Change evident in Iran

The bad news about Iran is obvious. Its weapons and logistical aid for Iraqi militias are killing Americans. Its drive toward nuclear self-sufficiency eventually will give it the expertise to make a nuclear bomb. Its sponsorship of terrorism throughout the Middle East and the rise of hard-liners who want to “erase” Israel from the map continue to class it with the “rogues.”

Yet what’s happening below the surface of Iranian society paradoxically points much more hopefully toward a possible future accommodation with the West. These developments include the country’s vast urbanization since the 1979 Iranian revolution, breeding a new class of educated youth and educated women whose economic frustrations feed electoral flux and the rise of a middle-class consciousness.

These trends remain largely hidden from Western view. Yet they constitute the greatest threat to the mullahs’ avowed conservatism and religious rule.

The passive resistance of huge chunks of Iranian society to the messages of the clerical elite eats at the revolution from the inside out, said diplomats, Iranian scholars and activists who spoke at an International Center for Journalists’ conference in Virginia recently.

“It’s a hyperpoliticized society … without the full-fledged political parties to go along with it,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, who says the 1979 revolution was an experience of chaos, disorder and anarchy he would never wish on another culture, much less on today’s Iran. He now teaches political science at Syracuse University.

Yet Iran is in for “shock waves throughout the system” – not from “regime change” dictated from America, but from the flood of women entering Iranian universities, for the first time exceeding men’s admissions, Boroujerdi said.

In evaluating future U.S.-Iranian relations, one can think of it as two ledger columns. On the bad side of the ledger:

Old habits. U.S.-Iranian confrontation is a 30-year-old, atrophied story, paralyzing solutions, or as expert Tony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies puts it, “History is often a self-inflicted wound.” The Iranian regime mistrusts U.S. motives so utterly that the nuclear standoff cannot be resolved through normal diplomatic means.

Shiite-Sunni strains. The sectarian fighting in Iraq feeds a broader breakdown – and a new arms race – in the region. Should Shiite Iran get a bomb, Sunni-led Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia would do so, too, according to a new congressional assessment by the Republican staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Still the axis of “evil.” Even as White House policy has loosened on Iran, with both official and nonofficial dialogue, congressional and grass-roots policy seems caught in a time warp where “evil” must be punished, and the most extreme rhetoric gets the attention.

Killer aid. Iran remains the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism. With so many Americans in the region, it’s a threat U.S. policy-makers cannot ignore. Iranian arms shipments to Shiite splinter groups in Iraq appear to be picking up steam again after a brief lull. Even more troublingly, Iranian aid has rebuilt Hezbollah’s military capabilities in Lebanon, contributing to rapid destabilization there.

On the good side of the ledger:

Health diplomacy. Iranian doctor and AIDS activist Kamiar Alaei told the ICFJ conference that ongoing small-scale exchanges of medical scientists and student grass-roots activists could become Iran’s “Ping-Pong diplomacy” while giving a younger generation healthier expectations about the future. It helps that many of today’s Iranian doctors trained in the United States, Alaei said.

Anti-stoning campaigns. Instead of focusing on socially divisive issues such as the veil, women’s activists have broadened their message into a “million signature campaign,” says Iranian feminist blogger Sanam Dolatshahi. They seek to change laws that many Iranians see as archaic, such as stonings for infidelity, legal testimony in which the woman’s voice is half the man’s, and family law and inheritance discrimination.

Real estate boom. The housing bubble in Tehran and other cities has created a new wealthy class of real estate speculators. The resulting economic stratification has its own risks, driving up everyone’s living costs, but suggests a potentially significant broadening of the ranks of financial power-brokers in society.

So how do the two sides of the ledger balance out? The obvious answer is that the “bads” almost all pertain to external geostrategic calculations.

If the West and Washington can start to change the perception in Iran that all negotiations are a trick to keep Iran a third-class power, they could set the stage for Iran’s positive internal developments to find fuller flower in political expression.