The Iranian spectacle: an Istanbul dispatch.
Molavi, Afshin
The Iranian delegation entered the conference with a thud. Parviz
Davudi, the first vice-president of the Islamic Republic of
Iran--flanked by several burly, bearded bodyguards and surrounded by a
coterie of Iranian diplomats in Nehru collars, camera-wielding
journalists from the Islamic Republic's state news media and a few
assorted hangers-on--plowed through the ornate Ciragan Palace Hotel
lobby in Istanbul, brusquely pushing past the assembled political,
business and media elite who gathered for the November 2006 World
Economic Forum--an annual event that showcases Turkey's economic
achievements to the "Davos crowd."
Coffee-sipping delegates looked on with what seemed like a touch of
wonder and dash of fear. One of the Iranian bodyguards elbowed his way
past a small group of chatting participants, spilling coffee on a Swiss
delegate. A Turkish journalist nearly fell over to avoid a crash with
another bodyguard. A Lebanese businessman joked: "The Iranians, it
seems, have once again sent 'the dream team.'" A British
banker chuckled. The Swiss scurried to the bathroom to clean his shirt,
tsk- tsking on the way.
It was an inauspicious beginning to what proved to be an even more
inauspicious afternoon. On stage with Ahmad Nazif, the prime minister of
Egypt and Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister of Turkey, Parviz Davudi
threw a few elbows himself and, as one red-faced Iranian member of the
delegation whispered to me later, "embarrassed us all."
Ahmed Nazif, the suave technocrat prime minister who leads
Egypt's real "dream team" of economic reformers that have
managed to finally wake the slumbering giant on the Nile, spoke first.
He used his five minutes of allotted time to hail Egypt's
considerable economic achievements in the past two years, inviting
participants to see for themselves, and noting the rise in foreign
direct investment to $6 billion (up from less than $2 billion two years
earlier). (1) Abdullah Gul made a brief, articulate pitch for
Turkey's admission to the European Union and investment
opportunities in the "Turkish tiger." In early February 2007,
the Turkish government announced a record-shattering $19.8 billion in
foreign direct investment for 2006, up from less than $2 billion in
2003.2 From the bullish conversations about Turkey held by assembled
bankers at the World Economic Forum, Turkey can likely expect to keep up
that torrid pace of attracting investment. Indeed, according to the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the year
2006 witnessed a 34 percent rise in global foreign investment inflows,
with investments in developing countries reaching a record high--Turkey
among the top.
Meanwhile, Iran lags far behind neighbors like Pakistan and
Turkey--countries that are raking in investment dollars. According to
UNCTAD's 2006 report, Iran ranks dead last out of all the countries
in the Middle East as the nation that attracts the least amount of
foreign investment.
When it came to Davudi's turn to speak, he used his time not
to promote investment opportunities, but to blast Zionism. He also
lambasted imperialism, decried the Bretton Woods economic system, said
something unintelligible about the gold standard, denounced Israel and
the United States, and rambled for more than twenty minutes, reading
from a prepared text in Persian (translated into English by a shrill
translator). When he finished his speech, a somber mood descended on the
room, mingled with heavy doses of eye-rolling. What to make of such a
speech? It might have been "appropriate" at the United Nations
where politics is the main currency, but why such thunder and fire at
the World Economic Forum, a gathering of business elites who might one
day invest in Iran and "do-gooder" social policy elites
looking for philanthropic opportunities? What's more, why be so
imperious and defy the five-minute rule granted to the three speakers
(one of whom outranks the Iranian VP)? And why, as the same Iranian
diplomat whispered to me afterwards in disappointment, deliver such a
defiant speech to a crowd that is generally sympathetic to Iran?
The irony of the "Davos" crowd is this: Though they
represent the elite establishments of their countries, there is an
underlying resentment of U.S. power among many of the delegates,
especially those from the developing world and Europe. American senators
and congressmen who attend Davos often return home shocked by the level
of anti-Americanism among the world's elite.
When Davudi completed his speech, Klaus Schwab, the venerable
chairman of the World Economic Forum and prominent philanthropist, stood
up to, as he described it, "register a note of protest." Dr.
Schwab is no stranger to the rantings of blowhards (not all of whom are
political elites; the Hollywood elite at Davos can be far more
insufferable). Still, he felt the need to conduct a highly rare
intervention. "The World Economic Forum," he said, "is a
place of dialogue and constructive criticism to move towards a better
world. The speech by the Iranian delegate went against the spirit of the
forum."
A stunned silence. And then waves of applause, including several
who stood up from their seats. Davudi, who understood little English,
just smiled.
Later that night, the Iranian delegation failed to turn up at the
dosing plenary dinner and cultural evening at the stunning 16th century
Ottoman palace, where CEOs, bankers and political leaders mingled and
modestly dressed women in Ottoman-style clothing performed traditional
dances from Turkish regions. Perhaps if the Iranian delegation were
present, they might have justifiably had the occasion to register their
own "note of protest;" the Turkish government trotted out
poets to sing verses from the "great Turldsh poet" Jalaladdin
Rumi, whose poetry, written in Persian, owes far more to Persian
traditions than Turkish ones. (I made a mild protest of my own.)
Alas, the Iranian delegation was nowhere to be found. The
problem'? Alcohol was being served--an issue that other Muslim
country delegations easily brushed aside, with full cups of pomegranate and watermelon juice at their tables. While the Saudis managed to avoid
the issue, the Iranians could not fathom the thought of being in the
same room with wine. A few years earlier, former Iranian President
Khatami caused a diplomatic stir and produced global headlines when he
refused to attend a ceremony in Spain where wine was being served.
Worried about hard-liner attempts to tarnish him further by associating
him with the "vice" of being in the same room as wine, Khatami
was watching his back. Still, it was clumsy and lacked the subtlety
known to Persian culture, a culture whose poetry is suffused with images
of wine and intoxication (sometimes spiritual, sometimes actual).
At the dinner that night, people wondered aloud why the Iranian
vice president was so harsh. A Dutch professor asked me politely,
'Ahem, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but is that
man popular in Iran?" An Indian businessman, tipsy from a few
drinks, turned to me in an accusatory fashion and said, "Is that
the best you have?" It's not, of course. Several of the
Khatami-era diplomats--most notably Sadegh Kharrazi at the Foreign
Ministry, Hossein Adeli at the Iranian embassy in London, and Javad
Zarif at the United Nations--understand the language of diplomacy and
the game of globalization. And thousands of top Iranians at home and
abroad who are not khodi--Islamic Republic insiders-could ably serve the
national interests of their country. Indeed, many of Iran's most
globalized, savvy citizens are living in America and Europe. Meanwhile,
the Egyptians, Turks and Saudis--ignoring the wine on the tables--were
busy doing business, setting up meetings, and back-slapping foreign
investors.
It was not, to say the least, Iranian diplomacy's finest hour.
So why does this poor performance matter? Why not applaud the
Iranian delegation for speaking what they regard as truth to power? Why
not give them credit for standing up for religious principles and
avoiding a party where alcohol is being served? Well, beyond the fact
that the Islamic Republic of Iran's use of principles are often
highly selective (note the recent embrace of the genocidal Sudanese
government by President Ahmadinejad), there's an even more
compelling reason: The Iranian delegation missed an opportunity to do
some good for their economically strapped population. With chronic
inflation and stagnant wages hurting ordinary Iranians, a more favorable
investment climate that might create jobs and growth would help
long-suffering Iranians. But that didn't matter. The spectacle
seemed to matter more than the substance.
Like it or not, international business conferences matter, and
there is none more important than the World Economic Forum. In a short
period of time in small conference rooms, countries make pitches to the
world's leading bankers, investors, and journalists. Intellectuals
and journalists have the luxury of repeatedly taking principled stands.
Governments sometimes should compromise in the interest of their people.
Governments also need to understand today's global economy.
They are not required to buy everything. The smart governors use
globalization selectively, benefiting their people with strategic
foreign investment inflows, while protecting them from the vagaries of
the free market, such as short term capital inflows that flee at the
first sight of market fear. Indeed, oil-rich states like Iran are among
the best positioned to benefit from globalization because they have
enough money to define their trading relationships on their terms.
It's not an easy balance, but one that can be managed with the
right mix of skills and talent. Iran's current crop of political
elite have neither the skills nor the talent. In the last few years, the
consulting firm A.T. Kearney and the magazine Foreign Policy have
published a Globalization Index, ranMng a country's relative
globalization. Over the past five years, Iran has ranked dead last--a
particularly galling distinction given Iran's history as the first
globalizer under the Persian Empire nearly 3,000 years ago. As the
German philosopher Hegel wrote, "Persians are the first Historic
people.... n Persia first arises that light which shines itself and
illuminates what is around.... The principle of development begins with
the history of Persia; this constitutes therefore the beginning of
history." (3)
The Egyptian prime minister, who also hails from a
civilization-heavy, under-performing country, understands the game. He
masterfully worked the room in Istanbul, chatting with journalists and
CEOs, glad-handing a Dubai investment group, handling media requests
with grace and skill. The Iranian delegation, throughout the two-day
proceedings, mostly kept to themselves, fingering rosary beads, and
sipping tea. Egypt's foreign investment will likely grow even
further next year. They have a long way to go to repair the damage
inflicted from decades of Nasser-ist command-and-control and Mubarak-ist
neglect and corruption, but they are moving forward.
Meanwhile, a frustrated, whispering member of the Iranian
delegation understood the problem. Occasionally, when no one was
looking, he would take me aside, and unburden himself. "What
happened yesterday was terrible," he said to me, referring to the
speech. "While we are busy talking about Israel and politics, the
world is moving on. The Turks are developing their economy. I'm
amazed at how advanced they are."
The differences are, indeed, stark. Iran, a country with the
world's second-largest gas reserves and world's third largest
oil reserves, has a GDP less than half of that of resource-poor Turkey.
(4) Meanwhile, Turkish business "tigers" are making their mark
all across Europe and the Middle East. Of the top hundred businesses in
the Muslim world, as measured by the business magazine Dinar Standard,
twenty-six of them are Turkish (mostly private sector); only three are
Iranian, two of which are state-owned. (5) Turkey also boasts the first
and fourth fastest growing companies in the Muslim world. Iran is
nowhere to be seen in the top ten. Fourteen private Turkish companies
made the Forbes 2,000 largest companies index. There is not one Iranian
company on the list. Meanwhile, the Forbes wealthiest index lists
twenty-one Turkey-based industrialists. Those Iranians who did make it
onto the list live outside Iran. Most of those Turks are busy
reinvesting at home, creating jobs, building wealth and sustaining the
middle class. Iranian businessmen are struggling in an environment of
cronyism and corruption, increasingly peopled by members of the
Revolutionary Guards whose engineering firm, Khatam ol-Anbia, has won
several high-profile contracts in the last two years.
Investment bankers speak of Turkey in the same breath as the famed
BRIC countries--Brazil, Russia, India and China. When investment bankers
speak of Iran, it's usually to worry about "risk" to
global stability and markets, fears of U.S.-Iran confrontation, Iranian
actions in the Persian Gulf or Iran's dwindling oil reserves. The
main global ratings agencies don't bother to rank Iran. The only
one that has made the effort, Fitch, gave Iran the lowly ranking of BB-
in 2006, far below the high ratings secured by most of Iran's
Persian Gulf neighbors and Turkey, which fall in the A+ to BBB+ range.
When Turkey's economy collapsed in the late 1990s, the world
worried--and acted. The International Monetary Fund rushed in with a
bailout. Iran's economy has been in the midst of a slow collapse,
and the world barely notices. Why? Turkey is far more globalized, far
more linked to trading and business and banking networks (and of course,
unsanctioned by the United States). Turkey also happens to be a U.S.
ally and NATO member. Absent oil, few would care what happened to
Iran's economy.
Even Iran's oil industry is hampered by sloganeering. In the
early days of the revolution, wide-eyed revolutionaries declared a ban
on all foreign investment. Iran's constitution reflects a deep
distrust of foreign investment. As a result, Iran has failed to live up
to the enormous promise of its oil and gas riches. It pumps only
two-thirds of what the country produced before 1979. What's more,
onerous regulations, heavy-handed negotiations, and government-mandated
rates of return have scared foreign investors away. As the respected
energy consultant Mehdi Varzi notes, "Iran is its own worst
enemy.... There are companies that are prepared to ignore sanctions if
the rates of return are right." (6) And Roger Stern of Johns
Hopkins University reports that Iran, confronted by dwindling reserves
and lack of foreign investment, may face the year 2015 with no reserves
at all. (7) "The short story is that every aspect of the oil
infrastructure has been starved--drilling, refineries, distribution,
even the gas stations in Iran," Stern told Reuters. "It's
a mess." (8)
Even if Stern's analysis is off the mark, as some have
suggested, Iran's policies are not doing much to stem the dwindling
reserve tide. As the distinguished Iranian economist Jahangir Amuzegar
noted:
With the exception of a recent agreement with Malaysia signed in
early January 2007 to develop two offshore gas fields of Ferdows
and Golshan, and two major memorandums of understanding with China's
Sinopec to develop North Pars offshore gas and Yadavaran oil fields
in southwestern Iran ... no new contract has been concluded with a
foreign company in the last two years.
As he adeptly put it: "In short, the problem on which
principal and urgent attention should be focused is not on Iran's
oil and gas reserves, but the Islamic Republic's populist and
wasteful energy policies. Resources are not a constraint; the failure to
increase production capacity; and adopt right policies, is." (9)
Meanwhile, Iran, with the second largest reserves of natural gas
after Russia, has been creamed by neighbor Qatar in the race for
long-term contracts with Asian partners. In one instance, Iran
couldn't close a deal because it didn't have enough
negotiators. According to British Petroleum, in 2005 Iran was only the
sixth largest producer of natural gas--a shocking fact given its
reserves. (10 But the fact remains: Iran, with some 15 percent of the
world's gas, should be producing much more. (11) It should not be
behind Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Algeria, with
combined reserves of less than 5 percent. (12)
The untold story of the Iranian revolution is the slow economic
decline of the country. A country that once boasted per capita income levels akin to Spain, now ranks ninety-seventh on the United Nations
2006 Human Development Index, just below Belize, the Dominican Republic
and Sri Lanka, and just ahead of Georgia, the Maldives, Azerbaijan and
Palestine. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, propelled to victory
in 2005 on a populist platform, has presided over a further economic
collapse. Capital flight to Dubai is at an all-time high, bankers say,
and new industrial investment is weak. Meanwhile, for ordinary Iranians,
the price of tomatoes, onions and meat--staples of the Iranian
diet--continue to rise. Rather than addressing the core issue that hurts
most Iranians, Ahmadinejad, in a February 2007 speech, blamed the rising
price of tomatoes on a foreign plot.
Meanwhile, just across the waters of the Persian Gulf, the Arab
states are benefiting from the massive oil price rise. The six Gulf
Cooperation Council Economies--Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, the United
Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar--have grown 75 percent in the last three
years. (13) According to the Institute for International Finance, their
combined GDP makes them the sixteenth largest economy in the world. (14)
They are moving closer and closer toward economic integration.
Meanwhile, Iranians have become gawkers in Dubai, their mouths agape at
the wonders of the city across the Persian Gulf. Iranian businessmen,
frustrated with the strictures at home, are pouring money into the tiny,
commercially robust emirate. Indian real estate agents are learning
Persian; Iranians are hungrily buying up one-bedroom and studio
apartments across the city.
Iranian visitors to Dubai are often confronted with a stark
reality: these supposedly "inferior" Arabs--Persian chauvinism is alive and well--have created the Hong Kong of the Middle East. But
Dubai can be flicked away by the naysayers: it is small; the workforce
is predominantly foreign; it is built on neighboring oil money. Turkey,
however, cannot be dismissed so easily--hence, the disorientation of the
Iranian diplomat. "When I first visited Turkey thirty years
ago," he told me, "I thought I was in a Third World country.
Now, it seems we've gone backward and they've moved
forward."
This is true. Turkey was not always a well-managed economy. Its own
Human Development Index ranking (ninety-second) today reflects many
years of poor management. Clearly, however, they are moving in the right
direction--led by an increasingly popular Islamist prime minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, who is showing that Islamists can indeed govern if they
place efficient management that seeks to deliver the greatest prosperity
and happiness to the greatest number of people above sloganeering.
And yet, in Iran, after twenty-seven years of Islamic Republic
rule, the spectacle, the chest-thumping speech, the sloganeering, goes
on. Even Jumhuriyeh Eslami, the hard-line newspaper affiliated with
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, reprimanded Ahmadinejad for his
sloganeering. More than 150 members of Parliament sent the president a
letter criticizing his handling of the economy. While Iranians suffer
under unofficial estimates of 20 percent inflation, stagnant wages,
widespread un- and underemployment, President Ahmadinejad glad-hands
Latin American leftists, denies the Holocaust, and makes loud and
defiant noises about Iran's uranium enrichment program. And his
vice president scares off foreign investors in Istanbul.
Even the normally staid Middle East Economic Digest (MEED)
commented on the flippancy with which Iranian officials seem to allow
their radical politics to harm their economic affairs. Referring to the
climate of hope engendered by the November 2006 Iraq Study Group report calling for U.S. engagement with Iran, echoed by Tony Blair and Colin
Powell and coupled with a leaked CIA report saying that the U.S. had no
evidence Iran was pursuing a bomb, MEED saw an opportunity for deft
Iranian diplomacy leading to a reduction of tensions. And then the
Holocaust conference that "provoked disgust" turned the mood
around in the West. "It is hard to escape the conclusion,"
Angus McDowall of MEED wrote "that an opportunity to avoid a costly
confrontation has slipped away for the most frivolous of reasons."
(15) While Dubai attracts top talent and leading speakers from political
and corporate worlds, Iran, on the other hand, hosts racists and
anti-Semites. The show must go on.
Meanwhile, as McDowall adds,
Foreign investment and finance have dried up, as has much domestic
private sector investment. The mood in the business community is
low. Blessed by the highest oil prices in memory; Iran's poor can
legitimately wonder where all the money is going, why there have
been few major corruption arrests and why prices on the street seem
to be rising while government figures suggest inflation is
falling. (16)
Statistics in Iran are notoriously bad, but the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming: Iranians are suffering economically. Any visitor to
Iran will see that right away. On the street, the talk is of the high
price of tomatoes and onions, not of uranium enrichment or Israel.
That's partially why Ahmadinejad managed to emerge with the
presidency. He made populist economic promises, not radical foreign
policy slogans. That's also mostly why his supporters lost in
recent municipal council and Assembly of Experts elections: he failed to
deliver.
Ahmadinejad, it seems, has fallen into the trap of many presidents
(and not only Iranian ones): Foreign policy is more interesting than
managing a complex economy. Press interviews with Mike Wallace and
Anderson Cooper, where the journalists spend most of their time asking
about Israel and uranium enrichment while ignoring important questions
of human rights abuses and democracy, are more invigorating. State
visits to the countries of fellow global anti-imperialists, loud
declarations in support of the Palestinians and defiant speeches at the
United Nations brought Ahmadinejad, the son of an ironsmith and
revolutionary foot soldier, to the verge of becoming Time
magazine's "Person of the Year." While a sophisticated
economic restructuring program that serves the poor, strengthens the
middle class and boosts the private sector, coupled with a de-escalation
of political rhetoric, might have been the more sensible choice, it
would not have been Time magazine "Person of the Year" stuff.
Ahmadinejad, it must be noted, did not invent the spectacle, nor
did the Islamic Republic. The shah put together a spectacle of his own
in 1971, inviting the world's leaders and beautiful people to a
glitzy, opulent celebration of 2,500 years of Persian monarchy Few
Iranians were invited. Maxim's de Paris catered the event.
Pompously, the shah said: "Sleep, O Cyrus, for we are awake."
If the dynasty were truly "awake," they wouldn't have put
on such a display while the country still faced serious economic
inequities.
The Islamic Republic of Iran--like all revolutionary states--values
the art of the spectacle. Political street theater is an important
currency. On numerous visits to Basij command posts, where the volunteer
militia gathered, I spotted ready-made signs and posters, several
attached to wooden sticks, primed for mobilization. All across Iran, the
"spectacle" of the war dead, of those hundreds of thousands of
young and often noble young men, is evident in billboards that
commemorate their fall. Those billboards are often accompanied by
political slogans. Browsing a book store in Qom two years ago, I came
across an extraordinary volume entitled, "Slogans of the Islamic
Revolution." It ran more than 200 pages. The slogans were clever,
uncompromising, funny, sharp, stern, angry, lyrical, sophisticated and
witty Clearly, much time was spent creating them.
Every year in late December, the government mobilizes for
"Jerusalem Day," an event that mixes anti-Israel and
anti-United States protests with support for the Palestinian cause.
Again, what's wrong with supporting the Palestinian cause? Nothing,
of course. They deserve as much real, substantive help as possible. But
on the Jerusalem Day that I attended, several shopkeepers took me aside
and said: "Why should I lose business for this silly event?.... Why
does the government care so much about the Palestinians? I'm sick
of them."
Over the past few years, in my travels to more than a dozen Muslim
countries, I found Iranians to be the least interested in the
Palestinian cause of all. Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis and Moroccans
never tire of lecturing me about the injustice of U.S. policy. Iranians,
on the other hand, often lecture me about the injustice of their
government paying so much attention to the Palestinians when they need
help at home. Karim Sadjadpour of the International Crisis Group
astutely notes that Iranians have "Palestine-fatigue." And
yet, the show must go on. Jerusalem Day continues. Meanwhile, at sites
of natural disasters, Iranians complain of slow government response. One
earthquake victim told me: "If this had taken place in south
Lebanon or Palestine, the government would have sent millions of
dollars." In student and worker protests, people chant,
"Forget Palestine! Think of Us!" The resentment builds, but
the show goes on.
The show goes on because the show, in many ways, is not intended
for a domestic audience. Parviz Davudi would not have delivered his
Istanbul speech in front of Iranian workers or students. They would have
seen right through it. They know too much. They would have pushed back.
They would have said: "fine, but where is my job?" In much the
same way Iranians grew tired of President Khatami's abstract
theorizing of dialogue between civilizations with a similar question:
"Yes, good idea, but in the meantime, where is my job? When will
inflation cease?"
Today's spectacle is aimed mostly at a foreign audience. And
they largely buy it. Journalists like Mike Wallace get sucked in. He
spends an hour with Ahmadinejad and asks him not a single question about
democracy or the jailing of journalists and intellectuals. He questions
the Iranian president almost solely about uranium, and Israel and the
Holocaust as if the Iranian people don't matter, as if the massive,
dynamic youth population of Iran--who comprise some two-thirds of the
population and who are hungry for greater contact with the outside
world--are just a sideshow.
When Europeans and the odd smattering of Americans visit Iran, I
often hear some variation of the following: "The people are so
friendly;" "I felt no danger;" "It's so
different than what I expected." As if all Iranians are the sort of
goose-stepping hordes of Revolutionary Guard soldiers one sees aired
repeatedly on Fox News' Broll. Then, the visitor often says:
"Our media has failed us." True, to an extent, but when
Islamic Republic government made-for-media shows usually involve some
sort of denunciation of the West in fist-pumping crowds, the Islamic
Republic has also failed its people. It has confiscated its history of
tolerance and cultural eclectism; a history that includes the liberation
of Jews from their Babylonian captivity.
Meanwhile, in the policy and analyst community, a new narrative has
emerged: Iran is ascendant, the pundits tell us. Iran is the new
regional power in the Middle East, a potential hegemon. Making such a
statement is akin to saying "Brazil has emerged as a Latin American
power." Well, yes. This is as it should be. Iran should be a
regional power at all times. Full stop. If it isn't one, it's
because it has been poorly managed. By sheer dint of its geography, its
natural resources, its civilization heft, its demography, its young,
talented population, Iran should always be a power with which to be
reckoned. In fact, Iran is punching well below its weight. Its poor
economic management holds it back. A country that should be the Germany
of the Middle East is, economically; more like a medium-sized Central
European state. The rise of China began when China began managing its
economy better, putting aside the show of Communism in favor of foreign
investment and well-managed free trade zones. The rise of China did not
begin with a nuclear weapon.
Iran's potential remains enormous. Its large population is
highly educated and skilled. Its highly successful diaspora, eager to
reconnect with their homeland, have access to hundreds of billions in
capital and untold amounts of intellectual capital. Iran's
geography puts it at the center of the new Silk Road--the vast and
growing corridor of trade between the Middle East and Asia. Its young
population, widely seen as an explosive job-creating challenge, could be
a demographic gift if channeled properly. Iran has no shortage of key
friends in Europe and the United States--diplomats and businessmen who
see beyond "the spectacle" and have fallen in love with
Iran's formidable culture and its generous people, and would jump
at the opportunity to do business or promote development within Iran.
Troublingly, however, the spectacle seems to matter more than the
substance. A European diplomat once astutely said: "The Islamic
Republic of Iran must decide if it wants to be a country or a
cause." The question remains open--and the show goes on.
NOTES
(1) "Foreign Investments in Egypt up by USD Four Billion in
Two Years--Minister," Kuwait News Agency, 5 February 2007.
(2) Jason Nash, "Turkey: Unshaken," Today's Zaman,
23 February 2007.
(3) G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (Mineola,
New York: Dover Publications), 173-174.
(4) Central Intelligence Agency, World Factbook 2007.
(5) "DS100-Top 100 Companies in the Muslim World," Dinar
Standard, 2006.
(6) "Iran Oil Exports Could Dwindle," The Age, 5 January
2007.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Jahangir Amuzegar, "Iran's New Energy Picture,"
Middle East Economic Survey 50, no. 5 (29 January 2007), 28-31.
(10) Narsi Ghorban, "Monetizing Iran's Gas Resources and
the Debate over Gas-Export and Gas-Based Industries Options,"
Middle East Economic Survey 49, no. 28, (10 July 2006), 28-31.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Institute for International Finance, "Summary Appraisal:
Gulf Cooperation Council Countries," 15 August 2006.
(14) Ibid.
(15) Angus McDowall, Middle East Economic Digest (5-11 January
2007), 27-35.
(16) Ibid.