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 Beating Reza about the Bush
Is Pahlavi an Ahmad Chalabi in the making?
By Kasra Ardavan
April 22, 2003
The Iraniana
The Pentagon has flown Ahmad Chalabi, the President
of the Iraqi National Congress, together with some seven hundred
of the American trained free Iraqi fighters into Nasiriya in southern
Iraq. It was clear that Americans had won the race to plant their
candidate to lead the post-Saddam Iraq, before other opposition
groups had even began to pack their bags.
Although Chalabi had his foot first on the ground,
he has not won the universal support of the Iraq's fragmented
opposition dotted around the world. Chalabi is too close to the
American Administration to be viewed as an independent future leader
of his homeland.
Whether Chalabi becomes the next Iraqi President is
not the issue here. It is a matter that, we are told, will have
to be resolved in a democratic fashion in the months to come. The
question which we, the Iranian exiles, need to ask is this: Are
we going to have our future saviour flown from the United States
to establish a bridgehead in some remote spot in Iran or is he/she
going to emerge from within the existing opposition already inside
the country?
As the most vocal and visual symbol of external opposition
to the present regime in Iran, Pahalvi has all the hallmarks of
a desirable candidate for a Pentagon chartered flight of the kind
that carried Chalabi and his team to their homeland. It
is therefore not too unreasonable to ask: Is Pahlavi a Chalabi in
the making?
As the pro-monarchy camp is preparing for lavish
parties to celebrate the V.I. day (Victory in Iraq) hoping that
it will a prelude to the V.P. day (Victory in Persia - monarchists
prefer to see themselves coming from Persia and not Iran, lest it
might be confused with Iraq), their hero, Pahlavi, is threading
a very narrow path through the dense maze of political plots and
pitfalls.
While he is careful to avoid sounding gung-ho and
jingoistic, he is wary of disappointing the Bush administration
in his drive to fully follow their lead to 'free' the Middle East
from its rogue rulers. His supporters, however, are much less cautious.
If the adage "judge a leader by his followers" is to have
any truth, then Pahlavi's disciples are giving us clues to his thinking
and that of his inner circle of spin-doctors.
From the one-man political comedies of the Los Angeles
TV stations to the self-promoting articles of the seemingly more
sophisticated journalists, all have no hesitation to declare their
loyalty to the cause of the Washington's neo-conservative administration,
yearning for a sequel to the present campaign in 'Mesopotamia' (a
preferred term by the 'Persian' monarchists), codenamed Operation
Persian Freedom.
Which prompts us to ask this age-old question one more time: Is
history about to repeat itself? It was Karl Marx, the scourge of
the royalists all over the world, who famously suggested that it
does. Is Marx going to be vindicated - thanks to Pahlavi's subservience
to yet another right wing Republican administration in the White
House? The same role that Pahlavi's father played opposite the duo
of Nixon-Kissinger some three decades earlier, he is now about to
perform before the Bush-Cheney Junta (courtesy of Gore Vidal!).
Pahlavi's reluctance to denounce his rival republican contenders
and his flirtation with the idea of referendum has already angered
a number of monarchist opposition groups to the extent that one
such grouping, on their website, have dubbed him as traitor and
an American puppet (rastakhiz.org). The
extent of disappointment with Pahlavi's non-committal strategy to
the monarchist cause and his disregard for the very constitution
that entitled him to be recognised as the successor to his father's
throne, has also prompted a number of number of monarchist ideologues
to publish scathing criticism of his conduct.
On the pages of the same website you can find extracts from a recent
work of the eminent constitutionalist scholar and the royalist historian,
Shojaeddin Shafa. In this work, named si goftar, Shafa criticizes
Pahlavi's breach of his constitutional restraints and points out
that he has no right to campaign for a national referendum as this
is a matter to be decided by a constitutionally elected parliament
and not by a monarch in waiting.
Shafa is also bitterly critical of some of Pahlavi's former and
present inner circle of confidants and spin-doctors and alleges
intimate relations between them (spin-doctors) and the American
intelligence community as well as their unscrupulous demands for
funding by the same.
If Pahlavi's advisors are not directing him on the same path, as
Chalabi seems to have been directed, then Pahlavi's not making any
effort to abate his critics mounting concerns. It appears that he
is toying with the idea of being a Prince and a potential President
at the same time while leaving it to a future referendum to decide
his role.
Although Pahlavi may have been encouraged by the recent political
comeback of the heir to the Bulgarian throne as an elected
President, he seems to have conveniently ignored the fact that President
Sax-Coburg of Bulgaria did not apply for the top job on a monarchist
ticket. There are a growing number of monarchist 'old-guards' who
want to see nothing short of return to the old days of Aryamehr
kingdom and they are already showing increasing signs of despair
in their chosen leader's approach to materialize their
dream.
It is about time that Pahlavi got straight with his audiences and
intended supporters by clarifying his position and allegiances. While
Pahlavi is anxiously waiting to see what Washington's planners are
hatching for his homeland, he may be losing more than the support
of die-hard loyalists, by giving a new meaning to the catchphrase
"beating about the Bush."
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Beating Reza about the Bush
