There is a famous saying, that “every problem is a communication problem”. I have personally found this statement true in technical field because I’ve seen that the modern theories such as information theory, signal processing theory, control theory, and so on that have shaped our modern life are all a derivative of the communication theory.
Am I going to talk about science AGAIN?! No. Patience! It is hardly related to it. I want to say there might be a good reason why based on some people’s belief Iran has always been struggling with dictatorial regimes.
The very obvious reason for it is that, dictatorship is a survival tactic for a society. A nation under siege acts exactly like a human body under viral/bacterial attack. When you get sick your movements become minimal, you try to conserve as much energy as possible, you focus on your pain and sufferings so you don’t pay attention as much to your surroundings, and you do many other weird things that you would not normally do.
A society under a dictatorial regime is a human body on antibiotics. The free movements in thoughts become minimal, the enemy becomes on the center of focus not the society, and everything gets orchestrated by one person or a group of people in order to conserve energy. I am not saying that IRI is a dictatorial regime, but for some of you who think it is, there might be a good reason for it. Maybe it is the way Iran should be in order to survive at this transitional stage.
Imagine that we could magically extract a democratic regime from a peaceful neighborhood and drop it like a guinea pig in a cage of hostile countries. I used the word magic because in the real world free societies do not exist by themselves they are usually in a cluster of societies with similar fabric. Therefore there is no freedom island in the middle of dark and stinky water of hatred.
After we dropped the poor rodent into that violent dungeon, what do you think that normally happens? You think the helpless hamster is going to think about a logical way after any time it gets bitten by a pair of vicious fangs? Or it gets into a corner and watches everybody’s movement and acts like one.
In any war situation, communication is the most crucial task. A country should react in the fastest fashion, with minimal waste of energy against any threat. A dictatorial regime benefits from the most efficient means of communications. These types of regimes because of their coherent nature receive the threat quickly; decide upon acting over it fast, and they carry out the decisions even faster.
In contrast, in a democratic regimes, the message of threat gets lost in the labyrinth of various communication channels, if some of it gets to the central unit it gets piled on top of the bureaucratic mountain awaiting a long process, and finally when it gets out it might not get delivered to the right department to be carried out. But god knows by the time that they come up with a decision the nature of threat has been changed or it has already done its damages. That’s why US did not properly address the pre-Sept 11 threat but when it did address them quickly it had already moved away from its democratic principles.
I remember sometime ago Thomas Friedman in one of his NY Times articles on Iran, proposed to the Bush’s administration an open door policy towards Iran. But I am not sure if this administration is really concerned about IRI’s dictatorial nature. Since applying more force will just reinforce the core of a dictatorial regime, pressure is not the answer to such governments. ‘IF’ and only ‘IF ‘Iranian regime is one of them.
Therefore based on this administration’s policies towards Iran, either Iranian regime is not a dictatorial regime or this administration’s policies are brainless. If we hypothetically accept that there is just one ruling party in Iran then putting an external pressure on that party would be reckless. As we discussed earlier it would reinforce their popularity. Or Bush already knows IRI is not dictatorial in nature but fake the situation in order to weaken a democratic government with excessive pressure. That’s the $64,000 question.
Either way the current policies towards Iran are flat WRONG. A democratic Iran is desperately needed in that region of the world and a democratic Iran will not come to exist with pressure, period.
