policymakers alike make up for their acute lack of knowledge about this country and its political system by forcing it into such clichéd categories, mostly inherited from World War II and the Cold War. Iran is presumed to be the leader of “Islamofascism,” an example of how outdated concepts about the country are being recycled. These mental shortcuts don’t do justice to Iran’s complex political system. The Islamic Republic, for all its deficiencies and seemingly arbitrary behavior, is not a dictatorship. Power is not concentrated in the hands of any one individual or group, but shared within a complex web of elected and appointed power centers with checks and balances on one another.
The president of Iran is not in charge of security matters and can’t even instruct his own bodyguards to shoot. Ahmadinejad’s bombastic – and truly outrageous – comments have understandably raised concerns in the international community. But the president of Iran lacks key prerogatives with regards to security and media, and is therefore not a full-fledged head of state, let alone a dictator. If Iran were to possess atomic weapons, the president couldn’t decide how they should be used. The very pragmatic Supreme National Security
Council would. And it’s doubtful these leaders, after proving for almost 30 years that they’re obsessed with the regime’s survival, would suddenly opt for mass suicide.

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Five Myths on Iran