神秘清真寺伊朗是世界上最令人費解的國家嗎？
我目前還不願寫任何關於伊朗的文章。我的直覺告訴我，川普的決定是個糟糕的決定。情況太複雜了。伊朗不是伊拉克，伊拉克過去是、現在仍然是三個不同的鄂圖曼帝國行省的混合體，內部又分為三大派別──遜尼派、什葉派和庫德人。伊朗則統一得多，同時也神秘得令人費解。它的邊界並非線性，這意味著它並非由西方殖民列強所創造。它擁有輝煌的古代文明遺產。它是一個中產階級國家。而且，在我幾次訪問伊朗的經歷中，我確信，儘管伊朗人民憎恨殘暴的法基赫監護政權，但他們更憎恨外國人入侵並推翻該政權的想法。
等等，喬：你剛才說的「法基赫監護」 （velayat-e-faqih）是什麼意思？嗯，這是一個少數極端宗教運動，其核心信條是宗教監護人統治，在1979年由魅力非凡且頗為古怪的阿亞圖拉·魯霍拉·霍梅尼領導下奪取了政權，並且自那時起一直掌權至今。其實，說「一直」也並非完全如此：它採用的是老式的統治方式，與一支強大的民兵組織——革命衛隊（IRGC）結盟。這與較傳統的什葉派靜修主義傳統截然不同，後者認為神職人員應該遠離政治。史考特安德森在他最近出版的關於這場革命的著作《萬王之王》中，開篇便表達了困惑：這場革命完全出乎意料。時至今日，仍然沒有人知道它為何能夠成功。安德森引用了美國伊朗問題專家加里·西克的話，西克表示，他閱讀了40年關於這場革命的書籍，卻始終沒有找到一本能夠解釋這場革命的答案。 （我剛開始讀《萬王之王》——我猜唐納德·川普還沒讀過——我希望能從中找到答案。）
衛隊成員的統治之路並不平坦。霍梅尼的繼任者，大阿亞圖拉阿里·哈梅內伊，效仿俄國人的統治風格：他認為戈巴契夫推行自由主義改革導致了蘇聯的解體。哈梅內伊則採取了截然相反的做法，向世界——以及他的國民——展現出鐵腕強硬的一面，並透過武裝該地區的代理民兵組織——黎巴嫩真主黨、也門胡塞武裝、加沙哈馬斯以及伊拉克各種什葉派民兵——暗中擴張伊朗的勢力，以彰顯其地區影響力。
但政權已經搖搖欲墜。霍梅尼播下了禍根：他延續了國王允許女性接受教育的做法。女性也成為了伊朗改革運動的核心。 2001年我第一次去伊朗時，女性的政治立場可以從她們戴頭巾的方式看出。如果頭巾像聖母瑪利亞那樣嚴嚴實地繫在頭上，不露出任何頭髮，那麼她就是支持政權的保守派；頭髮露出得越多，就越進步。我和四位可愛的女大學生一起喝咖啡，她們的頭巾綁得很高，總是滑落。我問她們為什麼不用別針固定住。她們告訴我，男生喜歡看頭巾滑落的樣子。 “他們喜歡看我們重新繫頭巾，”一位女生說，“我們每個人都有自己獨特的係法。”
啊，個性－－暴政的喪鐘！狂熱難以維繫。人們渴望物質，渴望與眾不同。事實上，這個政權之所以能維持如此之久，正是其殘暴至極的結果；一月份街頭數千人的慘死似乎預示著政權的終結——然而並沒有，如同以往，示威活動逐漸平息。除了巴斯基民兵（宗教警察）和革命衛隊之外，人們對暴力鮮有興趣。 2009年我再次造訪時，正身處一場街頭騷亂之中，巴斯基民兵正在毆打綠黨改革派人士，其中包括一群反對衛隊的溫和派毛拉。在那之後，我發誓不再稱政府為「毛拉們」；因為有很多神職人員都不願意與這個政權有任何瓜葛。
現在呢？誰知道呢？有人幻想，國家安全委員會秘書阿里·拉里賈尼會扮演委內瑞拉副總統德爾西·羅德里格斯開創的角色——正是這位社會主義副總統促成了美國的接管。拉里賈尼無疑是個重要人物。據說，他組織了今年一月對反政府街頭示威者的鎮壓。但由於他被指控“務實”，憲法監護委員會禁止他參加2021年的總統競選。就像伊朗的很多事情一樣，他是個謎。這是一個充滿巴札人和 陰謀論者的國家。我訪問伊朗時最喜歡問的問題是：究竟是誰在掌控這個國家？一個常見的答案是：黑暗勢力！
就像委內瑞拉一樣，這裡似乎也沒有什麼真正的計畫。川普無疑認為自己會再次僥倖成功。他或許能夠巧妙地與這個政權的新領導階層（儘管他們的力量已被嚴重削弱）達成協議。但歷史卻並非如此。歷史告訴我們，那隻會是泥淖……或是暴政。一位睿智的伊朗人曾對我說：“沙阿認為伊朗是波斯的，而不是穆斯林的。阿亞圖拉認為伊朗是穆斯林的，而不是波斯的。他們都錯了。”
如果伊朗人，一個勤奮好學的民族，都無法自己弄清楚這個國家的真實性質，那麼唐納德·特朗普——以及他那些暗中搞殖民主義的暴徒（雖然顯然不包括丹·凱恩將軍和美國軍方）——憑什麼認為自己可以呢？
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關於此帖的討論
喬，很抱歉這件事對你來說太複雜了，但其實並不難。我試著解釋一下：
1. 川普總統是美國近代史上最勇敢的三軍指揮官。這點毋庸置疑。他勇敢地採取行動，結束了自1979年以來一直對美國及其盟友構成威脅、並殺害美國人的恐怖分子，這是我一生中見過的任何一位總統最勇敢的舉動。
2. 與傳統政治家不同，川普總統採取了一項沒有政治上利弊、卻有嚴重政治下行風險的行動，因為他真心想為美國人民和世界做正確的事。
3. 川普總統果斷的領導力或許能取得與雷根總統站在柏林勃蘭登堡門向蘇聯領導人戈巴契夫發出「推倒這堵牆！」挑戰時相似甚至更大的成果。不同之處在於，雷根總統不費一槍一彈就做到了。但戈巴契夫是一位理性的人，而伊朗最高領袖哈梅內伊則是一位激進的聖戰士，他曾多次宣稱要給以色列和美國帶來毀滅。當你的敵人表明他們的意圖時，要相信他們。有時，武力是必要的。鑑於川普總統授權對伊朗的聖戰士、毛拉和恐怖分子領導層發動了迅速而壓倒性的軍事打擊，他似乎是美國英雄將軍喬治·S·巴頓戰術的忠實擁護者。雷根和川普都表明，要嘛你有膽量，要嘛你沒有。
4. 喬，你同時展現了你的愚蠢和無知；為什麼任何女性都要被迫戴頭巾？
5. 據各方報道，川普總統在委內瑞拉的計畫執行得非常出色，並已取得積極成果。很抱歉，這對您來說也太複雜了。
6. 務必跟上步伐；川普總統一直鼓勵伊朗公民和軍方抓住這個機會，掌控自己的國家。正如川普所說，「這可能是你們這一代唯一的機會」。
7. 歸根究底，川普總統（再一次）完全正確；絕不能允許伊朗製造核武。
8. Iran has been trying to enrich uranium to 60%, which is weapons grade, by justifying it for medical purposes. Medical uranium only requires 5% enrichment. The Trump negotiation team offered Iran medical grade uranium for free, for life and Iran refused. So, like everything else, the current Iranian leadership lies through their teeth, just like basement Biden’s DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did about their open border, uncontrolled, unvetted, taxpayer subsidized, illegal immigration into the US.
9. This is not just about Iran; this is also a blow to all of Iran’s terrorist proxies all over the world.
10. Furthermore; I relish the stark contrast between President Trump’s fair and firm toughness with Iran’s Mullah regime versus B. Hussein Obama and John Kerry’s total failures by flying plane loads of cash in the middle of the night to the regime, foolishly thinking these radical terrorists could be rehabilitated with naive ignorance and kindness.
11. In addition, President Trump’s emerging legend of “you don’t mess around with Trump” has certainly projected a deterrent to US enemies across the globe. I’m sure that China will be pulling back their aggression to take over Taiwan. I’m sure Putin and Zelinsky are recognizing it’s time to end the Ukraine war before Trump turns both barrels (diplomatically, not militarily) on them.
12. And what the heck are “crypto-colonialist thugs”? What are you smoking Joe?
Joe, you can thank American citizens first voters for re-electing President Trump (for the second time) to put someone in the White House who loves the USA, who does what is in the best interest of its citizens and is smart enough, is tenacious enough and has the balls to fight for us. President Trump is remaking the world. You should be grateful you get to watch history being made. You’re welcome.
I’m convinced that Trump’s foreign policy exploits now — in direct contradiction to his America-first declarations — represent a plan to lift his approval ratings prior to the midterms. So egregiously anti-constitutional have been his domestic machinations that he’s deathly afraid of a landslide flip in Congressional control that will result in impeachment and — his worst nightmare — jail. Like so many others, I too revile Iran’s brutal theocracy, but I simply do not trust the morally bankrupt might-makes-right Trump for doing the right thing in any circumstance now.
Ready for more?
Mystery Mosque
Is Iran the world's most inexplicable country?
I am reluctant to write anything about Iran yet. My gut says Trump’s decision was a bad one. There are too many complications. Iran is not Iraq, which was, and is, an amalgam of three different Ottoman satrapies, with three major factions—Sunni, Shi’a and Kurd. Iran is far more coherent and, at the same time, stupifyingly mysterious. It does not have straight-line borders, which means it wasn’t created by western colonial powers. It has a brilliant ancient heritage. It is a middle class country. And, in my visits there, I came away convinced that while the Iranian people hated the brutal velayat-e-faqih regime, it hated the notion of foreigners invading and overthrowing the regime even more.
Wait a minute, Joe: what’s this velayat-e-faqih business you just dropped on us? Well, it was a minority extremist religious movement—the core belief was government by Religious Guardians—that took over the country in 1979, led by the charismatic and rather curious Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and has somehow remained in power ever since. Well, not somehow: it ruled the old-fashioned way, in alliance with a powerful militia, the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This represented a sharp divergence from the more traditional Shi’a quietist tradition, which held that clerics should steer clear of politics. In his recent book about the revolution, King of Kings, Scott Anderson starts from perplexity: The revolution was entirely unexpected. To this day, no one knows why it succeeded. Anderson cites the American Iran expert Gary Sick who says that he’s been reading books about the revolution for 40 years and hasn’t found one that explains it. (I’ve just started reading King of Kings—I would guess Donald Trump hasn’t—and I’m hoping for answers.)
The crown never rested easily on the Guardians. Khomeini’s successor, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, took his governing style from the Russians: he thought that Gorbachev had brought on the downfall of the Soviet Union by adopting liberal reforms. Khamenei took the opposite course, presenting a stone-brutal face to the world—and to his own citizens—and aggrandizing Iran’s power surreptitiously by arming proxy militias in the region: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, various Shi’a militia in Iraq—to project regional power.
But the regime had gone wobbly. The seeds had been sown by Khomeini: he continued the Shah’s practice of allowing women to be educated. And women became the locus of the reform movement in Iran. When I first visited in 2001, you could see a woman’s politics by where she placed her hijab. If the scarf was fastened in a severe Virgin Mary wimple, showing no hair, she was a regime-supporting conservative; the more hair shown, the more progressive. I had coffee with four delightful female college students, who wore their hijabs so far back that they kept slipping off. Why not just pin them in place, I asked. Because, they told me, boys liked it when the hijab slipped off. “They like to see us retie it,” one woman said, “and each of us have our own distinctive way of doing it.”
Ah, individuality—the death knell of tyranny! It is difficult to sustain fanaticism. People want things. They have a need for distinction. Indeed, the fact that the regime has lasted this long is a consequence of its fabulous brutality; the thousands murdered in the streets in January seemed a possible denouement—but no, as in the past, the demonstrations waned. There was little appetite for violence, except among the basij—the religious police—and the Revolutionary Guards. When I visited again in 2009, I found myself in the midst of a street riot with the basij pummeling Green Party reformers, including a line of quietist Mullahs, opposed to the Guardians. I vowed not to call the government “the mullahs” after that; there were plenty of clerics who wanted no part of the regime.
And now? Who knows? There are fantasies that Ali Larijani, the secretary of the National Security Council, will play the role pioneered by Delsey Rodriguez in Venezuela, the socialist vice president who enabled the American takeover. Larijani is certainly a player. It is said that he organized the crackdown on the anti-regime street demonstrators in January. But he was also banned from running for President by the Council of Guardians in 2021 because of his alleged “pragmatic” tendencies. Like so much of Iran, he’s a mystery. This is a nation of bazaaris and conspiracists. My favorite question when I visited Iran was, who really runs this country? A common answer: the dark forces!
As with Venezuela, there seems to be no real plan here. Trump no doubt believes that he’ll luck out again. And there is the possibility that he can thread the needle and negotiate a deal with the new, severely weakened leadership of the regime. But history says otherwise. History says quagmire…or tyranny. A wise Iranian once said to me, “The Shah thought Iran was Persian not Muslim. The Ayatollah thought Iran was Muslim not Persian. They were both wrong.”
If Iranians, a studiously clever people, can’t figure out the true nature of the country on their own, what makes Donald Trump—and his crypto-colonialist thugs (though apparently not General Dan Caine and the US military)—think he can?
Joe, sorry that this is too complicated for you to understand, but this really isn’t difficult. I’ll try to splain it to you:
1. President Trump is the most courageous Commander in Chief in modern American history. There is no question about this. His brave move to end the threat against America and our allies and who have been killing Americans since 1979 is the bravest move that any President has done in my lifetime.
2. Unlike traditional politicians, President Trump undertook an action that has no political upside potential and has severe political downside risk, because he genuinely wants to do what’s right for Americans and the World.
3. President Trump’s decisive leadership may achieve similar or greater results than President Reagan standing at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall! The difference is that President Reagan was able to pull it off without firing a shot. But Gorbachev was a reasonable man where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a radical Jihadist who has repeatedly espoused his intention to bring death to Israel and death to America. When your enemies state their intentions, believe them. Sometimes circumstances are such that military force is necessary. Given the rapid overwhelming force that President Trump authorized against the Jihadist, Mullah, terrorist leadership of Iran it seems he is a student of the warfare tactics of the heroic US General George S. Patton. Both Reagan and Trump demonstrate that either you have gonads or you don’t.
4. Joe, you simultaneously demonstrate your stupidity and ignorance; why should any woman be forced to wear a hijab?
5. By every account President Trump’s plan in Venezuela has been executed brilliantly and the positive results are following. Sorry that this is also too complicated for you to understand.
6. And try to keep up; President Trump has consistently encouraged the Iranian citizens and those of the Iranian military to take this opportunity to take control of their country. As Trump said, “this may be the only opportunity you have in a generation”.
7. The bottom line is President Trump is absolutely right (once again); Iran can’t be allowed to make nuclear weapons.
8. Iran has been trying to enrich uranium to 60%, which is weapons grade, by justifying it for medical purposes. Medical uranium only requires 5% enrichment. The Trump negotiation team offered Iran medical grade uranium for free, for life and Iran refused. So, like everything else, the current Iranian leadership lies through their teeth, just like basement Biden’s DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did about their open border, uncontrolled, unvetted, taxpayer subsidized, illegal immigration into the US.
9. This is not just about Iran; this is also a blow to all of Iran’s terrorist proxies all over the world.
10. Furthermore; I relish the stark contrast between President Trump’s fair and firm toughness with Iran’s Mullah regime versus B. Hussein Obama and John Kerry’s total failures by flying plane loads of cash in the middle of the night to the regime, foolishly thinking these radical terrorists could be rehabilitated with naive ignorance and kindness.
11. In addition, President Trump’s emerging legend of “you don’t mess around with Trump” has certainly projected a deterrent to US enemies across the globe. I’m sure that China will be pulling back their aggression to take over Taiwan. I’m sure Putin and Zelinsky are recognizing it’s time to end the Ukraine war before Trump turns both barrels (diplomatically, not militarily) on them.
12. And what the heck are “crypto-colonialist thugs”? What are you smoking Joe?
Joe, you can thank American citizens first voters for re-electing President Trump (for the second time) to put someone in the White House who loves the USA, who does what is in the best interest of its citizens and is smart enough, is tenacious enough and has the balls to fight for us. President Trump is remaking the world. You should be grateful you get to watch history being made. You’re welcome.
I’m convinced that Trump’s foreign policy exploits now — in direct contradiction to his America-first declarations — represent a plan to lift his approval ratings prior to the midterms. So egregiously anti-constitutional have been his domestic machinations that he’s deathly afraid of a landslide flip in Congressional control that will result in impeachment and — his worst nightmare — jail. Like so many others, I too revile Iran’s brutal theocracy, but I simply do not trust the morally bankrupt might-makes-right Trump for doing the right thing in any circumstance now.