[Dryerase] The Alarm!--Book Review

[The Alarm!Newswire]

The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran

by Graham Parsons
The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor

“...the [Iranian] revolution is one of the century’s seminal turning 
points.  For the Mideast, only two events have had comparable impact: 
the creation of the state of Israel and the Ottoman Empire’s collapse 
after five centuries...”

When I saw Ahmed Rashid—author of several books on the Middle East and 
Central Asia including his latest Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in 
Central Asia—speak in Berkeley last March, he made one sardonic, yet 
important statement: referring to President Bush’s categorization of 
Iran as a member of an “axis of evil,” he said simply, and to much 
laughter from the audience, “We need a more nuanced policy than this.”

While humorous, this comment is significant because of what it implies. 
  Rashid was trying to point out that modern Iran’s story is much more 
subtle than a single unsophisticated word like “evil” can tenably 
encapsulate, and therefore any policy based on such an inadequate 
assessment is fundamentally misguided.  Although more complex images of 
Iran are exceedingly rare in popular commentary, there is at least one 
refreshing, and more realistic account of modern Iran. Robin Wright’s 
The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, 
describes a rich, turbulent, economically, socially and philosophically 
various Iranian society.

Wright covered Iranian affairs as a journalist for almost 30 years, and 
has produced two books on the country.  Her familiarity with the nation 
and its culture give her the requisite credentials to tell Iran’s story 
as few other Americans could.  And the story she weaves is remarkable.  
Beginning with some intelligent reflections on the nature of the 1979 
Islamic revolution and its relationship to the other major revolutions 
of the twentieth century, Wright spends the remaining chapters 
describing the revolution’s product—Islamic Iran—and how it has 
transformed over the past two decades.  Through interviews with 
numerous prominent Iranians, including a dissident philosopher, several 
women locked in the struggle for gender equality, leading film 
directors, editors of radical newspapers and magazines, conservative 
and reformist social activists and even some religious clerics, Wright 
brings modern Iran to life.

In addition to her powerful descriptions of Iranian society, Wrights’s 
more theoretical analyses present some interestingly controversial 
claims.  For example, she boldly calls Iran’s revolution the “Modern 
Era’s last great revolution.”  According to her, this is because, like 
other seminal revolutions of the twentieth century, Iran’s revolution 
was fundamentally about “empowerment” or “the spread of political, 
economic and social rights to the earth’s farthest corners.”  The quest 
for empowerment, Wright claims, is the “singular political theme of the 
Modern Era.”  What sets Iran’s revolution apart, however, is not its 
basic goals, but its use of distinctively Islamic ideals to pursue 
those goals.  Establishing Islam as a means of observing rights, and, 
in turn, successfully introducing the global drive for empowerment to 
the Islamic bloc, makes Iran’s revolution the “last great revolution” 
of its kind.

Perhaps to avoid directly facing all of the complex issues she 
introduces with this characterization of the revolution, Wright lets 
“Iran’s leading philosopher,” Abdul Karim Soroush, address the obvious 
questions about the compatibility of Islamic governance with 
empowerment.  “Ah, Islam and democracy are not only compatible,” he 
says.  “Their association is inevitable.  In Muslim society, one 
without the other is not perfect…. An ideal religious society can’t 
have anything but a democratic government.”

Radical thoughts such as these have made Soroush the voice of Iran’s 
emerging “Islamic reformation,” and the story of his personal struggle 
makes him the single most fascinating character Wright introduces.  
Although he has gained a substantial body of support, mainly from 
Iran’s burgeoning population of educated young people, hard-liners have 
made Soroush the target of both verbal and physical attacks for his 
reform-minded views.  In 1996, he was forced into exile after being 
beaten up more than once and threatened on numerous occasions by 
conservative thugs.  Soroush’s struggle underlines the difficulties the 
reformist agenda faces in Iran.  These difficulties were manifest in 
the summer of 1999, when for nearly a week Tehran and other major 
cities were the scenes of massive protests against the religious 
zealotry that many citizens saw expressed in extreme government 
policies.  In the end, after violent interventions by police, 1400 were 
arrested.

These stories, which Wright recounts with intelligence and grace, 
inform us of the real turmoil in contemporary Iran, and give us a 
picture of a nation at a crossroads.  I finished The Last Great 
Revolution with a sense of hope for Iran’s future.  This hope has 
dwindled some, however, following President Bush’s “axis of evil” 
comment, which Ahmed Rashid observed has merely pushed many of Iran’s 
moderates over toward its hard-liners, and served to strengthen the 
conservative’s hold on power.

Despite all of these successes, The Last Great Revolution still has 
some glaring omissions.  There is far too little commentary on Iran’s 
economic policies.  Wright hardly alludes to, and certainly never 
attempts to outline, the significance of oil to the nation’s economy 
and its effect on the interests and policies of those who control it, 
which has surely been a critical theme in the recent history of Iran.  
Nevertheless, with Wright’s seasoned reporting and sharp analysis, the 
book remains enjoyable, as well as useful for understanding the 
wrong-headedness of current U.S. policies toward Iran.
 
      All content Copyleft © 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where 
noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in 
whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or 
by government agencies.

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