Starving Iran Will Not Free It
By Hooman Majd
March 5, 2012
There's an old saying,
attributed to the British Foreign Office in colonial days: "Keep the
Persians hungry, and the Arabs fat." For the British -- then the stewards
of Persian destiny -- that was the formula for maintaining calm; it still is for
Saudi Arabian leaders, who simply distribute large amounts of cash to their
citizens at the first sign of unrest at their doorstep.
But in the case of
Iran, neither America nor Britain seems to be observing the old dictum. Keeping
the Persians hungry was a guarantee that they wouldn't rise up against their
masters. Today, the fervent wish of the West appears to be that they do exactly
that. Except that the West is doing everything in its power to keep the
Iranians hungry -- even hungrier than they might ordinarily be under the
corrupt and incompetent administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It is no surprise that
the March 2 election -- Iran's first national poll since the disputed one of
2009 -- was held without any excitement on the part of middle-class voters or
the participation of liberals opposed to the regime. Such candidates have been
systematically eliminated from the political scene, accused of being Western
stooges or traitors.
Western sanctions,
once "targeted" and now blanket, are turning into a form of collective
punishment. They are designed, we are told, to force the Islamic government to
return to the nuclear negotiating table. Western politicians also seem to
believe that punishing the Iranian people might lead them to blame their own
government for their misery and take it upon themselves to force a change in
the regime's behavior, or even a change in the regime itself. But as the old
British maxim recognized, deprivation in Iran is a recipe for the status quo.
Iran's government and
its people have never been isolationists. But as sanctions take their toll on
the livelihoods of Iranians who want to continue to do business and communicate
with the outside world, their energy to question their government's policies
and to agitate for change is waning. That means far fewer opportunities to
promote American values and win minds, if not hearts (which we've had but are
now in danger of losing).
Over the past year,
while I was living in Tehran, I witnessed a faltering economy and a population
hungry not just for protein but for change. Businesses that are closing or
laying off workers for lack of commerce or new opportunities affect everyone
from the office tea boy to the middle manager whose salary, if he or she still
has it, might no longer be sufficient to feed a family.
The change that most
Iranians are hungry for is economic, and while they are consumed with the
struggle to make ends meet, work second and third jobs, and in some cases send
their children into the streets to beg or sell knickknacks, they are less
concerned with their secondary hunger: political change.
In Iran, political
change cannot be brought about by coercion, sanctions or exiles and their
enablers, despite what American politicians might think. Instead, it will come
slowly too slowly for an American election cycle, to be sure. And it will come
only after Iranians are no longer hungry and the government has no excuses
left, including national security, to deny the people's civil rights.
Only when Iran's
educated, sophisticated and talented people "get fat" will they
confront their leaders and demand their right to pursue a happiness beyond life
and the satiated stomach. Allowing Iran to function normally in the economic
sphere would empower ordinary Iranians more than the government and eliminate
from its narrative the one mantra it knows resonates with all Iranians: that
the West wants to dictate to Iran.
Iranians do not take
kindly to being dictated to. It reminds a proud people of their nation's
weakness in the face of greater powers. Iranians will neither blame their own
government for the effects of sanctions simply because we tell them to, nor
will they overthrow the ayatollahs, however much we prod them to.
But with a strong
economy, the middle class will return to a more influential political role in
society. After all, it was most visible during the reformist years when
relations with the West, political and economic, were at their best and when
the government, under virtually no foreign threats, found it hard to completely
ignore their demands.
Indeed, it was that
same middle class, still well fed even after four years of Ahmadinejad's rule
that rose up in 2009 demanding their civil rights. And it is what's left of
that middle class that continues to protest human and civil rights abuses
today.
The ever more
stringent sanctions imposed on Iran may be "biting," but they are
also stifling voices for change -- voices that simply cannot be heard at a time
when the population is threatened with an economic chokehold or, worse, with
being bombed.
Sanctions will neither
change the regime's behavior nor ignite a Persian Spring -- not as long as the
Persians are hungry, and scared.
The writer, an Iranian-American journalist, is the
author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and The Ayatollahs' Democracy.
Source: The New York Times
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