The Struggle For Iran, by Christopher de Bellaigue

The author, in this collection of essays written between 1999 and late 2006, tries to make a lot out of the misunderstandings that are borne out of distance between the United States (and Iranian exiles there and in Europe) and Iran itself, and seeks to present himself as an on-the-ground Westerner in Tehran as someone who can bridge this gulf. Unfortunately, he does not do so here, largely because the act that he has to put up in order to maintain his good graces with the government of Iran and his own native sympathies and identity are at odds with each other and he never comes to an honest and truthful perspective, at least not in these particular essays. One can tell, in reading this book, that the author wants to present the Iranian regime as being interested in self-defense, ignoring the way that Iran’s military has regularly operated in places like Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen that are far from defensive in nature. Similarly, the author has a strong anti-American perspective that undercuts a great deal of what he tries to say, even as he shows himself seeking to understand the Iran of cultured left-of-center reformists like him, who sadly do not seem to represent the general population of the city.

This book consists of the author’s essays and articles, written between his arrival in Iran on a short-term visa in 1999, and late 2006. It opens with a discussion of the author’s hopes in the reformist leadership of Iran that would, largely be disappointing in office in its efforts to reform the Iranian state (1). This is followed by the author’s discussion of a clerical boom in Qom (2). The author reflects on the loneliness of the Supreme Leader (3), the search for a big nuclear deal, finally made long after this book ends, in 2015 (4), as well as the feeling that the tension between Iran and the United States and Iran’s own political situation left a lot stalled in the aftermath of 2001’s attacks (5). The author talks about private educational classes on Rumi taken by middle and upper class Iranians (6), the threat of American invasion of Iran, which fortunately did not take place (7), as well as an explanation of the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which stops just short of accusing him and those who backed him of electoral fraud in his victory (8). In other essays, the author writes about an exhibition of art work bought by the Sha’s queen shortly before the Iranian Revolution (9), explores the problems in connecting contemporary Iran to the glories of the ancient pre-Islamic Persian empires (10), opines on how the United States and its leaders get Iran wrong (11), explores the uneven wealth generated by Iran’s oil boom (12), writes about young people and their dreams and ambitions of a better life, mostly of the reformist and liberal type from Tehran (13), and discusses Iran’s defiance in the face of American hostility (14).

One of the most remarkable aspects of this book is the author’s general aim of cluelessness and dishonesty. It is striking that in so many essays he talks about the masks that people have to wear in order to survive in a society that has a repressive and reactionary religious government, but at the same time the author fails to recognize the mask that one has to wear in order to put on an anti-American mask in order to survive in a regime that has a high degree of hostility for the United States that is at least an indirect subject of a great many of the essays of this book. It is fortunate, for both Iran and the United States, that the hostilities that have existed for the last 45 years between our nations have not led to outright war, and there have been plenty of rhetorical excesses on both sides. The author notes that Bush placing Iran on his axis of evil, and then doing nothing but weaken Iran’s two neighbors and opening them up to Shi’ite influence from Iran, was a highly curious and self-defeating measure, and that must be agreed with. One of the ironies of Iran’s anti-democratic politics is that Iran’s foreign policy would be greatly helped in places like Lebanon, Iraq, and Bahrain by pushing for a government that was more representative of its population. The author, though, wonders by progressive city dwellers don’t vote, visits art exhibits, and interviews as many attractive women as he can for his articles and essays where he thinks that he is getting to know the real Iran, but sees only the part that is the most like him.