The Iranian Challenge to International Law and Values

The strategic threat Iran poses to regional and international security is one of the foremost foreign policy challenges that the West faces today. Iran’s regional influence is growing unchecked, whilst on the world stage it continues to flout UN resolutions and pursue a nuclear program that could provide it nuclear weapons in the not-too-distant future. To further discuss and understand the threat of Iran, the Henry Jackson Society and Louise Ellman MP hosted an event in the House of Commons featuring Professor David Menashri, the leading Israeli expert on Iran from Tel-Aviv University, and Professor Charles Asher Small, Director of for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy at Yale University. Those present included MPs, journalists, and friends and members of the Henry Jackson Society.

The Iranian Challenge to International Law and Values

The strategic threat Iran poses to regional and international security is one of the foremost foreign policy challenges that the West faces today. Iran’s regional influence is growing unchecked, whilst on the world stage it continues to flout UN resolutions and pursue a nuclear program that could provide it nuclear weapons in the not-too-distant future. To further discuss and understand the threat of Iran, the Henry Jackson Society and Louise Ellman MP hosted an event in the House of Commons featuring Professor David Menashri, the leading Israeli expert on Iran from Tel-Aviv University, and Professor Charles Asher Small, Director of for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy at Yale University. Those present included MPs, journalists, and friends and members of the Henry Jackson Society.

Professor David Menashri:

The regime and revolution

The expectations that were held by the Iranian people when the revolution started have not been met judging by today’s reality. Just as in any political movement that comes to power, the Islamic regime had two main aims in mind. The first was to stabilise itself and maintain power. In that effort the Iranian regime has been fairly successful. After 29 years they are still there, and the Islamic institutions they created are fairly stable. They have regular elections, with general elections at least once a year on average. Since the regime was installed, Iranians have gone to polls nine times for the presidency, eight times for parliament, four times for the council of experts and three times for local elections; almost every year there have been elections. In terms of the stability and continuity the clerics are firmly in power. But revolutions don’t come to this world simply to replace one political system with another. Revolutions come usually with an ideology, with a belief that their doctrine is a remedy to the problems of society. If the main aim was to resolve the problems of the common Iranian people, then the revolution has not been successful.

A religious movement?

There are three questions that are essential to understanding this phenomenon of radical Islam. The first question is to what degree the revolution is a religious movement. I happen to think these movements are much wider than religious movements in the narrow meaning of religion in Western society. In Western society we make a distinction between religion and state, religion and science, religion and many other things. Religion has a narrow meaning at least in the Christian world. In the Jewish world, in the Islamic world, religion is everything. Even what we eat has to do with religion, as does the political system, and the social structure. Religion therefore covers all spheres of life. So if you use religious terminology then to have been a truly Islamic revolution there would have to have been social, economic, cultural and political change, together with the creation of anti-imperialist sentiment.

If the aim of the revolution was to bring a better life to the Iranian people, then the stability of the regime does not depend on the return to Islam as much as it does on the regime’s capability to resolve the problems facing the Iranian people. It was nevertheless a revolution that created an Islamic regime. The result was religious state. When I lived in Iran the last two years under the Shah, studying for my PHD in Tehran, I saw many people who joined the revolution not because of religion but because life was miserable. Khomeini sold the dream that he would achieve the goals of the people. The aims were much more comprehensive than just changing the regime.

Islamic ideology

The second question is to what extent was the revolution Islamic in its ideology? Religion is a huge corpus of knowledge, and there are many interpretations and different schools of thought. Judaism is not practised today as it was 3000 years ago, or Christianity 2000 years ago. Today we look at religion according to our interpretation of the principles of faith in our own era. Interpretations change; there are different attitudes even within Shia Islam on almost every single issue. To put it in the words of Abdelkarim Saroush, the leading Iranian intellectual, there is no one interpretation of Islam, there is no one better than another, there is no final interpretation of Islam, and there can be no official interpretation of Islam. Even an Islamic regime cannot tell you that this is the only interpretation of Islam that you must accept and follow. There is a degree of pluralism, even within the religious establishment, but the extremist interpretation of Khomeini took hold and is being imposed on the people.

Policy

There are two main views of the regime. One sees it as reformist, pragmatist, and modernist. The other sees a radical, extremist, conservative or neo-conservative state. The Iranian regime has been pragmatic in many varied ways. It doesn’t really do what it said it would do 30 years ago. Key officials’ consider the consequences of their deeds, resulting in a degree of pragmatism over the years. There is also a recognition that the people could intervene to produce a change in Iranian policy. Iran was the only country in the world that has had two major revolutions in the 20^th century. A constitution was written in 1907 when there was a revolution. If you include Mossadegh and the events of 1891, you have four major mass political movements in one country in 120 years. So it is possible for the people to play a decisive role in political affairs.

When I read books published in Iran, it makes me feel very optimistic. A book by Ganji which labelled the regime as fascist was published in Tehran and sold many copies – though of course Ganji was arrested. Mohsen Kadivar, one of the leading intellectuals in Iran, wrote a big article as well, ‘The most pressing problem in Iran is the rule of the clergy’ – he also went to jail. The fact that there are 100 liberal newspapers that have been shut down in the last five years is somewhat promising, because it shows there was sufficient support for them to be set up.The majority of students in University are female.

But there are also many negative things, like inflation and unemployment. Each year only half of the 800,000 people that enter into the job market for the first time can get a job. Yet the government does nothing. The combination of the progressive elements and the misconduct of the regime may signal that the people are not satisfied and that there could be a change.

Positives vs extremism

There are positive things in Iranian society. Women’s and youth student organizations are very active. The Iranian movie industry is wonderful. Internet use in Iran is more extensive than in any other Middle Eastern country with the exception of Israel, so there are some trends in civil society that offer hope for the future. The advantage the regime faces is that there is no coordinated opposition movement. There are oppositions, but they hate each other more than they hate the regime in Tehran. There is no creation of an alternative ideology, and there is no agreement on a common leadership or ideology. For all practical purposes, power today is in the hands of the extremists.

However, the people of Iran do care what people think about them. They are very sensitive to criticism. It is important for them to know that the world sees it as important to promote human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. My basic philosophy is that Iranians are open to wisdom, they calculate the risks of their deeds, and the reason that they continue to make a mockery of the Western world is because there is no unified Western policy against them. Yet it is not impossible for Iran to achieve an accommodation with other states. For Israelis, Iran is not their traditional enemy. Look back at history: King Cyrus the Great granted freedom to the Jews and the last Shah of Iran had good relations with Israel. Israel maintained its embassy and diplomats in Iran even after Khamenei came to power.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Ahmadinejad has this apocalyptical, messianic vision that he has been assigned to pave the way for the return of the twelfth imam. He probably thinks things are wonderfully well for him in the Middle East. America has done a great service to Iran’s Islamic regime having removed both of Iran’s main enemies, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, and got themselves stuck in Iraq. The price of oil has risen to over $100 when it was $20 six years ago. The weakening of the Arab world and the strengthening of the Shi’ite countries gives a lot of power to the Iranians.

However, strictly speaking Ahmadinejad is not the head of the state; rather it is Khamenei. It is still the clerics and the clerical institutions that run things. So why do they give him the right to speak the way he speaks? Firstly, it is likely they share most of his views. He simply says what they feel deep in their hearts. The second reason is that Ahmadinejad has made all Iranian extremists look moderate. If you look in the newspapers all the articles about Khamenei are about how pragmatic he is. The only thing that could have made Khamenei appear pragmatic is by contrasting him with Ahmadinejad.

The problem of extremism and nuclear weapons

The main problem in Iran is that with growing extremism, there is a combination of radical ideology as being believed and articulated by Ahmadinejad, and weapons of mass destruction on the other hand. This combination could amount to a devastating scenario for the Middle East and beyond. The other issue is that Iran today is engaged in exporting its radicalism all over the Middle East. If you take Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic jihad and other radical movements in the area, it’s not just their mentors that come from Iran. It’s the people who supply them with an ideology, with political backing and financial support, and with training and arms. There should not be the expectation that Israel should do something, it’s too big an issue for the Israelis. Israeli policy should be to keep quiet on the issue of Iran, and be prepared for the worst. Iran should not have nuclear weapons, especially with the current regime in charge. However, it is up to the world as a whole to deal with the issue, not just Israel.

Solutions

One solution might be to exert pressure on Iran, led by the US. I think political pressure, economic pressure and so on is useful especially when it is unanimous. The one single case where the EU has all acted together unanimously against Iran was in April 1997 after the court in Berlin found the Iranian leaders guilty of terrorism in Europe. Twelve European countries returned their ambassadors from Tehran, and it affected the regime.

We can help in the Middle East by bringing the Israelis and the Arabs together, the moderate Arab countries, and solve the problems between them. The more we solve the problems in the Middle East, the weaker Iran will become. Iran is taking advantage of problems across the region. The one positive I can see is that the moderate Arab countries and Israel recognise their common interests in the region, and are trying to solve issues such as the Palestinian problem. It is important that this issue is taken off the table, but unfortunately I don’t see how the current leaders can achieve the solutions that were proposed at Annapolis. There is ineffective leadership on the part of the Palestinians, the Israelis and those trying to solve the problem.


Professor Charles Asher Small:

Ahmadinejad’s ideology and attacks on Israel

It seems clear to me, that the Iranian regime has become emboldened and very powerful, and I can’t see how a regime like this is going to stop unless it is stopped. Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric adequately reflects the ideology of the regime and his own personality. The regime in Iran is very extreme and not only rejects Israelis, Jews and Zionists, but also Muslims who do not see Islam the same way the regime does. It rejects religious minorities, female emancipation, or the recognition of other groups in society. He views society in a very narrow way. When Ahmadinejad was at Columbia University and he said that there were no gay people in Iran, the audience laughed because it was such an absurd statement. If you begin to understand the ideology and the worldview he is operating from, you realise that this is what he believes. For that particular aberration, people are regularly stoned to death.

Ahmadinejad, as we know, demonises the state of Israel and openly calls for its destruction at every opportunity. Most notoriously, about a year and a half ago he claimed that Israel was a fake regime that ought to be wiped off the map. He termed Zionists as the most detested people of all humanity and called the extermination of six million Jews during the Second World War, and I quote, “a myth”, claiming that “Jews have played up Nazi atrocities during the war in a bid to extort sympathy for Israel from European governments”. This is a classic case of blaming the victims. It is a classic case of negating and denying the memory of a people as the first step towards a profound dehumanization. Once you start dehumanizing a people it’s easier to engage in warfare or extermination itself.

Ahmadinajad has adopted the language of Nazism, of sterilisation, of racial superiority. The literature of extreme anti-Semitism and fascism is popular in the Middle East and in particular in Iran where the Protocols Elders of Zion, the most pernicious classical form of anti-Semitism in Europe as well as Mein Kampf, have been translated and published in the Middle East. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is in fact the second-most translated and published book in the Middle East. This material is not only available, but is entering into the public culture and the public discourse and the entertainment fields in several Middle Eastern countries and especially in Iran. Iran actually produces and runs shows depicting Jews straight from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

International law

International law prohibits incitement against a group of people. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide undertakes to punish or prevent any individual or groups that engage in genocidal acts. Under the convention genocide means any acts committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Article 3 includes the following very simple word. There is a “prohibition against direct and public incitement to commit genocide” because it contravenes the Convention. What Ahmadinejad and the regime are saying is therefore clearly illegal under international law. Under Article 4, a person committing genocide, or inciting genocide, or any act which is mentioned under Article 3, shall be punished whether they are constitutional, responsible rulers, public officials or even private individuals.

Article 8 calls upon the organs of the United Nations to take such actions under the charter of the United Nations as they have considered appropriate with the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any other acts mentioned under Article 3. In other words there is a body of international law and agreements which demands of governments to act accordingly. So I urge all politicians to read the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide because it is the responsibility of all 156 governments who have signed this Convention to act. There is also judicial precedent, for example Canada prosecuted people from Rwanda for not only engaging in genocide, but also for engaging in incitement to genocide.

The amazing irony – the horrific irony – is that it was in 1948, in the ashes of the Holocaust, that the Convention was adopted. It was written by Raphael Lemkin, who survived the Holocaust himself, along with others. He clearly stipulated that incitement to genocide is a crime under the Convention. These were measures designed to prevent genocide. Tragically the laws against incitement designed to prevent genocide are still only used after the event has happened. So pathetically, people from Rwanda are only now being prosecuted for incitement to genocide in several countries in Europe, ten years after the genocide in Rwanda was carried out.

Dangers of anti-Semitism

What is clear about anti-Semitism is that taken to its logical extension, it is genocidal. If left unchecked it will target the next religious minority, the handicapped, physically or perhaps intellectually. Ultimately it will target people who advocate democracy and human rights.

The Iranian Regime

From a conceptual perspective, the regime denies the other group’s right to exist. Ahmadinajed is not only blaming the Jews for inventing the Holocaust, he is informing his constituents inside Iran and in the region that these are people who lie about their past to extort wealth and power from other people. He is not only blaming the victim, he is also trivializing and negating the essence of the other which inevitably leads to tremendous, profound conflict. Imagine a regime and an individual like this holding a nuclear weapon, which they are clearly engaged in trying to obtain. That weapon would be in the hand of someone who believes in the messianic notion of re-creating the Caliphate, including the land that Israel currently occupies.

When Ahmadinejad said about a year and a half ago that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map everybody reacted and there was a bit of a storm in the media, but when he said recently that Israel is a bacteria that must be eliminated it didn’t make such big news. Perhaps we are becoming immune to the rhetoric. In the meantime, Ahmadinejad and radical Islam continue to go unchecked and are growing in power, and in confidence. In the name of humanity and civilization it is imperative that we stand up for what we believe in.

I do believe that many Iranians want change. The problem is that the structure of the system doesn’t allow substantial change. In the recent elections to parliament there was a committee overseeing the elections, that supervised the candidates and actually eliminated the candidates it deems to be unfit. There were 7,200 candidates, but over 2,500 of them were found to be unfit to run. So what kind of election is it when this committee eliminates one third of the candidates? The basic structure of the regime cannot be challenged by Parliament, as it is the unelected bodies and clergy that control all areas of policy.

It is not the people of Iran but rather its conservative leaders who control the system and have the backing of the supreme leader. In the moment of truth, when someone has to push the button, to send the missile or worse, the decision will not be made by liberal intellectuals, most of whom are in jail, but by the radical clerics who are in charge. This is very much a problem.

Anti-Semitic rhetoric is useful because it distracts citizens from looking at failing economic policies, because they are focusing on the Zionist conspiracy to sabotage the revolution and Iranian society. In turn it is empowers Ahmadinajad and the regime in the region, as he builds himself into the guardian of the Islamists and other people who want to eliminate Israel from the region. It is very rational, consistent and very effective.

It goes even further – I did something recently on anti-Semitism in Europe. We compared classical notions of anti-Semitism with some extreme, over the top notions of what Israel is. We found, perhaps not surprisingly, that it is statistically proven that those people who are over-the-top in their criticism of Israel, who say that Israel kills children, Israel poisons water, Israel deliberately targets children, are disproportionately (about 13 times) more likely to be anti-Semitic in the traditional sense than the average population in the UK and nine other European countries. The Islam of Ahmadinejad and the regime is on the ascent. It controls Gaza, has a good relationship with Syria, and controls the southern part of Lebanon. This form of Islam is diametrically opposed to moderate Islam and it is diametrically opposed to Western values of human rights and democracy.

Yet there is almost an unholy alliance, as criticism of Israel in the UK has been going on for decades. I did my masters and PHD at Oxford University, and over there progressive intellectuals – not even extremists of any sort – have been criticising Israel to such an extent that their criticism has become irrational. I was just at the London School of Economics, where the student union voted on a resolution, which was carried, that accused Israel of apartheid and Nazism. Now what happened at the LSE, and I should say that this is the place where the killer of Daniel Pearl was educated, what has happened here is really a microcosm of what’s going on globally. You have Islamists and leftist intellectuals in a sort of unholy alliance – they are usually diametrically opposed to everything – but when it comes to this issue they rally and pass resolutions together. It is an embarrassment to the United Kingdom’s educational system

*Full list of Ahmadinejad quotes provided by Professor Small:

February 20, 2008
"The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast. … "[Israel] won support [from the other nations] which created it as a scarecrow, so as to keep the people of this area under control.”

January 30, 2008
"I warn you to abandon the filthy Zionist entity, which has reached the end of the line. It has lost its reason to be and will sooner or later fall. The ones who still support the criminal Zionists should know that the occupiers' days are numbered. … Accept that the life of Zionists will sooner or later come to an end."

November 27, 2007
"It is impossible that the Zionist regime will survive. Collapse is in the nature of this regime because it has been created on aggression, lying, oppression and crime."
(As quoted by IRNA)

On Annapolis:
"We regret that some people fell victim to the cursed Zionist regime and they are mistaken if they thought this meeting was an achievement for them or helps reinforce the Zionists."
(As quoted by the AFP)

October 05, 2007 
On Zionist control of the West:
"I would now like to ask Western governments to explain which one is right. Are they held captive [by the Zionists] or are they the puppet masters of the Zionists?"

"In both cases, they are accomplice to the crimes of the Zionist regime and they should know that they should be accountable for what they have done."

"They should know that if they are held captive by the Zionists and they do not dissociate themselves from them, they would soon be tried and punished in courts of justice by the powerful hands of nations."

On the Holocaust:
"After the Second World War, they created a scenario called 'pogrom against Jews.' All over Europe and the countries under Western rule, an anti-Jewish movement has been concocted. The climate of propaganda and psychological warfare on the one hand and on the other hand using the issue of ovens burning human beings, they have concocted a myth of deprivation and innocence for the Jews of Europe. They use this pretext of the innocence of Jews and the suffering of some Jews during the Second World War. Riding on the crest of a wave of anti-Jewish sentiments, they have laid the foundations for the Zionist regime."

On resettling the Jews from Israel to Canada or Alaska:
"...you cannot tolerate the presence of Zionists in Europe but want to inflict them on the people of our region? You have so much land in your possession. This vast land of Canada and Alaska can be used to resettle the Jews. Save yourselves."
(Al-Quds Day speech)

September 24, 2007
 On aliyah to Israel:
"...on the other hand, they gather a number of Jews from different parts of the world through false propaganda and with the promise of providing them with welfare, jobs and food, and settle them in the occupied territories, exposing them to the harshest restrictions, psychological pressures and constant threats. They prevent these people from returning to their homelands and by coercion and propaganda induce them to malevolence toward the indigenous Palestinian people."

Call for "divine justice" in the international community:
"The era of darkness will end. Prisoners will return home. The occupied lands will be freed. Palestine and Iraq will be liberated from the domination of the occupiers. And the people of America and Europe will be free of the pressures exerted by the Zionists."
 (Speech to UN General Assembly)

August 28, 2007
 "Zionists are people without any religion.  They are lying about being Jewish because religion means brotherhood, friendship and respecting other divine religions…They are an organized minority who have infiltrated the world. They are not even a 10,000-strong organization."
 (At a news conference in Tehran)

August 18, 2007 
"The Zionist regime is the flag bearer of violation and occupation and this regime is the flag of Satan. …It is not unlikely that this regime be on the path to dissolution and deterioration when the philosophy behind its creation and survival is invalid."
(Address to an international religious conference in Tehran)

June 3, 2007
 "With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine . . . By God's will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future."
(Speech, as quoted by the Fars News Agency)

March 21, 2007
"It is quite clear that a bunch of Zionist racists are the problem the modern world is facing today. They have access to global power and media centers and seek to use this access to keep the world in a state of hardship, poverty and grudge and strengthen their rule. The great nation of Iran is opposed to this inhuman trend. Of course, the Iranian nation will stick to its rightful stance. The Zionists and their supporters do not know that they are using failed approaches to take on human values, human civilization, nations and the great nation of Iran. Admitting the right of the dear Iranian nation and submitting to justice and the rule of law are the best way to salvation and the best way out of the deadlocks they have created for themselves."
 (from a recorded New Year's message aired on Iranian television)

February 28, 2007
"The Zionists are the true manifestation of Satan . . . Many Western governments that claim to be pioneers of democracy and standard bearers of human rights close their eyes over crimes committed by the Zionists and by remaining silent support the Zionists due to their hedonistic and materialistic tendencies."
(to a meeting of Sudanese Islamic scholars in Khartoum)

December 12, 2006
"Thanks to people's wishes and God's will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want…Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out"
(Comments to Iran's Holocaust Conference)

November 29, 2006
"What have the Zionists done for the American people that the US administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors?  Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?"
(Letter from Ahmadinejad "to the American people")

November 13, 2006
"Israel is destined for destruction and will soon disappear"
Israel is "a contradiction to nature, we foresee its rapid disappearance and destruction."

October 19, 2006
"The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive"
(as quoted by Iranian state television)

August 6, 2006
 "They (Israel) kill women and children, young and old. And, behind closed doors, they make plans for the advancement of their evil goals."
(as quoted by Khorasan Provincial TV)

David Menashri holds numerous academic positions at Tel Aviv University as Director of the Center for Iranian Studies.

Charles Asher Small is Director of the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism.