I’m not an expert in these matters but I think I know enough to say that religion and politics don’t mix well in Iran. Cooperation between the two is an illusion, an illusion the people of that country realize is getting them no where fast. Iran was on its way to becoming a democracy (sort of) during the Shah’s US backed reign. Of course the Shah-Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi-had his problems with the religious right because of his White Revolution (visit White Revolution in Wikipedia-very interesting) that, among other things, extended suffrage to women, modernized the nation and recognized the sovereignty of Israel, a no-no for any Muslim nation.Modernization in Iran was seen by Shi’a clergy as secularization and they began withdrawing support for the Shah. In 1979 a revolution occurred that brought to power the Ayatollah Khomeini and his rule by the Supreme Jurist. Many Iranian citizens were opposed to the return of theocracy but knew better than to complain. Religious zealots remember, have ways of bringing the wrath of God to bear when needed to bring about unquestioned compliance, or so those zealots say. I became acquainted with an Iranian family that was able to escape the Ayatollah’s Supreme Jurist rule in 1982. A well-to-do family, the result of education and hard work, eventually made their way to the US where we met. The patriarch and his wife were in their seventies, both were ill, and they were broke. The Supreme Jurist wouldn’t allow them to leave Iran to seek medical assistance with any thing but the cloths on their backs. The familie’s home, jobs, and retirement fund were lost, never to be retrieved. The good news is that Americans-many were Iranian themselves-helped this family get what they needed and the bad news, of course, is they could never return to their beloved Iran.A product of the 70′s revolution in Iran was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now into his second term as Iran’s blowhard president. Strange indeed how Ahmadinejad began his ascent because of a cleric’s government take over in 1979, a puppet groomed by theocracy to lead a country back into the dark ages and now theocracy and Ahmadinejad are both suffering a significant loss of respect and power.Jon Meacham, in a Newsweek editorial, wrote; “In an imperfect world there will never be a complete end to theocracy any more than there will be a complete end to tyranny. Power will ebb and flow, regimes come and go. But in the main, history’s path leads to more liberty, not less.”Riots are raging throughout the Middle-East and as many know already Ahmadinejad is on his way out eventually. Rule by the Supreme Jurist is sure to be marginalized as well and the result, we hope, will be more liberty, not less. However, the not-less part is contingent upon reining in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps the most powerful and secretive organization in the region, their goal; eradication of all non-fundamental Islamic believers. There is much to be done to bring about liberty in those Muslim states and I am afraid it will get worse before it gets better. And in the meantime the Iranian Islamic radicals near their quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
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