Iran After Khamenei – Commentary Magazine
Will the long knives be drawn in Iran's coming succession struggle?
Iranian politicians may already be jockeying for the Islamic Republics June presidential race, but that election remains a sideshow to the real power in Iran: the Supreme Leader and his immediate office. It has been nearly 28 years since there was a transition in that office when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei replaced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini upon his death.
Ayatollahs live a long life, but they do eventually die. That day of reckoning is drawing near for Khamenei, who reportedly suffered from prostate cancer. Even if the 77-year-old Khamenei beat that episode, it amplified discussion of his mortality and what comes next.
In theory, the 86-member Assembly of Experts chooses the next supreme leader, but that clerical body is little more than a coffee klatch. Before Khomeini died in 1989, regime elites already informally gathered around a compromise candidateKhameneiwho was seen as weak and not unduly tied to any of the major competing factions, each of which worked to negate the others candidates. The Assembly approved Khamenei, but only after all other power centers informally signed off on the man.
Decades on, however, the power balance is not the same. For a variety of reasons, Khamenei unleashed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to cut more liberal forces down to size. IRGC influence in politics peaked under Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013), but Hassan Rouhanis succession did not mean ending hardline power. Rather, he merely swapped the IRGC for the Intelligence Ministry to maintain hardline rule.
The simple fact is that, with time, the range of acceptable political discourse has narrowed inside Iran. The immediate post-revolutionary years were a positive political cacophony compared to the present day. Reformists who peaked under Khatami and who once were the toast of Washington and European capitals now find themselves or their children imprisoned or under house arrest. Despite his campaign promises, Rouhani has not succeeded in winning the release of imprisoned reformists, that is, if Rouhani even sincerely tried.
Now, to the future. Iranian officials may have initially accepted Khamenei because they thought he was weak and pliable, but he showed himself to be astute. Far from being the moderate or pragmatist many American pundits believed at the time of his rise to the leadership, Khamenei proved himself very much in the hardline camp. He has a vision, and he wants his successor to share the same ideology.
Much speculation has centered on Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric and official who has held a number of political and religious posts. The Council on Foreign Relations Ray Takeyh, an astute Iran watcher, penned a piece in the Washington Post last fall speculatingprobably correctlyabout Khameneis desire to see Raisi succeed him.
Heres the rub, however: When Khamenei is removed from the scene, anything can happen. Internal Iranian power struggles can make Machiavellis Florence look like a Quaker summer camp in comparison. The daggers will be out for Raisi to ensure that his hardline compatriots and supporters dont undercut the patronage networks upon which more pragmatic or reformist forces depend. In short, reformists or those who seek a more liberal future may fear that they barely survived three decades of Khamenei-ism and that they cant make it through another three decades led by his ideological twin.
The question then becomes what can Khamenei do to ensure Raisis confirmation? Khameneis word will be worthless when dead. However, he could take a page from Pope Benedict XVI and resign. If Khamenei resigns his post while still alive, he will retain significant influence over the selection process and can probably install Raisi and give Raisi time to consolidate his power. Increasingly, its a possibility about which Iranians whisper.
Iranian presidential elections have always been sideshows. In 2017, they may be even more so because the real decisions about Irans leadership will certainly come in its wake.
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The New York State Board of Regents, which supervisespublic education, hasdecided it willno longer be necessary for would-be teachers to pass anAcademic Literacy Skills Test. Thereason? The test was producing racially disparate results: Only 41 percent of black candidates and 46 percent of Hispanic candidates had passedthe exam on their first attempt, compared to 64 percent of white candidates.
With aDepartment of Education study putting the number of white public school teachers at over 80 percent with a student body hovering around 50 percent white, advocating for a diverse teaching staff is understandable. If rectifying this imbalance isa priority for the Board of Regents, its members should ensure their methods do not diminish the quality of their educators. They are doing the opposite.
Diversity is not always a good thing, and it shouldnt be political suicide to say so. There should be no diversity in the quality of our public school teachers. Students should be taught by the best and brightest, whatever color they may be. If the results of the Academic Literacy Skills Testreflect a racial disparity, the solution is not to dissolve the standard or reverse-engineer a test that exactly the same number of whites and minorities can pass. The solution should be to direct resources towards our education systemso that all students, regardless of their color, are receiving equally excellent educations and being taught by the most qualified teachersand so that those students can become those teachers later in their lives. If fewer minorities are passing the ALST, the problemis not with the exam itself, but in the comparative quality of the education minorities receive. Lowering the standards for aspiring teachers will only exacerbate, not solve, this problem.
By eliminating the test, the Board of Regents has prioritized the aim of diversity over the success of its students, and has thus blatantlyabandoned its primary responsibility. What is politically expedient is not always right, and in the case of the ALST, it seems the Board of Regents has not done its homework.
The test is predominantly made up of multiple choice questions, so heres one for those that advocated for the tests elimination:
What is the purpose of education?
a) To transmit knowledge and values to the students and to arm them with the tools and resources necessary to further educate themselves. b) To assemble a diverse teaching staff in order to satisfy the standards of what is deemed politically correct.
The Board of Regents has shamed itself with its answer.
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Cornel West favors free speech, unless it is on the subject of Israel.
Cornel West, Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard Divinity School, is, whatever one thinks of him, among the biggest names in American intellectual life. It was, therefore, a coup when he put himself, with Princetons Robert George, at the head of a statement articulating the principle of free thought and expression, particularly at colleges and universities. The statement arises in response to the shouting down (and worse) of Charles Murray at Middlebury College, about which I have written here.
It is an excellent statement, which reads in part, [A]ll of us should seek respectfully to engage with people who challenge our views. And we should oppose efforts to silence those with whom we disagreeespecially on college and university campuses. As John Stuart Mill taught, a recognition of the possibility that we may be in error is a good reason to listen to and honestly considerand not merely to tolerate grudginglypoints of view that we do not share, and even perspectives that we find shocking or scandalous. Whats more, as Mill noted, even if one happens to be right about this or that disputed matter, seriously and respectfully engaging people who disagree will deepen ones understanding of the truth and sharpen ones ability to defend it.
It is wonderful to know that Professor West has changed his mind. He has, until now, also been one of the biggest names behind the speech-suppressing Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel. Why it was just last week that Westcrowed that BDS is winning. He views Israels recently passed law empowering the interior minister to deny visas to non-citizens who have supported the boycott, defined to include boycotts of settlement product, as a sign of panic.
I think the new law is regrettable, though more a sign of disgust than panic. However that may be, West has long put his name behind a movement one of whose signature moves in the academy has been the shouting down of pro-Israel speakers. As David Greenberg and Cary Nelson both of whom have been important voices against BDS in academia have noted, there has been a disturbing surge in the number of invited campus speakers being repeatedly interrupted or actually prevented from delivering a public lecture. A startling share of these silencing efforts aredirected at Israelis or other speakers sympathetic to Israel who have run afoul of the growing anti-Israel movement on campuses.
Although shouting down speakers long preceded the rise of the BDS movement, it follows almost necessarily from BDSs quasi-theological commitment to anti-normalization. BDS holds doctrinally that Israel must be treated as a pariah state and that supporters of Israel must be treated as propagandists for evil. In episodes at the University of Minnesota, New York University, the University of Chicago, and San Francisco State University, BDS supporters certainly acted as if God was on their side as they shouted down or attempted to shout down speakers deemed pro-Israel.
Certainly Cornel West has been on their side, or, at least, he has not uttered a mumbling word about this well-known BDS tactic. To be clear, merely turning ones back on a speaker, or even encouraging people not to listen to him or her does not necessarily violate the principles enunciated in the statement to which West has put his name. Indeed, the statement explicitly calls the right of peaceful protest sacrosanct. But it certainly does strongly encourage hearing out the best representatives even of opinions one regards as dangerously misguided. Indeed, the radical West and the conservative Robert George who have joined to make this statement have taught together and engaged in a series of public discussions that, by all reports, are models of respectful disagreement.
Although the principles that George and West enunciate are even consistent with a degree of disruptiona walkout for examplethere can be no squaring them with shouting down speakers, as the BDS movement West supports not only tolerates but also encourages. The statement is quite clear: we should oppose efforts to silence those with whom we disagreeespecially on college and university campuses.
I look forward to Professor Wests statement opposing the BDS movement.
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Im not nave enough to think that better PR would solve all of Israels international relations problems. But theres no question that incompetent PR makes its situation much worse. As one example, consider Tuesdaysshocking revelation: Within about 24 hours of the most high-profile civilian casualty incident of the 2009 Gaza war, Israel had obtained evidence casting doubt on its responsibility for that death. But it sat on this evidence for more than eight years, finally releasing it only as part of a defense brief in a civil suit by the victims father.
The incident in question took place on January 16, 2009, when Israeli troops fighting in Gaza came under sniper fire. The troops fired two shells at an observation post that seemed to be directing the snipers. The observation post was located on the third floor of a building which, unbeknownst to the soldiers, was also the home of a well-known doctor, Izzeldin Abuelaish. Three of Abuelaishs daughters were killed, along with one of his nieces; several other family members were wounded. Abuelaish, who worked in Israel, maintained good relations with Israelis and advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace, later became famous worldwide when he published a book about this incident and his response to it, called I Shall Not Hate.
Israel was blamed worldwide for the Abuelaish casualties and never publicly challenged the assumption of its guilt. Yet it now turns out that within a day after the incident, it had evidence indicating that its shells may not have caused the carnage.
The evidence came in the form of laboratory tests conducted on six pieces of shrapnel extracted from the two casualties treated in Israel (the other wounded werent brought to Israel, nor were any of the dead, so no shrapnel from the other victims was available). The tests showed that alongside traces of various explosives used by both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas, at least one fragment contained an explosive called R-Salt, which isnt used by the IDF but is commonly used in improvised explosive devices in Gaza. Moreover, all six fragments contained potassium nitrate, another substance not used in IDF weaponry that is used in Hamass homemade Qassam rockets.
A follow-up report a month later, which compared the shrapnel to the specific type of Israeli shells fired, concluded that four of the six fragments could not possibly have come from those shells; a fifth may have come from an IDF shell, and apparently, no conclusions were possible about the sixth.
All of the above indicates that Hamas or a smaller Palestinian organization was using the house as a weapons cache. According to the IDF, there is no other way to account for the presence of non-IDF explosives in the shrapnel.
This in no way implies culpability on Abuelaishs part; Palestinian terrorists routinely store weaponry in civilian houses without the owners consent or even knowledge. But it does raise the possibility that the Israeli shells, which were intended to take out the observation post without significant damage to the house, would not have caused such extensive casualties had the house not contained a concealed weapons cachesomething the soldiers couldnt have knownwhich exploded when the shells hit. And if so, then Israel clearly isnt responsible for the deaths: It used a reasonable amount of force to respond to a legitimate military threat and could not have foreseen the deadly consequences.
One of the most common accusations leveled at Israel by its critics is that because it possesses precision weaponry capable of feats like destroying a single room without damaging the rest of the building, any civilian casualties it causes must be the result of criminal negligence at best and deliberate murderousness at worst. That conclusion is obviously possible only if you ignore various salient facts, such as that mistakes are inevitable in wartime when soldiers must often make split-second decisions based on imperfect information.
But one of those salient facts is Hamass habit of storing arms and ammunition in civilian houseswithout, obviously, informing Israel of the caches locations. This means that no matter how carefully Israeli troops choose their munitions, they have no way to protect against the possibility that an arms cache they didnt know about will set off secondary explosions, resulting in far more extensive damage than they intended.
This fact is essential to understanding why the blame for most civilian casualties actually rests not with Israel, which does try hard to use proportionate military force, but with Hamas, which deliberately endangers its own civilian population by hiding weapons in their houses. Yet since it is frequently not well understood overseas, Israel has every interest in publicizing high-profile examples as heavily as possible.
Instead, it sat on its information about the Abuelaish case for eight years. The lab report was kept so secret that even Abuelaishs lawyers didnt know of its existence until last week, although the suit was filed back in 2010. And then, having finally been forced to disclose the report to defend against the lawsuit, the government nevertheless made no attempt to publicize it; it came to light only because a reporter took the trouble to read the defense brief and realized that the information was newsworthy.
Obviously, information like this wont change a single Israel haters mind. But there are many people of goodwill, especially overseas Jews, who sincerely want to believe that the IDF strives to avoid civilian casualties, but cant understand why, if so, they nevertheless keep occurring.
Israel has many valid answers to that question, including the fact that its civilian-to-military casualty ratio is actually lower than that of other Western armies. But these answers are useless if it doesnt take the trouble to publicize them. Sitting on exculpatory information about a high-profile case for eight years is hardly the way to assuage its supporters concerns.
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Zarif's perversion of Iranian history.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Irans foreign minister, took to Twitter earlier this week to castigate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for propagating what Zarif termed fake history. The offense Zarif protested was the Israeli prime ministers decision to draw allusions between the story of Purim and the present day. To sell bigoted lies against a nation which has saved Jews three times, Netanyahu resorting to fake history [and] falsifying Torah. Force of habit, the Iranian foreign minister declared.
Zarifs rebuke of Netanyahu was enough to win applause in some circles, but those who buy into the myth of an Iranian haven for Jews should think again.
Take the modern day. How often have pundits talked about the Islamic Republics supposed tolerance for Jews by citing the fact that Irans parliament has a Jewish representative or that Iran is home to perhaps 20,000 Jews, supposedly the second-greatest Jewish population in the Middle East besides Israel?
Lets put aside the fact that no one knows just how many Jews are in Iran today. The 20,000 figure has been bandied about since the 1990s, even though many Jews continue to leave Iran for Israel or the United States. And also put aside the fact that the second largest community doesnt mean anything when the difference between the first and the second are several orders of magnitude. It is akin to saying Finland is the second-largest destination for sun-and-surf beach vacations if the only other choice in the survey is Jamaica. What matters is that, under the regime that Zarif represents, Iran has lost at least 80 percent of its Jewish population. Thats generally not a sign that Iran is a welcoming and healthy place for Jews to thrive or even live.
Praise for having a Jewish representative in parliament is just as misplaced. When I attended synagogue as a student in Iran, members of the Jewish community did not trust the representative. His sole purpose seemed to be to pass pronouncements from the government to the synagogues and to be cited to deflect attention from Irans fairly horrendous human rights record.
Beyond that, though, is Iran safe for Jews? Itdepends. Pogromsas vicious as any in Eastern Europecharacterized nineteenth century Iran. Then there were the restrictive rules: In 1889, for example, the government prohibited Jews in Isfahan from going outside on wet days lest rainwater spread their impurity. Jews were also forbidden from touching food, speaking loudly, or purchasing any goods in the market. (Daniel Tsadik provides an excellent account of modern Jewish history in his 2007 book, Between Foreigners and Shiis; Habib Levys Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran remains a masterpiece).
It is true that, at times, Iran was a relative haven for the Jews. The irony here, though, is that it was the regime that Zarif represents not only overthrew an Iranian state that allowed its Jewish minority to thrive, but also sought to close the door on the laudable regimes of the distant past. Zarif now presumes to cite that history for the expressed purpose of demonizing the democratically-elected leader of a state whose existence Zarif refuses to recognize and whose genocidal enemies he arms and encourages.
There is something very wrong in the world when Zarif is taken seriously on matters of communal harmony and religious peace.
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Iran After Khamenei - Commentary Magazine