Few countries frustrate, irritate and perplex western observers as much as
Iran.
The first thing to recognise is that Iran is a country whose people have a
profound sense of history. This can take two forms. A sense of longevity and
continuity pervades society, giving it a conservatism and resistance to
change that has defied many a reforming government.
At the same time, it provides society with a durability and internal security
that can resist the most oppressive governments. There is a surprising
resistance to government-sponsored Islamisation. The fact that the main
annual holiday continues to be the Iranian new year, a preIslamic festival
that neither the Muslim caliphs nor the dogmatists of the Islamic revolution
have managed to wean Iranians off, is testament to this.
At another level, Iranian history is very political. The past remains part of
the present, in a way that has long escaped westerners. We may decry the
absence of a historical consciousness in the West and the decline of British
identity. But in Iran, where nationalism is very much on the rise, history
matters in an acute sense, and it is not unusual to find ordinary people
debating the finer points of the past 200 years as if they happened
yesterday.
Britain, along with Russia and the United States, looms large in this
narrative. For most Iranians their country was, and in many cases still is,
seen as an imperial state with a superior culture. Increasingly Iranians are
resisting the notion of their country as part of the Middle East and argue
that Iran should instead be seen as one of the three great mother cultures
of Asia along with China and India.
The single word Persia — the name by which the country was known in the West
until the 20th century — should alert us to the seriousness of this claim. A
good argument can be made that the very idea of the West was first defined
by reference to (and in reaction against) Persia and its culture.
It is the defence of this unique identity and culture that has driven and
preoccupied a succession of Iranian governments since the arrival of
European imperialism. Britain’s relations with Iran are among the longest of
any European country. They predate the formation of the United Kingdom,
going back to the early 17th century, and have always been driven by the
needs of trade and political advantage.
The balance of power was of course very different in those days and the
Englishman Sir Anthony Sherley was proud to call himself the Persian
ambassador to the courts of Europe. British Indian priorities made Iran an
important part of imperial strategy and Iran found itself caught between the
ambitions of Russia to the north and Britain to the south. Russia was
generally regarded as the aggressive power, determined to wrest territories
from Iran.
Britain was initially regarded by Iran as an ally, although this did not last.
Indeed, Iran’s complex relationship with Britain today emanates in large
part from the fact that Iranians considered the British to have betrayed a
friendship for imperial gain.
The rigours of trade dictated that Delhi, not Tehran, be given the upper hand
in British relations. But to Iranians, for whom personal relations always
mattered more than an abstract notion of imperial policy, this has left deep
scars.
The traditional politics of Iran came away badly bruised from its encounter
with the impersonal modern politics of the West, dictated as it seemed to be
by the need to “balance the budget”. Indeed, Persian pageantry could never
reconcile itself with British prudence; a prudence which meant that as the
expense of empire grew, Britain relied increasingly on financial and
political levers of influence.
Britain soon became a byword for political manipulation in Iran, deceitful and
cunning (ironically the terms often used by westerners against Iranians); a
perspective reinforced by the two extensive economic holdings held by
Britain in Iran: the Imperial Bank of Persia and the Anglo-Persian (later
Anglo-Iranian) Oil Company.
The latter in particular, the largest overseas asset owned by Britain, became
increasingly important as the expense of empire grew and largely defined
Anglo-Iranian relations for the first half of the 20th century, casting a
long shadow over the rest. It is important to bear in mind that the
overthrow of Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq in a CIA/MI6 orchestrated coup in 1953
simply confirmed a perspective that had long been held.
At the same time, one would do well not to exaggerate this perspective. The
attitude to Britain is not as monolithic as some dogmatists would have us
believe. Even in the Islamic republic, Britain, along with the United States
(which inherited the British mantle), remains the destination of choice for
those Iranians, including the political elite, seeking an education.
Even among the determined Anglophobes in the regime, their enthusiasm to
humiliate Britain is driven in large part by the fact that Britain is worth
humiliating. There is an underlying respect which ensures that confronting
Britain is considered politically prestigious. Britain after all, is the
puppet-master, and some Iranians will point to the fact that in Iraq the
British have situated themselves conveniently on the oil in the south and
sent the Americans to do battle in the Sunni triangle.
Of course, suspicion of Britain works both ways. It is also an article of
faith among many Iranians opposed to the Islamic republic (whether inside or
outside the country) that the current regime is a product of British policy,
that the ayatollahs have always had a good relationship with Britain, and
that proof of this underlying relationship can be seen in the abrupt speed
with which the British sailors and marines were released.
The explanations that will be offered by Iranians of the recent crisis provide
a window into the complexity of the mind-set. Iranian politics may be
complex, but it is not incomprehensible. The Islamic republic represents an
oligarchy of competing interests over which presides the supreme leader,
Ayatollah Khamenei, who both encourages and arbitrates between the factions.
In such a plural system, strong leadership can be decisive. Indecisiveness, on
the other hand, enhances the position of the factional groups and encourages
inertia.
Prior to the revolution in 1979, the Shah had centralised government to such a
degree that he was able to overcome the inherent inertia and conservatism of
society.
Society reacted badly to this intrusion into its affairs and after the
revolution power was decentralised, but managed by Ayatollah Khomeini, whose
charisma compensated for the lack of centralisation.
In the absence of charisma, or indeed a transparent legal order, politics
returned to a traditional contest between factions determined by
personalities. Who you know has always mattered more than what you know, and
it is this lack of a systematic order that has resulted in the frequent
human rights abuses that characterise the current regime.
In an inversion of the previous order, it is now the government that has
become conservative and society that is moving ahead on its own momentum.
Just as society reacted against the intrusions of the Shah, so too it is
reacting against the impositions of the Islamic republic. There are many
within the political elite who recognise this but some, including the
president and his allies, who do not.
Society’s reluctance to relive the glory days of the Islamic revolution will
have played a significant role in the abrupt decision to find a speedy
solution to the recent crisis. Iranians have moved on. They are less
impressed by their president’s antics and experience has perhaps made them
more laconic and less irritated by the vagaries of politics. They have long
understood that politics is about the eyes, not the ears, and that the eye
can deceive. Ahmadinejad’s behaviour will not have fooled many.
Nearly a century ago the British minister in Tehran, Sir Percy Loraine, with
characteristic condescension, was bemoaning the difficulties of Iranian
politics to Reza Khan, the then Iranian minister of war. Listening
patiently, Reza Khan responded with a Persian proverb that, according to
Loraine, completely disarmed him.
“When a wise man argues with a fool,” noted Reza Khan, “the greater part of
the blame lies with the wise man.”
Let history judge who was the wise man and who the fool.
- Ali Ansari teaches Iranian history at St Andrews University and is the
author of Confronting Iran
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