The Islamic Republic of Poland

This is a dark time for Iran. Not two weeks after the so-called presidential elections, the newly elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced his intentions upon entering office in August. The hard-line former mayor of Tehran most famous for segregating men and women in elevators has taken hard lines against America, the United Nations, and Israel and has staunchly defended Iran’s emerging nuclear program. Possibly the most troubling is that the presidency of Iran wouldn’t be the first thing Ahmadinejad has seized. Several former American diplomats taken hostage in the infamous seizing of the American embassy in Tehran have positively identified Iran’s new guy as one of their captors. Iran’s official news agency has vehemently denied Ahmadinejad’s connection to the hostage taking, which would make such a connection all the more likely. After his days as a student radical in the late 1970’s, Ahmadinejad became a lead agent in the Iranian secret police in charge of murdering dissidents and exiles opposed to the revolution. Combine his terrorist background with his hard-line views against the United States and the dissent of his own citizens, and this could indeed be a difficult term for both the Iranian people and the world.

There is, however, an historical parallel present. Twenty-five years ago a population thirsty for democracy and freedom- one supported by the international community and, for a time, by their own government- was harshly squelched. Not by a sham election but by the imposition of martial law. Today’s Iranians excluded from the recent “elections” share much in common with the Poles of the early 1980’s momentarily silenced by General Jaruzelski. One of the sources of their discontent has been economic stagnation since the revolution. This should hardly be surprising for a country that has shunned both capitalism and socialism in favor of a system better suited for the 14^th century. The revolution itself plays an important role in that it has almost no relevance in the lives of most people. The overwhelming majority of the Iranian people are too young to remember the revolution that brought the current theocratic tyranny to power. Given the demographics of the country it is hardly surprising that the mullahs, their hard-line Islamism, and their complete disregard for political, economic, and social freedom are hardly embraced by the populous. Their discontent was voiced in the election of reformist candidate Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and reformist legislators ever since.

Apparently the ruling Guardian Council learned their lesson. Like the Polish communists of twenty-five years ago, the mullahs cracked down on this emerging movement toward freedom. They made a mockery of their own political system by fixing the recent presidential election in almost every way possible. They stuffed ballots, they bussed in residents from other areas to Tehran (where locals were unlikely to elect their own mayor president), and exercised their veto power over the elections themselves by disallowing reform-minded candidates. The election of a hard-line president will more than likely spell an end to the recent policies of gradual reform at home and détente abroad and is not unlike the martial law imposed by communist Poland against the emerging Solidarity movement. While the citizens’ taste for freedom and democracy may have been withheld temporarily in Iran, if history is any guide, this struggle between freedom and tyranny is far from over.

What the US and the rest of the freedom-loving world can do, as they did in Poland, is deal not with the “Dictatorship of the Mullahtariat” as it has been called, but instead with underground and exile groups seeking democratic reform in the country. Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were instrumental in bringing down the Iron Curtain in their continuous support for Lech Walesa and his Solidarity movement. President Bush, Tony Blair, and others have an opportunity in seeing an equally strong movement and leadership emerge that can oppose the un-elected mullahs.

There is a lot in common between the contemporary Middle East and Eastern Europe of the 1980’s. The struggle for and against freedom is being waged in the region, and Iran’s status plays as much an important part in that struggle as Poland did twenty years ago. The success of freedom and democracy in places such as Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon is vital to the people of the region, the US, and the world. As President Woodrow Wilson stated following the First World War, a democratic world is a peaceful world, and one in which terrorists can find no haven. That is why the Bush Doctrine was enacted, that is why new democracies in the Middle East must be allowed to succeed, and that is why Iran’s freedom is so imperative. If Islamism fails in the Middle East as communism failed in Eastern Europe, this titanic and protracted struggle against Al Qaeda and its allies may be a brief and successful one.