Comments on NY Times Op/Ed on Iran's recent election - Koran and the Ballot Box
Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/opinion/21gerecht.html
I disagree with many assertions of the author, REUEL MARC GERECHT, an ex-CIA agent, who had his hands full one time trying to topple regimes in the Middle East that were deemed anti-USA. In his analysis of the current events in Iran, he says, "God’s will and the people’s wants were no longer compatible."
Gerecht forgets that Khatami was as much a product of Islamic learning as is Khamenei and so is Montazari and even Sistani. None of them ever questions whether God's will and people's wants are compatible. Wherever it is incompatible that is where people have deviated from God's will. Pure and simple! In His infinite Mercy, God did not intend anything harmful for human beings - but has given them a choice which can go either way depending on the nafs of the person. The greatest source of peace and saqinah is derived from following His ways. If today, Iranian masses or anyone for that matter anywhere around the world is questioning God's wisdom in what is good or bad, it is as much a product of failure of those who tried to govern by God's law as is the mere realization that we are living in the age of Kali when Satan's ways appear more attractive to mortals than God's way.
The writer claims that Iran's revolution "was the first attempt by militant Muslims to prove that “Islam has all the answers” — or at least enough of them to run a modern state and make its citizenry more moral children of God." I don't think Gerecht understands the concept of vilayet-e-Faqih as articulated in Imam Khomeini's writings and speeches. Nowhere did the shi'ite Imam claim that he and any of those trying to act as trailblazers for the future Imam have all the answers how to govern perfectly. No, they don't. But that does not mean that a pious man is less qualified to rule than an impious one. What he was able to do was break that passivity that had dominated the shi'ite society too long with the ultimate result that until the hidden Imam comes there is nothing for them to do other than wait and see.
Was the Shah's rule better? Even today, if there is a vote on this issue - I am sure the answer may still be - NO, in spite of the fact that the current generation does not have as much zeal as their father and mother had. It is always difficult to sustain revolutionary zeal! As Khomeini had said, this government of ours will stay as long as our people are vigilant and caring about it to protect it by doing what is morally right. If the Iranian people feel differently today, then something in that equation has gone awfully wrong - from the governing to those governed.
It is also wrong to assert that common masses have not benefited from the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But like any revolution, it definitely has not befriended every John or Jane Doe. I am curious to learn from the author: what are the metrics for such an assertion?
The author's assertion that Moussavi is Obama's best hope shows his lack of understanding on a matter of national consensus. No Iranian, even the so-called pro-western Rafsanjani, let alone Moussavi, wants to see a halt to the nuclear program. There is absolute agreement all across Iran on the nuclear issue. And mind that I don't have any reason to doubt that the program is anything but for peaceful use for energy need. Many in the USA is simply parroting the Israeli position to throttle the program. They are foolishly hoping that with Moussavi the program will be shut down.
Bottom line: After the fall of the Shah, the West has been on a collision course with Islam - especially on its desire to see that Muslims don't have a model to go after other than westernization to mend their houses, demolished in hundreds of years of colonization. This they tried through several means, from holding Iranian assets to imposing crippling economic and trade embargo, let alone imposing a very costly war on Iran for nearly ten years. With the global economic control the West and esp. the USA have, it was difficult for any regime to survive and make their citizens happy. I am sure if the West was not so much into punishing Iran for its experiment with hukumat-i Islamiyah, things would have been much better for the common people. [There was a time when CIA tried to topple any regime that was perceived unfriendly to the USA. The same experiment to topple Sk. Mujib's regime was unleashed in the early 1970s (not for stopping Islam though but for the mere fact that the new country had emerged without the blessing of the USA in the cold-era, and was therefore deemed non-kosher per Kissinger), which succeeded just within 4 years.]
The hard fact is multi-national groups and organizations, let alone their backers from D.C., London, Paris and Munich, are too powerful players to be ignored any more. They can break any country's back into submission these days unless the people are still resistant to that change espoused by the foreign masters. If Iran has survived for the last three decades it shows the strength of its character, something that Bangladeshis did not have to protect theirs from foreign meddling.
I disagree with many assertions of the author, REUEL MARC GERECHT, an ex-CIA agent, who had his hands full one time trying to topple regimes in the Middle East that were deemed anti-USA. In his analysis of the current events in Iran, he says, "God’s will and the people’s wants were no longer compatible."
Gerecht forgets that Khatami was as much a product of Islamic learning as is Khamenei and so is Montazari and even Sistani. None of them ever questions whether God's will and people's wants are compatible. Wherever it is incompatible that is where people have deviated from God's will. Pure and simple! In His infinite Mercy, God did not intend anything harmful for human beings - but has given them a choice which can go either way depending on the nafs of the person. The greatest source of peace and saqinah is derived from following His ways. If today, Iranian masses or anyone for that matter anywhere around the world is questioning God's wisdom in what is good or bad, it is as much a product of failure of those who tried to govern by God's law as is the mere realization that we are living in the age of Kali when Satan's ways appear more attractive to mortals than God's way.
The writer claims that Iran's revolution "was the first attempt by militant Muslims to prove that “Islam has all the answers” — or at least enough of them to run a modern state and make its citizenry more moral children of God." I don't think Gerecht understands the concept of vilayet-e-Faqih as articulated in Imam Khomeini's writings and speeches. Nowhere did the shi'ite Imam claim that he and any of those trying to act as trailblazers for the future Imam have all the answers how to govern perfectly. No, they don't. But that does not mean that a pious man is less qualified to rule than an impious one. What he was able to do was break that passivity that had dominated the shi'ite society too long with the ultimate result that until the hidden Imam comes there is nothing for them to do other than wait and see.
Was the Shah's rule better? Even today, if there is a vote on this issue - I am sure the answer may still be - NO, in spite of the fact that the current generation does not have as much zeal as their father and mother had. It is always difficult to sustain revolutionary zeal! As Khomeini had said, this government of ours will stay as long as our people are vigilant and caring about it to protect it by doing what is morally right. If the Iranian people feel differently today, then something in that equation has gone awfully wrong - from the governing to those governed.
It is also wrong to assert that common masses have not benefited from the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But like any revolution, it definitely has not befriended every John or Jane Doe. I am curious to learn from the author: what are the metrics for such an assertion?
The author's assertion that Moussavi is Obama's best hope shows his lack of understanding on a matter of national consensus. No Iranian, even the so-called pro-western Rafsanjani, let alone Moussavi, wants to see a halt to the nuclear program. There is absolute agreement all across Iran on the nuclear issue. And mind that I don't have any reason to doubt that the program is anything but for peaceful use for energy need. Many in the USA is simply parroting the Israeli position to throttle the program. They are foolishly hoping that with Moussavi the program will be shut down.
Bottom line: After the fall of the Shah, the West has been on a collision course with Islam - especially on its desire to see that Muslims don't have a model to go after other than westernization to mend their houses, demolished in hundreds of years of colonization. This they tried through several means, from holding Iranian assets to imposing crippling economic and trade embargo, let alone imposing a very costly war on Iran for nearly ten years. With the global economic control the West and esp. the USA have, it was difficult for any regime to survive and make their citizens happy. I am sure if the West was not so much into punishing Iran for its experiment with hukumat-i Islamiyah, things would have been much better for the common people. [There was a time when CIA tried to topple any regime that was perceived unfriendly to the USA. The same experiment to topple Sk. Mujib's regime was unleashed in the early 1970s (not for stopping Islam though but for the mere fact that the new country had emerged without the blessing of the USA in the cold-era, and was therefore deemed non-kosher per Kissinger), which succeeded just within 4 years.]
The hard fact is multi-national groups and organizations, let alone their backers from D.C., London, Paris and Munich, are too powerful players to be ignored any more. They can break any country's back into submission these days unless the people are still resistant to that change espoused by the foreign masters. If Iran has survived for the last three decades it shows the strength of its character, something that Bangladeshis did not have to protect theirs from foreign meddling.
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