Lessons From Burma: The Orwell Machine

Ace:

Compare the media's rather upfront branding of the insane Burmese regime as murderous with their solicitousness of Iran's madmen. The difference? There is a relatively low probability the US will intervene at all in Burma, whereas there's a somewhat higher likelihood that the US will bomb Iran. Thus it's "safe" to brand the Burmese murderers as vicious tyrants; the media can all take solace in the fact they're not contributing to belligerent action that might actually matter in the scheme of things. They can talk tough on Burma, without fear that their tough talk may impel tough action.

As Ace knows and as I said yesterday, the Burmese demonstrations were doomed. The only price the Burmese regime will pay for its apparent murder of thousands of Buddhist monks is mocking and ill will from the global intelligentsia. The Burmese tyrants knew that, too, and that's why they did it.

If there's anything good that may come from the monks' stand, it's that some of that anger is landing on Burma's patrons in Beijing. Which reminds me of a certain picture. Remember this guy?

Yeah, he's probably dead or in hiding. And (thanks to Google) you'll have a tough time even finding that picture from the Chinese internet.* It's like the whole 1989 thing never even happened. And that's how 2007 is going to be in Burma. They're a little cruder about it, but inside Burma those pictures of dead monks are going to disappear, just like the inconvenient monks themselves, and just like those who took those inconvenient pictures.

Totalitarian governments can do this sort of thing pretty well. It's not perfect; there are little holes and gaps, and it's not up to the standard set forth in 1984, but they're working on it. Governments like the PRC and Burma's regime spend a lot of money to jam, filter, suppress, and torture sources of opposition to their rule, because they know that this technology--surveillance, blocking, and brutality--the Orwell Machine--is what keeps them in power.

So: Iran. We're told there are underground democracy activists there, and the whole country is just a powderkeg of anti-Mullah resentment that will go off pretty quickly if we just begin to support these movements and push for regime change.

There are a couple of minor problems with this: many anti-Mullah activists there and abroad aren't exactly pro-democracy, but Royalist and want a return of the Shah's family to power. These groups don't trust each other and while they might unite against the mullahs, aren't going to work well together should they miraculously succeed in overthrowing the Islamic Revolutionary government. The other problem is that Iranians are nationalist and think they ought to have a nuclear bomb. That's not likely to change with the mullahs gone--it may even get worse--and that outcome is not in our interest. And remember also that Iran currently has three million heroin and opium addicts. Even if their hearts were all in the right place, the Iranian youth are not exactly ready to offer the most vibrant political opposition in history.

But the big problem is that Iran is a totalitarian state like Burma or China that can crush a rebellion. It has an Orwell Machine in the form of the Pasdaran which will do exactly what these states have done to any wayward democracy activists. I've been listening for a long time to conservatives I admire and respect very much, many of whom know much more about Iran than I do, telling me just to wait and support the Iranian opposition. But I don't believe it any more. The wild hope that a bunch of unarmed college kids are going to rise up and overthrow the Iranian regime is dangerously naive. In fact, it borders on magical thinking.

I'm sure the opposition activists are extremely brave, and extremely smart. They may even be well-trained. They will be invaluable in providing intelligence and other support to our efforts to de-fang the mullahs and harass them behind their lines. I wish them well and long-term success, and I believe we may see a democratic Iran in my lifetime. But if the activists start something in Iran today or tomorrow, they're as doomed as these Burmese monks were.

Burma's atrocities affect us very little. On the other hand, our own security is at stake as long as the Islamic Republic's centrifuges turn. We could trust a Bay-of-Pigs type coup attempt to stop them, or we can make sure the job is done right and that Iran's nuclear program, along with its gasoline refinery, its navy, and its air force are disassembled. And at the same time, just as importantly, the Islamic Republic's Orwell Machine must be smashed. The Revolutionary Guards' equipment, infrastructure, and C&C need to be broken.

Only then will democracy activists in Iran have any chance to gain a foothold. Even then I'm not optimistic, because of the anti-U.S. resentment that will accompany an attack, but they're going to have a lot more success in getting their word out while the Pasdaran are busy digging themselves out of their smoldering bunkers.

In other words I no longer see regime change in Iran as a realistic short-term goal. I see regime crippling in Iran as a crucial short-term goal, as a result of which regime change might occur over the long term. But it seems clear to me that regime change can't happen while the Orwell machine still hums in Tehran.

* for an interesting comparison, do a google image search on "Kent State".