Iran is eating its Revolution

Five years have passed since the young man Mohamed Bouazizi, who earned his living as a street vendor in Tunisia, attempted suicide by setting himself on fire in the face of the lawless and unjust practices of the Tunisian police and municipal officers. 17 December now denotes the most interesting coup attempt undertaken in Turkish history two years ago, but five years ago on the same day, following Bouazizi's act, the reaction of Tunisians who poured into the streets had begun the revolutionary process in which Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled the country for 23 years, would be compelled to leave the country. The mass mobilisation that spread from Tunisia to other Arab countries had also brought the end of Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years in a military dictatorship.

One of the most critical stops of the Arab Revolutions, which developed in many Arab countries with demands such as freedom of expression, the development of democratic rights and participation in decision-making processes, was Syria. Nearly 5 years have also passed since the start of the Syrian people's civil and democratic mass demonstrations against the Baath regime, which has continued in the country since 1963, and the rule of the Assads, its concretised form since 1970.

The situation in Syria, which became a civil war as a result of the Bashar al-Assad regime's giving a very harsh response following the start of the peaceful mass demonstrations and pursuing a strategy of intimidating and suppressing the opposition by escalating violence, turned, as the crisis dragged on, into a global fault line. It is now a truth that when Bashar al-Assad is mentioned in Syria, it is not Bashar al-Assad but Russia and Iran that are being spoken of. What the argument "Bashar al-Assad should also be at the table in the transition process" expresses is the idea that, if Syria is to be reshaped politically, this cannot be done by leaving Russia and Iran out.

In past weeks we dwelt on Russia's Syria policy, particularly on the massacres it carried out and the crimes against humanity it committed on the Turkish border. We have not, however, dwelt in detail on analysing the position of Iran, which is in the region with the quality of being a "Muslim" country.

The Iranian Islamic Revolution created an excitement with the universal messages it contained across the whole Islamic geography. Khomeini's messages of unity directed at Islamic societies, and the effort he showed, even if inadequate, to bring Shiite thought and the Sunni creed closer to each other, were watched attentively by the non-Shiite elements of the Islamic world.

So much so that the universal messages and the revolutionary spirit of the early days of the Iranian Islamic Revolution aroused interest not only in the Islamic world but also among respected intellectuals of the Western world. Michel Foucault, as early as 1978, approached the Islamic movement in Iran with open sympathy. However, some time after the revolution he would express disappointment.

The clearest slogan of the Iranian Revolution was to be on the side of the "oppressed," that is, the "mustazafin." It is hard to say that the content of this slogan was fully realised in Khomeini's period. But if one takes into account that Khomeini acted out of a concern to institutionalise the revolution, it can be claimed that, under the influence of a number of developments in domestic politics and of the Iran-Iraq War, the universal emphases of the "mustazaf" understanding became difficult to apply in foreign policy.

After Khomeini's death, there was an Iranian administration that clearly showed an orientation of Persian nationalism and made the emphasis on Shiism in its regional policies much more clearly. So much so that, over time, Iran's regional policy took the form of supporting Shiism and the elements that would nourish its cultural background against other elements. It is also the case that this policy has at times been designed with the concern of shaping, or setting the tuning of, the domestic politics of countries such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Iran, which claims an Islamic Revolution, far from carrying a universal message, is squeezed into a discriminatory, separatist and sectarian vice even within Islam.

This sectarian outlook is one of the basic motivations of Iran's policy in Syria. In this framework, the first outside intervention in the civil war in Syria came from Iran. This approach of Iran's widened the distance between it and the Islamic world. More importantly, the policies Iran has followed sowed the seeds of the worst possible disaster scenario in the coming period in the region, that is, sectarian struggles.

In this framework, the reduction of Iran's red line in Syria to the person of Bashar al-Assad, who carries on his hands the blood of 400 thousand of his own people, is a great monstrosity. Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to Ali Khamenei, who declared Assad's political future to be Iran's red line, points to the continuity in Iran's unethical position toward the Islamic world.

History is recording Iran's hostile attitude toward Turkey, an Iran that, while under the embargo of the whole world because of its nuclear programme, held on to the system thanks to Turkey's diplomatic efforts. The Iranians are aware that it was Turkey that laid the stones of the nuclear understanding they reached with the West.

Instead of arousing sincere feelings in Iranian decision-makers, this mission of Turkey's has developed an interesting psychology of inferiority. With the naivety of still not having understood the strangeness of Umar, who honoured Iran with Islam, becoming the object of outright hate speech instead of eliciting a feeling of gratitude, we seem to be trying to make sense of the traumatic policies and discourses produced against Turkey.

Even so, let us remind for now that the outcome of the understanding Iran reached with Obama's "making do" regime is not yet clear. It is hard to guess what they may face in a new wave of embargo.

With the policies it pursues in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Iran is drifting away from the Muslim world. As it is, the Iranian administration is very clearly betraying Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution. After the Revolution it had already begun to eat its children at great speed; now it is eating up whatever is left of the Revolution.