THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 152, June 26, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IRAN, TECHNOLOGY, & REVOLUTION
By Dr. Michael Rubin
IRANIAN PROTEST DEMONSTRATIONS & THE NEW TECHNOLOGY: WILL THE NEW TECHNOLOGY ENABLE THE
IRANIAN PROTESTERS TO OVERCOME GOVERNMENT FORCES? THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNOLOGY TO STATE
FORMATION & PRESERVATION -- ITS IMPORTANCE TO STATE DEGRADATION -- THE PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT ROLE
TECHNOLOGY PLAYED IN STATE PRESERVATION IN IRAN -- IMPROVEMENTS IN COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY, THE RISE
OF MASS POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, & THE VULNERABILITY OF UNPOPULAR POLITICAL REGIMES
FULL STORY:
The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and Washington Post have dubbed it a "Twitter
Revolution," speculating about whether new technology will enable Iranian protesters to overcome government
forces. The role of technology in the current unrest is well-covered elsewhere. What is lacking in much of the
coverage, however, is a sense of context.
In the Middle East, technology has been essential both to empire formation and preservation and to state degradation.
The late historian Marshall G.S. Hodgson described the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires as "gunpowder
empires." Their sultans and shahs consolidated control over expansive territories by controlling weaponry which
potential aspirants to power along the periphery did not have. Once the central government lost monopoly over guns
and cannons, however, the empires fractured — devolving into fiefdoms or dissolving completely.
In Iran, technology played a particularly important role in state preservation. Looking at 18th. and early 19th. century
atlases, borders are all over the place. Discrepancies of dozens, if not hundreds, of miles mark frontiers on maps
published by different gazetteers. Whereas, today, imperialism is presented in almost cartoonish terms as a free-for-all,
in reality, there were huge debates during the 19th. century over whether or not to expand imperial control over various
territories. Imperial rule was an expensive prospect, and so many imperial powers preferred to advance informal control.
Britain did this in Iran by supporting various regional officials — for example, briefly recognizing the autonomy of
Makran (Baluchistan) in the mid-19th. century and flirting with Sheikh Khazal in Khuzistan at the beginning of the 20th.
century. While rulers could claim as much territory as they liked, the real litmus test was whether they were able to
extract taxes. Sometimes regional governors or sub-district governors along a country's periphery, many of whom paid
for their offices, calculated they could keep all the revenue for themselves and not remit anything to the center. Often,
foreign powers encouraged such defiance (e.g., in Georgia, Kuwait, Herat, and Khorramshahr).
This would create a quandary for the Shah. If he ignored the governor's defiance, he would effectively lose that province.
Mobilizing the military and launching a punitive expedition, however, was extremely expensive. As Iran flirted with
bankruptcy throughout the 19th. century, the Shah had very few resources at his disposal, and the periphery knew it.
Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848-1896), however, embraced the telegraph. He could threaten and cajole opponents, and keep on
top of the latest intelligence. What were the Russians doing in Azerbaijan? What were Kurdish tribes doing across the
Ottoman frontier? Could he afford to dispatch the Army and still maintain his security? In many ways, it was the telegraph
which allowed the Shah to play foreign powers and domestic competitors off each other and preserve Iranian
independence, even in the regime's weakened state.
What was a blessing for the government and for the consolidation of the state, however, turned into a liability. Over time,
the Shah's government lost control over the communications network. While the popular belief in the 1860s and 1870s was
that the telegraph ended at the Shah's throne, myriad Iranian groups discovered that they could communicate directly with
each other and against the central government. This became quite clear in the early 1890s when, desperate to raise revenue,
the Nasir al-Din Shah granted the unpopular Tobacco Regie, which gave the British a monopoly over all phases of one of
Iran's most important industries, from agriculture to sale. Liberals, nationalists, and clerics joined forces to force the Shah
to retract. Clerics in Najaf used the telegraph to issue a fatwa, obeyed even by members of the Shah's household,
prohibiting the use of tobacco until the Shah recanted. The telegraph network enabled the formation of the mass movement.
This point was driven home in the first decade of the 20th. century during Iran's constitutional revolution. Britain backed
constitutional forces, and the Russian government supported the autocratic Shah. The conflict was bloody and, just as in
Iran today, it made headlines. When reactionary forces laid siege to Tabriz, then Iran's second largest city, British papers
reported news of the deprivation and starvation received by telegraph. What once would have occurred without notice in
Europe, sparked outrage.
As the Shah cracked down, a broad array of constitutionalists, nationalists, liberals, clerics, and Bakhtiari tribesmen
coordinated their actions by wire. The Shah's forces sought to cut the wires, but the network was too vast, and not entirely
under the government's control. Importantly, the telegraph extended across the frontier into what now is Iraq. Senior clerics
cabled instructions from Najaf and Karbala.
Technology created a template upon which the opposition could act. Oppression was a constant during the Qajar period
and, indeed, before. It was technology, however, that enabled the mass movement; it simply could not occur before the
technology template was laid.
Into the 20th. century, the Iranian government sought again to dominate technology. Early in Reza Shah's reign (1925-1941),
the Iranian government controlled radio. Under his son and successor, the state controlled television. However, it could
not control audio tapes smuggled across the border from Iraq, and so in the 15 years before the Islamic Revolution, the
audio cassette — easily copied and distributed — was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's only means of communication. While
Khomeini's image is iconic now, it should be remembered that, until his return to Iran, many Iranians knew his voice but had
not seen his image.
The Islamic Republic knows it is unpopular, and knows its vulnerability to technology. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps stepped in to cancel a 2004 contract granted to Turkcell to create an independent cell phone network in Iran. Only this
past year, did the Iranian government bless the introduction of multimedia messaging services in the Islamic Republic. It
could be a decision the Islamic Republic will not live long enough to regret.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University, 1999) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical
Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson,
of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense
(2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref
Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale
University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew
University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rubin was originally published in Middle East Strategy at Harvard, June 25, 2009, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/2169/ iran-technology-revolution)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
June 25, 2009
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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