The Paralysis of Fear

Myth or no myth, the story could serve as a springboard to shed some light on the nature of the Iranian people, if not on the nature of man; ie., how extraordinary terror and panic can mesmerize man, totally immobilize his thinking process, disrupt his behavior, and if need be, make him walk into his own grave as docilely as a sheep.

The panic factor could at least partially account for the current state of affairs in the Iranian psyche. For those who are puzzled as to why a most powerful Royal Army of Iran walked so unceremoniously toward its own dismemberment, disintegration, and the decapitation of its generals, the answer, at least partly, could be found in the depths of twists and zags of the collective unconscious of its people.

Many students of politics have feverishly tried to sort out the debris left behind by the Ayatollah's revolution. While the reasons may be many, one event above all stands out as the major cause of the Ayatollahs victory, and the departure of the Shah. That one overriding reason was the Shah's decision to leave his country. The Shah, gravely ill, and immensely confused, clearly was in no mood to confront his enemies. Nor was the US.

The decision to leave, with the hope that the situation would somehow clear up, was basically a misreading of the degree of preparedness (and determination) of the alliance of the leftists and the mullahs -- what the Shah referred to as the "unholly alliance of the red and black reactionaries to topple him." --
The huge void created by the vacated throne decisively shifted the balance of power in favor of the mullahs.

The new masters of Iran, clad as messengers of God, descended on the populace, with such ferocity and viciousness, that hardly anyone, including the army, found any time to think of anything else, but to save their necks. Once the psychology of panic settled down, the drama of the procession of victims, marching in complete stupor, toward their death began to unfold.

The tragedy now befalling Iran is not the first. Nor will it be the last. But what lay at the core of the Iranian revolution was, by no means, a mass uprising to return to the values of Islam. Nor was it an expression of outrage against authoritarianism. These values were only cherished by a minority of the population, to be sure. But Iranian masses, in general, hardly knew the difference between any concept, beyond the concretes of sensory processes, let alone the understanding of abstractions and nuances of ideology.

To survive in the turbulent Iranian culture has always required an outward conformity to the centers of power, traditionally the seat of distribution of rewards and dispensation of punishment. In fact, such sensitivity to the tyranny of power and its unpredictable whims has been so pervasive that Iranians have incorporated it into their special brand of Islam. They have named it Taquieh (dissimulation) or the outward conformity to the dominant power while keeping one's real thoughts to oneself.

The massive animosity shown to the Shah, for a few years following the revolution has been no more genuine than the affection exhibited toward the Islamic regime.

One major difference between the Shah and the Ayatollahs is that the reinforcement ofTaquieh by the Shah's administration was contigent more on reward than punishment. But, dissimulation in the Islamic government is based on the absence of punishment, or what the behaviorist term negative reinforcement.

To base the source of US foreign policy toward Iran on the presumptions of Western politics and practices is an exercise in futility, at best. The tide of anti-Americanism, pro-Shiism provoked by the Iranian clergy, can as easily be turned around, as it was created. The point is that the sentiments expressed so fervently in Iran, against the Shah, the US, and the West, have no intellectual, deliberative, or contemplative nature. It is, by and large a cover, a defense mechanism, elaborately webbed, and adopted by the public to avoid the wrath of the Islamic regime.

At one time, it appeared that the US administration pinned its hopes on the emergence of a moderate, Western style democracy in Iran, notwithstanding the Khomeyni rhetoric and his " "Bible," the "Islamic Government." These hopes evaporated after Bazargan, Khomeyni's first choice to become his prime minister, gave in to the unrelenting pressure of the leftists, and extremists clerics, who demanded more blood, and a drastic restructuring of the Iranian society. The Western hopes were once again revived after President Bani-Sadr pretended to espouse more moderate views than his bosses -- hopes which were dashed quickly after he proved to have no power base of his own.

In both cases, the assumptions of US policymakers conveniently neglected the realities of Iranian culture and history. Iran has not been, and will not be, a democracy in the forseeable future. The authoritarian way of life permeates deeply into every aspect of Iranian culture, ending, up to Khomeyni's advent, in the person of the Shah, as the apex of authority.