Iran, Russia, China and Liberal Iranian Online Activism: A Brief Essay
Authored by "SalarHaqq"
Date of publication: September 05, 2023 at "Pakistan Defence Forum"
URL: https://pdf.defence.pk/threads/iranian-chill-thread.283137/post-14504101
When western-leaning liberal Iranians and exiled oppositionists to the Islamic Republic integrate a patriotic-oriented macro- or micro-social milieu, such as a "military forum" on the internet, they tend to adapt their discourse accordingly. In this brief essay we shall examine the adaptive methodology through which these actors, who may act individually or in a networked fashion, consciously of their undertaking or not, at the behest of a concrete organization / grouping or not, set out to tackle the issue of Iranian geopolitics, in particular the Islamic Republic's relations with her partners and allies in a rapidly evolving global environment, against the backdrop of emerging alternate powers and new forms of cooperation challenging the hegemonic post-World War II order led by the USA and by the zionist regime via its overseas web of influence. Unable to come out openly about the empire-submissive outlook typical of political factions they side with and oftentimes vote for - given that such openness would mechanically generate rejection by a patriotic audience naturally inclined towards preservation of national self-determination and sovereignty, these online debaters switch to a calibrated form of patriotic posturing built around illusory yet fervent adherence to the principle of self-sufficiency.
Why? Because knowing that full fledged economic interaction with the west is not currently in the cards for Iran (although it is part of the goal pursued by the local reformist and moderate factions, in addition to strategic alignment on Washington), brandishing the concept of self-sufficiency may be utilized to undermine Islamic Iran's mutually beneficial ties on equal footing with world powers capable of joining forces with Iran in a common effort of resistance against NATO imperial oppression, namely the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and others, on top of Iran's very own architecture of allied movements and states in her regional neighborhood.
In reality though, this unavowed, at times perhaps unconscious hijacking of the principle of self-sufficiency, which globalist liberal parties in Iran never subscribed to for a second, systematically fails to withstand critical analysis. To illustrate this, we need to trace the origins of the concept. As it happens, self-reliance in the Iranian context today is a tenet of the original ideology of the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Imam Khomeini (r.A.a.), taken up by his loyal spiritual-political heir seyyed Khamenei (h.A.), the Islamic Revolution's current Supreme Leader. The introduction of the tenet as a core feature of the Revolution came in direct and deliberate reaction to the former monarchic regime's marked dependence on its western, particularly American imperial patrons. Contemporary liberalism in the Islamic Republic emerged after the first decade of the Revolution in the 1990's, during the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was backed by a technocratic and so-called moderate nexus of parties. Then liberalism underwent an organizational and partly ideological restructuring which spawned, in the late 1990's and early 2000's, the liberal reformist movement, which today coexists and has entered an alliance with the moderates and technocrats.
In-house liberalism in the Islamic Republic is openly at odds with the ideology of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Hence the very term reformism, which by definition denotes a desire to deconstruct the Islamic Revolution's foundational set of political convictions and values. Self-sufficiency, a concept closely related to and intertwined with that of anti-imperialism, is taken aim at by reformists and moderates to the same extent as the latter principle.
Case in point, influential reformist and technocratic-moderate spokespersons in documented statements of theirs, leave no doubt as to what their perspective on anti-imperialism and self-sufficiency, as well as independence and self-determination consists of. To cite a succession of telling and characteristic examples:
Sadeq Zibakalam, professor of political science at the University of Tehran, bona fide reformist who describes himself as "a liberal to the last cell" (of his anatomy), is on the record for claiming that Iranian civilization is "inferior" to its western counterpart, which he in turn deems "inferior" to Jewish culture. No matter how much work one may put into searching for a somewhat corresponding statement by a public figure of principlist or revolutionary persuasion with regard to Russia or China (i.e., a suggestion that Iranian civilization is "inferior" to the Russian or Chinese ones), one will not be able to detect anything of the sort.
Zibakalam has also outed himself for his outspoken disdain towards domestic industrial production in Iran. In particular, he declared Iran has "no right" (sic) to have any goods manufactured on her soil if they cannot be marketed in a competitive way internationally. What's more, he was heard referring to made-in-Iran items as "Iranian trash" ("ashqale Irani"), preference over which he expressed for foreign-manufactured alternatives. Although unfettered free market ideology has gradually begun permeating the Iranian political spectrum as a whole, including some of the rival principlist and revolutionary parties, no political family in Iran is farther removed from economic nationalism than the liberal camp (this is while ironically, those same politicians who in the late 1990's turned into reformists, used to be the most radical advocates of state-centered economics over the early years of the Revolution, prior to operating a perfect u-turn on this as well as other topics including foreign policy). And here again, there is no equivalent among revolutionary forces to the violently dismissive, nay outright hostile take on domestic production exhibited by liberals such as the aforementioned Zibakalam.
Musa Qaninejad, a leading monetarist professor of economics held in high esteem by both reformists and moderates, who exerts significant influence upon their decision making circles, describes the CIA-orchestrated coup of 28 Mordad (1953) which overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mosaddeq and granted the shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the status of an autocrat and USA client, as not having been a coup but a popular uprising. Moreover Qaninejad suggests Iran was not entitled to nationalizing her oil industries (Mosaddeq's chief and best remembered achievement), contending that the rightful proprietor was and should have remained the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company since private property mustn't be touched by a government under practically any circumstance. Needless to say, no revolutionary loyal to the heritage of 1979 will be found issuing similar comments about the nationalization of the oil industry, nor will any revolutionary deny or minimize the role of the CIA in the 1953 coup.
Interestingly, liberal-minded online users invoking economic and military self-sufficiency as a rhetoric tool to decry acts of strategic cooperation between Iran and her non-western partners and allies, aren't ever seen denouncing anti-national proclamations by the likes of the above mentioned liberal notables. They aren't ever seen acting upon their claimed patriotism, which would command calling out the reformist and moderate bloc for following the genuinely anti-patriotic ideology outlined by its prominent representatives. On the contrary, they will enthusiastically and invariably seek to legitimize, promote, advertize these liberal parties, whose position on self-sufficiency and national independence is diametrically opposed to what said users purport to be standing for.
When it comes to the Pahlavi monarchy, textbook case of a regime subjected to imperial servitude, some liberal-minded online activists will shy away from rightly portraying for what it is, namely the antithesis to their claimed convictions on self-reliance and autonomy. On the contrary, they will staunchly proceed to defending it wherever possible, and will in the process even attempt to contrast it with the Islamic Republic, depicting the latter as a negative counter-example to the Pahlavi regime's supposed exemplarity.
This leads us to our second consideration. Parallel to the described discursive incoherence, which belies the methodical effort by liberals to lay claim to concepts such as patriotism, self-reliance, anti-imperialism, self-determination and independence, and exposes the endeavour as a deceptive rhetoric device at the service of the subversive, counter-revolutionary, empire-apologetic agenda of reformist and moderate formations within the Iranian system at large, the liberal stratagem in the present context rests upon yet another pillar: sham equation of western imperial powers on the one hand and Iran's strategic partners and allies on the other, as well as equation of their respective policies towards Iran.
The objective pursued remains of course identical, that is to torpedo, under the same instrumentalized patriotic pretexts, the popularity of Iran associating with her partners and allies. As a result, the reality of Iran's geopolitical conditions is obscured and obfuscated. While producing slogan-like commentary based on a mixture of cherry picked but decontextualized factual tidbits, interpretative routines based on extrapolation, as well as outright disinformation, liberals will refrain from conveying the most decisive data.
Such as that the Washington regime's pre-condition for mere normalization of relations with Iran (let alone for hypothetical, expanded bilateral exchange) precisely consists in widescale disarmament of the Iranian military and in abandonment or decisive downsizing of Iran's key assets of deterrence and (defensive) power projection - i.e. latent nuclear break out capability, regional network of alliances, ballistic missile and UAV arsenal. The unilateral imperial duty list was formalized and publicly announced in the form of ex-USA State Secretary Michael Pompeo's infamous twelve demands index submitted to Iran. Liberals will make sure to avoid mentioning how Iran's partners and allies, how the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Venezuelans or the Syrians, how HezbAllah or Palestinian Islamic Jihad to name a few, never conditioned any degree of collaboration upon requests even remotely as intrusive, far-reaching and inimical as Washington's.
Bipartisan designs for the West Asian region (including for Iran) shared by American neo-conservatives and liberal-hawks, not to mention zionist potentates in Tel Aviv, represent the next element liberal commentators will consistently keep mum about. Defined by policy papers and presentations such as the Bernard Lewis and Oded Yinon plans, the Project for a New American Century or the Ralph Peters proposal to redraw the map of the so-called Greater Middle East, inspired by theorists of "constructive chaos" such as Nathan Sharansky and the philosopher Leo Strauss, and geared towards granting the zionist regime lasting regional hegemony at the cost of endemic region wide instability, these zio-American imperial strategies would see Iran and neighboring states dismantled and balkanized into unstable, weak sub-national entities along ethno-linguistic and confessional lines.
If we were to rely on the input generated by liberals on- and offline, then none of this would be of much relevance. Worse, it could nonchalantly be termed "conspiracy theory" and swept under the rug. Not all too much talked about, is the serial destruction and dislocation of not only nation-states but societies of West Asia and North Africa since September 11, 2001, or more precisely the empire's responsibility in these events. Same goes for ongoing, present day security threats and conflicts brought about by constant western and zionist imperial intervention throughout the area. But above all, the one fact which liberals will sideline the most is that as opposed to the zio-American empire, neither Russia nor China (nor the DPRK, nor Venezuela, etc) is implementing any expansionist military grand strategy across West Asia, the kind of which would result in bringing destruction upon Iran. Thence, liberals are determined to compare the incomparable, to identify the non-identifiable.
In conclusion, to liberal and other oppositionist online users at "military forums", it is sufficient to blur domestic political and international geostrategic stakes under the guise of patriotism, in order to project a vehemently distorted image of Russia, China as well as of Iran's immediate allies of the Resistance Axis, passing these off as equally detrimental to Iranian interests as actual enemy powers, chiefly the USA, other NATO regimes and the zionist entity prove to be. Users and/or activists in question will forego any direct partisanship in favor of the empire and may even engage in sustained anti-imperialist discourse, because obviously deviating attitudes would be doomed to failure from the outset, considering the nature of these "forums" and the impact of undeniable real life antagonisms (e.g. overwhelming American regime animosity against Iran). Keeping alive and exploiting Russophobic, Sinophobic and Arabophobic clichés and prejudices more or less present among certain segments of society and collective representations, sometimes with historical precedents (in the case of Russia and Arab actors), will serve Washington's and Tel Aviv's agenda as is. Of note is the fact that this approach is in keeping with recommendations expressly formulated in Beltway "think tanks" publications.
