Kidnapping a distraction from despotism in Iran

Amir Taheri:

WAS the crisis over the capture of the British host ages part of a smoke screen for a crackdown on dissidents in Iran?

The question is posed in Tehran as the establishment debates the future of the regime's foreign and domestic policies.

The crackdown is beginning to gather pace. Several publications critical of government have been shut down, and numerous officials regarded as "not revolutionary enough" elbowed out, especially in the provinces. And now the regime seems to be setting the stage for show trials that recall the worst days of Stalinism in the Soviet Union.

Last month, a member of the Majlis, the regime's ersatz parliament, was sent to prison for six years on trumped-up charges. The real "crime" of Salaheddin Ala'i: He had criticized the killing of dissidents in Iran's Kurdistan province.

Next week, it will be the turn of former Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh, who'll stand trial on charges of undermining the security of the Khomeinist state.

Tajzadeh is one of the establishment's most interesting figures. A man with impeccable revolutionary credentials, he has always insisted that the regime cannot ensure its future by silencing or murdering critics.

The next on the block is expected to be Muhammad Reza Khatami - a brother of former President Muhammad Khatami - who also has an impressive revolutionary resume.

In 1979, he was one of the two dozen or so "students" who raided the United States' Embassy in Tehran and seized its diplomats hostage. Later, he built a career in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and solidified his revolutionary credentials by marrying a granddaughter of Ruhallah Khomeini, the ayatollah who created the Islamic Republic. During his brother's presidency, Muhammad Reza acted as deputy speaker of the Majlis.

Yet, he too, is targeted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's new radical administration - charged with "activities that undermine the Islamic system."

...

One of the perversions of Islam is that anyone that disagrees with the weird views of the radicals is not Islamic or is undermining the Islamic system. If Iran is an example of the Islamic system then it is deeply in need of being undermined. In the Islamic world though, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and the Saudis all think they have or had an Islamic system and they are all despotic to one degree or another. What is going on in Iran is an attempt to consolidate power and suppress dissent and Islam is just the vessel used to accomplish that objective.