Every Man's Terrorist

By Paul Iddon

The case against the use of violence, terrorism or sabotage by those opposed to the Iranian regime as a means of trying to bring it down.

U.S. embassy in Beirut after terrorist attack 1983.

 In the aftermath of the recent oil pipeline fire in Khuzestan traders have cited fears of terrorism as the cause of the fire.

Would such terrorism and economic sabotage be justified in the name of bringing down the present regime in a bid to implement a democratic government in its place?
Of course not, and here's why;

The aftermath of the June 2009 elections in Iran caught the west's attention much more than the previous reformist student protests ten years beforehand. Not only was the association of Iran as a backward country self-evidently rendered untrue, as the only clear signs of primitivism an observant viewer saw came from the Basij thugs who were shown coldly and callously lashing out at unarmed and non-violent civilian protesters with batons. The advent and prominence of modern information technology made the amateur camera phone video clip of Neda Agha Soltan's death the 'most widely witnessed death in human history' as TIME magazine so aptly described it.

I know many in Iran are feeling both scared and angry and some even vengeful and feel like fighting the oppressors back by utilizing similar violent means in which to conduct such a fight, as a form of retribution if you will. This will not serve the purpose of Iranians who are fighting and in many cases risking their lives in bringing about democratic change. The violent anti-regime groups are much loathed for rightful reasons, because they harm the country and its citizens, the Jundallah for example who have in past blown up Shiite mosques aren't exactly striking a blow for freedom, or showing Iranians and the rest world how the present regime is illegitimate and oppressive, no they're simply another group of deplorable murderous thugs who're in reality no better than the ones they're committed to destroying.

To phrase it another way, if violence is the only language the regime can bring itself to speak then the people should speak the language of peace and unity as a way of marginalizing the regime and in effect wait for it to over play its hand and sign itself into the history books, as the last Shah did when he had Iranian soldiers open fire on an assembly of protesters. I am not trying to convey or adapt some wishful hippy mindset with regards to modern Iranian politics, but I do think that a strong willed solidarity movement will be a much stronger form of resistance than a heavily armed underground insurgency. It wasn't terrorism that brought the Soviet Union down, it was the solidarity movements of the likes of the one led by Lech Walesa in Poland, it was the resolve of the collective peoples, like those in Czechoslovakia whose peaceful resolve in the famous Velvet Revolution led them down a relatively bloodless path to democracy*, or in the Baltic states where the peoples of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all joined hands in the Singing Revolution. Or even in Iran itself in 1979, where after living in fear for several years of the Shah's dreaded SAVAK secret police the Iranian people fought together in their united opposition of the megalomaniac despot ruling their country.

In his book The Persian Puzzle author Kenneth Pollack asserts that they're two clocks ticking in Iran at present, one clock is ticking down the time until Iran enriches enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon, and the other one is ticking down the time the dictatorial theocracy has left until it can no longer assert its hold on power and the public's imagination.
I myself am opposed to the United States or Israel launching any form of a pre-emptive strike against any of Iran's nuclear facilities as I know there is a strong possibility that it would prompt the regime to respond militarily and therefore result in the United States military bombarding Iran to the extent that most of its infrastructure will be devastated as to prevent it from being capable of projecting conventional strength past its own borders, such an attack would be devastating to the country and its inhabitants.

The current US contingency plan to attack Iran has a list that ranges some 10,000 targets, this would most likely start with high ranking targets such as nuclear facilities, then ballistic missiles, air defence systems, air bases and army bases and then on to basic infrastructure such as roads etc., such a bombardment could break the back of the country, and increase the senile theocracies hold on domestic power as under the fog of war they would be able to brutishly crush opposition groups and solidify their own hold on power over a people stricken by the effects such an attack would have on the country at large. The regime in its prime youthful days held itself together in exactly this manner, when Saddam Hussein launched his invasion in 1980 the Islamic revolution was solidified as the invasion was seen by them as not only an attack on Iran, but an attack on Islam and thus a holy war, therefore the regime self justified itself in its own mind as it crushed any reformist groups at will under the guise of them being not only Iraqi-inspired enemies of the state but also as enemies of the revolution, and therefore enemies of Islam itself.

My main point is that if under the scenario outlined above in which the regime itself would likely to be able to tighten its grip on power and buy itself some more precious time then what good would domestic terrorism or economic sabotage do in the first place?
Leave that to the same fanatics who plundered the Iranian peoples hopes for a proper democratic system for the second time in the 20th century, as the real Iranian patriots who are looking to the future are the ones building up, not tearing down, they're the ones who see Iran as Iran, and who see the present as the 'Islamic Republic' phase and they're sure as hell not going to devote their energy into taking up a campaign of violence in a bid to take down the regime in an arduous and counter productive struggle that could see extensive damage done to the countries infrastructure.

If the regimes main proxy, Hezbollah is any example it is clear the enforcers and maintainers of the Islamic regime would strive with Iran and her people subject to poverty, destruction and defeat. This fact alone shows violent and terrorist methods of resistance and regime change would be dangerously futile and is inevitably a form of playing the regimes game, on their field, with their rules, made by them in a bid to give them a monopoly over the games primary tactic; violence.

More aptly put, blowing up oil installations and sabotaging economic assets isn't a productive way of paving the proverbial highway of Iran towards a brighter and more prosperous future.

* The Iranian regime is so insecure about the people in which it governs that it even expressed paranoia in the past over a peaceful 'Velvet Revolution' breaking out in Iran.