Here we name a few reasons as to why the previous efforts did not achieve the desired results. We consider the desired result for Iran to be free and its population to have a high quality of life. Clearly, the opposition has failed so far to contribute much to this objective.

• Lack of legitimacy. Even if Group A has the best strategy, but no one in Iran supports that Group A, it will not reach its goals. The best solution to create and maintain long-term legitimacy is through a political institution. In the best case, a parliamentary system.

• Lack of human resources and low transparency. Financial resources are naturally needed for the long-term operation of any political group and for the hiring of experts. Establishments that do not clearly lay bare where their income comes from and what promises they made to supporters in return for these resources, will have difficulty in convincing a large number of people.

• Lack of coherent leadership: many different groups, projects and atemmpts had good progress at the beginning. But lacking a clear political leadership is a detrimental shortcoming for long-term operation of a political group. Some groups keep alluding to certain famous figures as their leader, but this has so far remained one-sided and these famous figures have not taken up clear leadership roles in established institutions to consolidate the management and leadership of these groups based on a clear structure. As a result, people lose their interest after some time. We must realize the important point that the task or use of an experts group is not just to give advice. One of the reasons for the lack of coherent leadership is that they are looking for expertise in social issues and political and economic sciences, but they don't have a political leader. Leadership and management are not the same. For people's active cooperation with the group, consistent leadership is the most important element. The experience of the last 40 years has shown that no group alone has the ability to create leadership. As a result, we have to create a leadership institution, which brings us back to the parliamentary solution. 

• Not presenting a clear political and especially economic plan about how to govern after regime change. This is an important reason why people do not trust certai groups and 'parties'. Just talking about democracy and freedom is not enough. The groups that claim to have the ability to govern Iran should explain clearly what their plan is for the country's economy is. What method do they have to reduce inflation? How will they prevent the Taliban from attacking Iran's borders? During the transition period and before voting on the new constitution, based on what laws will the court cases be decided? But more importantly, they need a realistic strategy of obtaining the political power to carry out their plans. Simply having a 'first 100 days plan' is not enough. How do they access the correct power centers to implement those ideas and why would the people working in those power centers cooperate? E.g. why would the brass of IRGC sit around and look, while these groups take up high ranking political positions and take all the oil resources out of the hands of the IRGC? Here too, the best solution is a parliamentary system that has both financial and human resources to create these detailed programs and a large and loud platform so that the people of Iran can easily receive this information, and most importantly, it has a place in a parliamentary system. There will be discussion and criticism of each program to choose the best among several options and at the same time both groups and people will learn the method of political discussion and resolving differences through discussion.

At present, creating a large group of experts is neither obligatory nor will it have a very special result. A lot of resources and time would be spent on it, and it will not achieve much in the long run. Consequently, our recommendation is that we work more on the main missing element, which is leadership. Creating the foundation of a coherent leadership is something that has never been done successfully. Fortunately, it does not require a lot of resources, nor the legitimacy and support of the people to start. There is something that we can do and advance in three continents relatively quietly. What is meant by the infrastructure of leadership is not only political groups. They exist today and have tendencies and leanings. While the infrastructure of leadership can be created non-politically to gain the trust of many groups and most importantly to be able to get the cooperation of different political movements. What the current groups have not been successful in doing so far. This is where Kavian come in. We are working on developing such a platform.

Only 20% of the activities of a parliamentary system is political work. More than 80% of its work is technocracy and bureaucracy. One reason for the failure of initiatives like the ADFI with its Mahsa charter is the fact that they do not built a professional administrative body as the basis of a political system. Merely sitting around a table does not create political power.

It is hence vital to work on developing the administrative body of the Parliament in Exile before entering the political body. But erecting such a system requires resources that are currently not accessible to Kavian alone (human resources, expertise, financial resources). This is why a framework that allows independent but parallel cooperation among different groups to accumulate resources is a logical first step.

On the other hand, cooperation within an umbrella organization will provide the opportunity for the involved associations to experience the difficulties of organized, political work.

For some time, certain social media users were insisting that toppling regimes without oil-rent is easy and hence, we should focus on reducing Iran's oil income. That is not always accurate. Countries like Egypt, Syria and Pakistan, are not oil-rentiers and yet, the opposition of their dictatorship systems have remained unsuccessful for decades. The most important influence of the oil income is on the personalization of security forces and demobilizing the opposition protest movements. See e.g. [Girod, 2016]. At the same time, exactly because the regime is so extremely dependent on oil income, that is a severe weakness of it. Nonetheless, simply reducing the oil income without strengthening the civil society and providing in with tools to pressure the regime is insufficient. The best proof it happened in Iran's neighboring country, Iraq, in the 1990s and was called the "Oil-For-Food Programme". That programme was supposed to weaken the dcitator regime of Saddam Hussein and reduce its danger to help Iraqis. In reality, it became a buzzing hub for corrupt companies and officials from nearly every country that was involved, including the US, the UK, Australia, France and Germany, as the inquiry into the programme corruption discovered. At the same time, the Iraqi regime continued its missile programme, while the population suffered from lack of access to sufficient food and medicine during the embargo system, as for example detailed in this study. 

The conclusion we must make is this: given the IR regime's decades long experience with avoiding sanctions, China's unwillingess to stop buying oil from Iran and the extensive corruption among officials of governments and international organizations (incl. the UN) as well as malpractices of private companies, there is no benefit to be have from stopping Iran's oil income. It will only lead to more suffering and death among the population. Instead the focus must be on finding Iranians affiliated with the IRGC and operating internationally to launder money for the elite of the regime, seize their assets and use them to support the opposition groups.

The idea that there had been social movements in Iran before the WLF uprising, is of course true. But as far as we can observe, we have not created a meaningful movement based on the heart of the WLF uprising. Every movement that has been intensified, has already exited. The movement for justice existed before the WLF uprising. The movement for women's and workers' rights also existed before. 

We do not lack social movements. But we have a series of unsuccessful experiences and we don't even learn from these experiences to improve our methods. A simple example is the difference between uprisings and movements. 

A popular uprising does not follow a specific, clear and fixed goal. Those who are strongly dissatisfied with the situation, show it publicly. A movement occurs when a clearly defined goal remains unchanged over a long time. Mrs. Alinjad's "White Wednesdays" is a movement. It has a clear goal (repeal of the mandatory headscarf), it has no other goal, and for more than ten years, this goal has remained unchanged. The reason for the importance of creating a movement based on people's desires is that if there is no movement, people who have a specific desire, do not know how to spend their resources to achieve their goals. An uprising, because it has dozens of other big and small goals, is not a place for meaningful political work. A meaningful place for political work is created by middle-level leaders of social and political movements. High-ranking leaders (parties) use the power and resources of different groups for different goals to reach the common goal of all these groups (freedom, democracy, equality). 

One problem that the opposition of the regime has at the moment, and it is not specific to the WLF uprising, is that nearly no movement has directly and insistently sought to change the law and especially the constitution. Except partially for the teachers' movement and a part of the women's movement. This is the main difference between social and political movements. Politics means making laws (legislative branch), making decisions on laws (judiciary), implementing laws (executive brnach). Most of those who spend resources (including their time) on regime change are social activists. But we clearly see that in Iran, without changing the constitution, the general public will not achieve its demands. Social movements alone are not enough, we need political leadership as well.

We are open to any person, group or party that is aligned with our values (human rights, principles of democracy and national integrity). To our knowledge, the participants in the George Town meeting and the founding members of the ADF Iran are aligned with these values. Leanings or worldviews do not matter to us if the persons involved have a proven track of adhering to the minimum moral values and ethics. The sins of the father are not the sins of the son. In principle we agree with the Mahsa Charter and the concepts mentioned therein. The most important difference between social trust and political trust is in the institution. The general public may have social trust in a football player (Ali Karimi) or an actress (Nazanin Bonyadi) or the family of a airplane crash victim (Hamed Esmailion) or the son of a former monarch (Reza Pahlavi). But until they cooperate with a reliable institution and distance themselves from unreliable institutions, they will not gain political trust. Hence, the greatest weakness of the this charter was that it did not establish a shared institution for the members. There are also some minute points that could use enhancement. Specifically, 8 comments are made.

The Mahsa Charter (v. 9th March 2023)

After the murder of Mahsa (Jina) Amini and the beginning of the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution, the people of Iran continue to fight for freedom and intend to break the chains of injustice, discrimination and tyranny. All of us who bear the scars of the Islamic Republic’s atrocities on our bodies and souls, believe that the way to building a free and democratic Iran is to overcome the Islamic Republic regime. Reaching this ultimate goal (1) necessitates the three elements of unison, organization and relentless continuity in activism.

This charter relies initially on activities outside of the country as a means to facilitate the participation of activists inside the country. We believe that the isolation of the Islamic government internationally, is a first and necessary step to affect democratic change on which basis the following objectives shall be pursued;

1. To impose international pressure on the Islamic Republic to halt all death sentences and to immediately release all political prisoners without condition.

2. Consultation with democratic governments to expel the ambassadors of the Islamic Republic. 

3. Consultation with democratic governments to expel all dependents of the Islamic Republic (2) from their respective countries. 

4. Consultation with democratic governments to support this charter and this Alliance (3).

5. To facilitate any means necessary to aid the people of Iran.

The involvement of these governments shall preclude any interference in the internal affairs,

and the will of the people of Iran.

Subsequent actions will take place with the participation of activists inside Iran to focus on fair transitional justice, the formation of a council for the transition of power, and the means by which power is transferred to a secular, democratic government. This agenda requires the participation of all citizens specializing in various fields who will be invited to join committees dedicated to transitioning from the Islamic Republic. The Alliance will introduce actionable initiatives using democratic methods to be implemented at the earliest opportunity in order to bring to fruition, the civil action struggles of the people of Iran.

Common values of the Alliance for changing the Islamic Republic regime to a democratic Iran:

Democratic Governance

1. To determine the form of government by way of a referendum, to establish a secular democratic system (based on the principle of separation of religion from government) in which all political and official members (4) of the state shall be elected through a free and democratic election process whereby citizens of all beliefs, ethnicities, gender and sexual orientation be afforded dignity and equal rights before the law.

2. To maintain the territorial integrity of Iran while accepting diversity in language, ethnicity, religion and culture.

3. Decentralization of power by deferring financial, bureaucratic and policy making (5) affairs to elected provincial, city, and regional administrations.

4. To establish an independent organization to supervise elections and the acceptance of domestic and international oversight organizations to monitor elections.

5. To hold democratic elections to form a Constituent Assembly and to produce a new national constitution through an inclusive and transparent process.

Human Rights and Human Dignity

6. Acceptance of and respect for diversity and variety in Iranian society and efforts to remedy historic and current discrimination. To accept the position of native languages based on international Laws and Conventions.

7. The new constitution shall adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its entirety, and all of the rights and freedoms noted therein.

8. To abolish the death penalty and any corporal punishment; banning any and all arbitrary arrests and detentions during the transition, and to join the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT).

9. To join and enact the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and to implement all provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and all other conventions to which Iran is a signatory, but has failed to adhere to, and the adoption of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

10. To join and adopt the International Labour Organization's conventions on the rights of workers including freedom to assembly and to form organizations, the right to strike and collective bargaining agreements. To ensure the health, security and non-discrimination policies and fair minimum wage guarantees.

Justice

11. To support the establishment of an independent judicial system in accordance with international standards.

12. Justice for all victims of the Islamic Republic through fact finding commissions (6) under the auspices of fair and independent courts including the right to chosen, independent legal representation.

Peace and Security

13. The Abolition of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp. and all of its subsidiaries. The possibility to integrate IRGC forces into other armed forces such as the army may only be possible in the absence of involvement in crimes and based on necessary qualifications. The military shall only be responsible to defend the territorial integrity of the country (7).

14. To establish policies of cooperation and peaceful relations with all countries in the world, and to cease all interference in the affairs of other countries, and to join the International Criminal Court (8). To initiate legal action within the framework of international law to annul any and all unfair treaties that are not in the national interest of Iran that have been entered into with other nations or companies by the Islamic Republic government.

15. To join and enact the International Convention on Nuclear Safety.

Environmental Sustainability

16. Full compliance with the principles of sustainability and protection of the environment and to join relevant United Nations conventions.

Economic Transparency and Prosperity

17. To abolish all economic monopolies and to adhere to international banking and currency exchange standards, and also to facilitate international trade and investment opportunities. To focus on remedial policies and special economic provisions to empower marginalized provinces and regions. Transparency, actionable anti-corruption measures and to join the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

To overcome the Islamic Republic’s tyranny, all Iranians who are committed to freedom must unite. The courage of the people of Iran and their persistent fight for freedom shall be the bright beacon of hope for our future. Let us stand united in the creation of a free tomorrow.

____ Comments on the Text ____

(1): “overcoming the Islamic Republic regime” must not be our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal should be justice and freedom (in other words, a fair and just system of social cooperation) that leads to a high quality of life for all Iranians. Of course, dissolving the IR regime is an important, necessary step. But it is not the ultimate goal.

(2) Expelling “all dependents of the Islamic Republic” from the West is not a particularly intelligent or even meaningful idea. A large number of Iranian students in Europe have scholarships from the Iranian government and are hence ‘dependents’ of the regime. There is no advantage in expelling them. Instead we should focus on the economic, political and financial assets of the regime (incl. lobbyists), and focus on barring or freezing them to make them ineffective in relation to foreign policy of the West.

(3) “supporting this charter and this Alliance”

Anyone would support a ‘charter’ in name, it has no cost for them. Instead of simply asking for an undefined ‘support’ that may simply be a statement on social media, you should focus on getting promises and even legally binding memorandums on important problems like freezing the financial assets of the regime.

(4) “all political and official members”

This would generate unnecessary social, financial and political problems. There is no need for all ministers and all judges to be democratically elected. It is important that any person and any position can be changed based on the wishes of the population. THAT is what democracy is about: having the institutions to change policies and politicians. 

(5) “financial, bureaucratic and policy making”

This statement is too general and in this formulation quite dangerous. Foreign policy, defense, cooperative policies among states, national budget including taxes and development plans including investment initiatives must be decided and organized centrally, approved by the national parliament (directly or indirectly). Without a central taxing and budgeting system, in less than 10 years strong inequalities among different states will arise, because some have access to more natural resources. At the same time, management of shared projects or resources (rivers, rail tracks, natural parks, etc.) will be inefficient due to differences of local state policies.

(6) “Justice for all victims of the Islamic Republic through fact finding commissions”

In itself a good thing of course. But this vague and nonspecific formulation is not helpful. Making what sounds like a vengeful mindset a default and automatic part of our movement is a bad idea. The IR regime has over 3.5 million employees. A not-so-small number of them have committed acts of financial corruption. And of course, the victims of these corrupt actions are the general public (the money that should have been spent on hospitals was spent on mosques, and more people with diseases died than should have happened on average). If we simply state that ALL those, who have committed any kind of crime, no matter how minor or what type, will be prosecuted, it will hinder important officials of the regime from aligning with us or joining our cause. Yes, some might have committed some crimes. But if they help us now, we can stop the regime from committing more, serious crimes. Their willingness to join us and help dissolve the regime should give them at least some immunity from prosecution.

(7) “the military only be responsible to defend the territorial integrity of the country”

And protecting people during emergency situations (storms, earthquakes, etc.) and also special protection missions (such as fighting terrorism).

(8) “ to join the International Criminal Court”

All members of the UN charter are state parties of the ICCJ.

https://icj-cij.org/states-entitled-to-appear

What you are trying to say is that you want Iran to become a state party to the Rome Statute. In that regard, caution must be taken. Already now, many American citizens have sued the Iranian government for 9/11 attacks, even though Iran had absolutely no part in them. And they have practically stolen billions of USD from Iran's frozen reserves in the US. Joining the Rome Statute will only make it easier for the foreign victims of the IR regime to sue the next regime of Iran. While it is important that the next Iranian regime recognizes the evils of the IR regime, there is no benefit for Iranians, if we lose billions and billions of Dollars in court processes because of the IR regime.

We believe it is important to view problems in a dispassionate way, to put aside ideology and to look at the evidence before making a decision about what is the best course of action.

Main Arguments Against Revenge

1) Being civil is a responsibility

2) Revenge is against human rights and misses the concept of democracy.

3) Proves inability to tolerate opposition = Proves inability to govern without using violence

4) Provides the regime an excuse to crack down on legitimate opposition.

5) It ignores the realities about dissent, extremism and terrorism.

In the aftermath of the bombings in Kerman by ISIL, there was a lot of talk about ISIL and the Sepah. But those who were screaming revenge everyday, clearly don’t understand the economy of extremism. This is interesting, because on one hand it helps us understand extremist groups like ISIL better. On the other hand, we will see that the basic ideas here are quite similar as for Basij and Sepah and why so many young Iranians have joined them over the years. But it also shows us how effective policy making and how proper economic decisions can reduce the danger of young people being radicalized by extremist ideologies, especially religious ones. It shows us how we can protect Iran from terrorist groups after the regime change. And it shows us how we can avoid the next army of Iran becoming a new oil mafia.

The extremist leader

Extremists have ideas or tactics outside the mainstream. Looked at it this way, extremists are not necessarily twisted or evil. They appear mysterious, frightening, irrational and different from us: they appear twisted, deviant, fanatical, or simply “evil.” The reasons are

• the extraordinary destruction of which they are sometimes capable,

• the apparently single-minded passion of their leaders,

• while the leaders of these movements often appear dogmatic, perhaps even more frightening is the oft-observed fanatical loyalty of their followers.

From the point of view of theories of economics and politics, these people are rational. This means given their ends, they choose the best means to achieve them. Rational people can be motivated to die for a cause. Whether others consider that cause good or bad, is a different story. The goals themselves are neither rational nor irrational; we just take them as given.

This does not mean that they are necessarily selfish, cold, or that they calculate everything. It means only that, given their goals, they try to achieve them as fully as possible and this means choosing the best method to achieve them. The point of the assumption of rationality is to understand their behavior, not to exonerate them or judge them. When we understand what they are about, where their actions are threatening and warrant measures to be taken against them, to combat them.

The simplest way to think of an extremist leader is someone whose goals or views are outside the mainstream. However, there is another way to think of extremism in politics, in which extremism refers to the use of extreme methods of political competition, usually violent ones, such as assassinations or terrorism. Often (not always) those with extremist beliefs also use extremist methods.

Europe in particular has a long history of extremism. 

• The “Terror” (the word was invented then) of the Jacobin ascendancy during the French Revolution,

• Fascism in Italy, 

• Nazism in Germany, 

• Communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,

• Extremist groups like Red Brigades on the left and Propaganda Due on the right in Italy in the 1970s, the Baader-Meinhof Gang of the 1970s in Germany, and the anti immigration National Front of Le Pen in France, current AFD party in Germany, etc.

But anti-colonialism was also an important source of extremism. Even Nelson Mandela. Extremism is not necessarily violent: the classic example of a nonviolent extremist is Gandhi, who invented the idea of nonviolent political change. 

They are both mainstream today and heroic, but they were considered extreme by many in their day, Gandhi by the British, Martin Luther King by many in the U.S. South. But they both expressed a profound moral aversion to violence. That they were able to succeed without it is, of course, in part, a tribute to their genius. But it is also because they saw the possibility of attracting mass support to their cause without it. And it is also because their goals were Universal:

• and it is hard nowadays to think of Martin Luther King as an “extremist.” many in the southern United States in the 1950s and the early 1960s, where segregation was the norm, that’s what he was. Of course, among civil rights leaders he was a moderate, and he was supported by many federal leaders, including the Kennedys. Extremism is always relative to a particular context, time, or place.

There is a developed psychology of extremism, centered on the pleasure and rejuvenation to be experienced in the struggle for a just cause. Only by a process of violent overthrow, some argue, was it possible for the colonized person to develop for the first time as an individual and to get rid of colonialism and domination. But this view is often shown to be dysfunctional in the long run. Groups and states, who have taken up vengeful ideologies as a response to systematic suffering, end up becoming villains themselves. This is today true for Iran, Israel, Taliban and ISIL and even South Africa.

→ We should avoid allowing bad extremist ideas of today to be normalized in the future. The ideals of Sepah and ISIL are bad extremism of the same kind. But the idea of allowing all women in Iran to decide for themselves how they want to live and what they want to wear is good extremism. It is not extremism for Iranians living in the West, but it sounds extreme for millions of Iranians still holding on to the beliefs of Islam.

Considering another case of violence extremism, there is the case of Slobodan Milosevic. The explosion of nationalism in Serbia prefigured the explosion of radical Islamic nationalism in countries like Iraq and Syria. Both were “organic” movements, fueled by what to many seemed the disappearance of the basis of solidarity in their societies – communism in the former Yugoslavia, the Islamic community in the Arab World. 

Martin Luther King, Mandela, Milosevic, and Osama bin Laden were (or are) all considered extremists.They wanted to effect radical change in society. King abhorred violence. Mandela was willing to use it only reluctantly. For Milosevic, it was a principal tool. For Osama bin Laden, it was virtually the only tool, and he appears to see the hand of some gods in it.

The Middle East has been an important source of extremism since the Second World War. This includes the activities of the Jewish Irgun against the British, the Hezbollah in Lebanon (which invented modern suicide bombing as a terrorist tactic), and the activities of Palestinian organizations like Hamas as well as Jewish extremists associatedwith the fundamentalists in the settler movement among many others.

1. The first point about this list of examples is that extremists are not all bad people; the list includes heroes as well as demons. Indeed, extremists are often both, though in the eyes of different people.

2. The second point is that there is a certain sense in which all these groups appear to be part of the same phenomenon. 

An example from Europe. The 1970s in Italy were known as “the years of lead” 

• Violent incidents from both the right and the left.

• Many of their members were pleased at the kidnapping and murder of Italy’s leading politician, Aldo Moro, in 1978. 

• This assassination destroyed the “historic compromise” whereby the Communist left and the Christian Democratic right would both move to the center and the Communist Party would formally enter the government. 

• The extreme right hated the idea of Communists in power, 

• The extreme left saw its hopes for a genuine Marxist revolution as ended.

When one listens to extremists even with completely opposite points of view, they often seem to be, at some level, basically the same. For example, the Jewish fundamentalists in Israel and the extremists of Hamas have nothing whatsoever in common except:

• Both are against any compromise with the other side,

• Both want the entire land of Palestine for their group,

• Both are entirely sure of their position,

• Both advocate and sometimes use violence to achieve their ends,

• Both are nationalistic,

• Both are intolerant of dissent within their own group,

• Both demonize the other side, so that the members of Hamas, as viewed by the Israeli fundamentalists, sometimes sound exactly like the Israeli fundamentalists as viewed by Hamas.

In the same way as the case of Italy, elements in both Hamas and the Jewish extremist groups were pleased when the Oslo peace process was torpedoed by the murder of Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the hand of Jewish extremists, who were followers of an extremist group, developed by Benjamin Netanyahu, who during the government of Yitzhak marched down the street with a fake coffin plastered with the pictures of the prime minister, quite literally threatening him with death.

Extremist leaders often end up either as heroes or villains, sometimes both. One reason extremist leaders are either villains or heroes is that they have big goals.

The idea behind the actions

Terrorism is often deliberately designed to frighten people and to provoke their governments into overreacting. The hope is this will backfire and ultimately advance the aims of the extremists. It’s a kind of “judo politics.” This worked well with 9/11 and the reaction of the US, which caused widespread hatred for the US in the region without making any country freer or more democratic. The same tactic seems to have worked over 20 years later in Israel, where a small and principally powerless group of terrorists carried out a shock-attack and incited an overreaction of the Israeli government leading to over 20k civilian deaths. This has in turn made Israel a target of international criticism and quite isolated, even in the International Court of Justice.

The Mechanism

Terrorist ideologies often have one thing in common – a particular structure of “all or nothing” or indivisibility or utopianism. “The cause” of extremist groups is not necessarily “the cause” of the extremism of their members. A young man joining Alqaida in the local mosque in his hometown in Afghanistan doesn’t follow the goal of destroying America. He just wants to be a part of a community that provides him with solidarity and conformity. Alqaida has disallowed any other community, he has few other options.

Solidarity denotes “unity” or “oneness of purpose.” Solidarity may also be motivated by pure self-interest. If a person’s rewards are greater if he remains with a group, solidarity with the group may be a totally self-interested choice (Basij, Sepah). 

The more solidarity there is among the members of a group, the more they are capable of making exchanges with one another, or cooperating as a group toward some common goal. For this reason, solidarity is like social capital or trust. A few weeks ago, a trend became famous on Tiktok. Young people, most teenagers, started reading and sharing a text, apparently written by Osama Binladen about the motivations for 9/11. And out of this ridiculous action, the conclusion was drawn that the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel was somehow understandable. The reason why so many teenagers made such videos wasn’t because they genuinely thought so, or even cared about the issue. The reason was simply solidarity, not with the victims of Israeli attacks in Palestine or Palestinian deaths by the hand of Israel, but simply with other Tiktok creators and users.

On the one hand, membership in a cohesive group or life in a community with abundant social capital is to many people a deep source of satisfaction. The more extreme and active they get, the more social capital they gain. There is a deep connection between social capital or solidarity and all of the manifestations of extremism.

Extremism is normally seen as the essence of individualism, but political extremism in some ways is actually its opposite. Thus the conformity often observed within extremist movements is remarkable, and often greater and more disconcerting than the conformity within the wider society to which such movements set themselves up in opposition. 

Even right-wing militants (which is what AFD is slowly becoming), who celebrate “individualism” and independence from the state exhibit a remarkable internal conformity. Ba’athism, the ideology of the Syrian and former Iraqi governments, is a “synthesis, forged in the 1930s and 1940s, of fascism and romantic nostalgia for an ‘organic’ community of Arabs” One of its key thinkers, Sati’ Husri, used the idea of asabiyya, or Arab blood solidarity, developed in the fourteenth century.

Why Do They Choose Extremist Positions?

1. Perhaps the most common idea about why groups choose extremist positions is that this is a response to the failure of the policies of more centrist groups. The rise of fundamentalist Islam is a response to the failure of Arab governments; in turn, this failure may be related to the fact that Arab governments have tended to be dictatorships, and not of the developmental kind.

2. Extremism can also arise as a response to the “opening up of space” on the extremes that sometimes occur when formerly right-wing or leftwing parties move toward the center. One example is the rise of the radical right in Israel, which was born as the result of the Camp David accords (Sprinzak 1989).

3. The rise of “extremism” as a response to the fact that one’s homeland is occupied by a “foreign” power, or as a response to a dictatorial government, or in societies where civil rights are limited is easy to explain. Hamas and Hezbollah can be explained by this type.

4. One reason for extremism in some countries with underdeveloped economies has been the simultaneous democratization and marketization. Iraq and Afghanistan today are good examples of this.

5. Another economic source of extremism, which though often requires some other, parallel mechanism, is the impact of globalization and the long-lasting effect it has on the ability of the poorest social groups to develop.

6. Finally, an example is about the control over the means of violence. In successful states this is a monopoly of the state. It can be eroded through gangs or terrorism, but in the end the state is either basically “in control” of the means of violence or it is not, and when the state loses control over it, that state has essentially failed. 

In all of these cases there is a natural complementarity between the goal of the extremist group, which is indivisible, and the methods, which are extremist. That is, there is a natural complementarity between extremist goals and extremist methods. The propaganda of IR regime has used this tactic to make velayate fagigh unquestionable.

The likely political reaction to the simultaneous introduction of marketization and democratization, today’s recipe for many countries to develop and modernize. Tthe majority sometimes unites in hatred of a “market dominant minority.” This is particularly likely when the minority in question constitutes a separate ethnic group. 

-> This is important for the future of Iran. We shouldn’t be jumping on the idea that we can simply force an open market system on Iran and bring democratization and assume that there will be no resistance. Not only will there be resistance, if we do it badly, we might even produce extremist and terrorist groups that will clap back against the democratization process. 

Particularly in many developing countries, the distribution of the fruits of economic growth resulting from marketization are uneven: the introduction of democratization at the same time as marketization means that those who are injured have a way of making their feelings felt. 

Why do they choose extremist methods

Extremist Methods Are Risky.  The central difference between extremist methods compared with normal democratic methods of political competition or rent seeking is that extremist methods are risky. Because they are illegal, or can get out of hand easily, or can provoke a negative reaction either from the state or from other political groups, they are therefore more likely to involve greater losses than conventional politics. -> This is why Sepah would be willing to stop supporting the mullahs as leaders of the oil mafia. The whole business is generally risky. 

To combat extremism, it is necessary to take the objective of the group seriously and to find ways to provide that objective to some extent and thus to satisfy the demands of moderates and potential participants of extremist movements without going all the way to satisfying the extremists’ demands. The way to do this is to “unbundle” the hypothetically indivisible objective and to show that it may be met without the radical overhaul of society demanded by extremist leaders. In the same way, problems of ethnic conflict have been solved in Canada and in many other states through institutions that give different minority ethnic groups a formal share in power.

This approach can be used to deal with AFD. This party has successfully made everything that sound anti-government to be seen as their position, even if they don’t officially call for it. Anti-covid-measures, anti-immigration, anti-globalization, anti-NATO, anti-climate-action, etc. If the government supports an initiative, extremists among AFD find excuses to consider it bad. But this seemingly indivisible ideology of “the German state is an illegitimate government” can be picked apart. The ruling coalition should address individual grievances of the AFD voters without humiliating them and being condescending. Immigration is a legitimate point of grievance if it has a real or perceived impact on the long-term stability and livelihood of a city. Instead of painting all, those who are against immigration as neo nazis, their concerns should be received and listened to as any other concern and then acted upon. This would stop most AFD voters from moving to the extreme right. But for years they have been called neo nazis for simply criticizing, very legitimately, the catastrophic handling of the situation by the central government (mostly Merkel). Now that extremist leaders have popped up, they see a pillar to hang on to.

-> Why would they be willing to stop their extremist approach? Because going all the way to the extreme end is risky. And if the state is willing to compromise, it is proof that it is willing to listen. We can use this knowledge to ensure that any government that comes to power after we dissolve the IR, won’t cause a rise in extremism among ethnic minorities.

Exchanging free thought for social capital

What leads people to demonstrate and to participate in acts of civil disobedience, terrorist acts, assassinations, and other forms of extremist activity? One reason people join or participate at any level (e.g., participating in activities such as demonstrations or protests, bombings or assassination, as well as suicide martyrdom) in extremist groups is to obtain “solidarity” (or social cohesion or “belongingness”).

Members of extreme groups tend to exhibit an unusually high level of conformity. They tend to share beliefs that to outsiders may seem strange and even bizarre. What happens when, for some reason, an individual wants more group solidarity than before and intensifies his participation in group activities in order to get it. Because solidarity implies conformity to the beliefs of the group, when a person wants more solidarity she has to give up more of her own values in order to conform to the beliefs of the group. She is more and more giving up her identity for that of the group, perhaps as personified by its leader, and losing the capacity to make decisions based on values other than those of the leader. Then the normal tendency for the marginal value of solidarity to diminish as a result of choosing more of it will be reversed to some extent, as she incorporates more of the group’s values. Under certain conditions, this self-reinforcing process of choosing more solidarity will approach an end solution where solidarity is maximal and the individual’s objective is entirely that of the leader. Near to or at a corner, rational suicide for the group is possible and rational.

Why Islam produces so much extremism

Radical Islam is based on the idea that the world is in a state of jahiliyya (barbarism or idolatry), which emerges from the West. So the conflict between radical Islam and the West is not just religious but is about fundamentally different kinds of community, between that based on individuals pursuing their own interests, and the idea of a community based on pure faith.

The fundamental nature of Islam can also be interpreted as a contract. The obligations of a Muslim can be understood using the three central concepts of islam, jihad, and ummah. Islam denotes that the duty of a Muslim is to surrender (which is what the word islam means) himself completely to the Supreme Being. As has often been noted, in the Quranic vision there is no dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, the religious and the Political.

A Muslim’s first duty is to create a just, egalitarian society = Ommat. This demanded a jihad on all fronts: spiritual, political, social, personal, military and economic. To fence off one area of life and declare it to be off-limits to this religious “effort” would be a shocking violation of this principle of unification (tahwid) which is the cardinal Islamic virtue.

The second point is that “Muslims, like Jews require orthopraxy, a uniformity of religious practice, and see belief as a secondary issue”. Of course, the practices of a Muslim are very specific: The five “pillars” of Islam. but “To be fully observant he would have to fulfill a voluminous compendium of the most minutely detailed prescriptions for his daily conduct, even down to its most intimate minutiae. This corpus has been built up on the verses of the Quran itself, then on the attested sayings and doings of the Prophet – the hadith – and finally on the rescensions and elaborations of all these as made by the learned in the ninth and tenth centuries. The result is the sharia law, which has no clear definition or reference”. 

Resolving the paradoxes of a suicide-bomber

The irony of absolutism: this problem gave rise to the Glorious Revolution in England, in which power over the treasury was devolved on Parliament. In this way the king could credibly commit to repay. No such devolution of power occurred in France. The result was that the English king solved the problem of how to raise funds and could finance his army and other expenditures, while the French king did not, leading to the chronic shortage of revenue that was one of the factors leading to the French Revolution.

Earthly monarchs can solve the Irony of Absolutism through the credible devolution of power, as the English king did in the Glorious Revolution. But I know of no way a supreme being can do this. The contracts are unenforceable in principle. There is no third party to adjudicate and enforce the contract. And there is no way to devolve power credibly onto another agency that would play this function. Of course, various people, agencies, and organizations claim to be God’s representatives on earth, but they all face a similar problem: how to make this claim credible.

But if behavior on earth cannot be assuredly attributed to God, how can God acquire a reputation for trustworthiness the way firms and ordinary persons do in these models? -> We don’t have this problem because we don’t use gods or central authorities. But if we want to avoid future problems with terrorism in Iran, we must understand how extremist leaders solve this problem. And we should teach our children to avoid falling for this trap.

Now let us return to the events of a few days ago in Kerman. Take the simplest exchange- based explanation: the suicide bombers committed the act because they believed that they would go to heaven as a result and that waiting there would be seventy-two virgins. From the point of view of economic theory, the interesting question is, Is this belief rational? If God is omnipotent, then while he may promise seventy-two virgins, there is no reason for him to fulfill his part of the bargain. He may promise seventy-two white virgins but actually deliver seventy-two white raisins. If the answer is, God does not cheat, then this is tantamount to saying he is not omnipotent. The supreme being cannot be bound by a contract with a mere mortal.

It immediately follows that because the contract cannot bind the supreme being, there is no reason why the earthly party to the contract should fulfill his side of the bargain either. What is the point? The supreme being, being supreme, may punish him even if he fulfills all of his obligations, just to show that he is supreme, or for any other reason. So it would appear that either the suicide bombers did not commit suicide in exchange for the promise of heavenly rewards, or, if they did, they were not rational.

That suicide martyrs do believe that they are sacrificing themselves for the rewards of heaven, and that there is a sense in which this belief is rational, which it must be if we are to analyze it using economic theory. But the foundation of this belief is different than that just considered. It is this: a suicide martyr holds this belief and commits this action out of solidarity with others who hold this belief and with the group whose goals he believes are being advanced by this action. He adopts the beliefs of that group for the same reason that members of other groups adopt the same beliefs of their group: out of a desire for solidarity.

The rational reply of a potential suicide bomber who is told by his handler to “just press the button and you will be in paradise” is to respond “why don’t you press the button?” The fact that the belief is extreme and difficult to rationalize on ordinary criteria for rational beliefs is part of its attraction. It immediately marks members of that group off from other people who do not share that belief. The group that shares extreme beliefs can develop a sense of solidarity unknown to groups that share less extreme beliefs.

The suicide martyr in particular shows through his adoption of this belief that he is willing to subject it to the ultimate test. His willingness to commit suicide for the cause in exchange for rewards in heaven is surely the most extreme sacrifice, and no greater proof of the sincerity of belief or solidarity can be asked. Thus the commitment to the belief is entirely credible and correctly “signals” his true solidarity.

Finally, the solidarity explanation can be extended to explain martyrdom even when there is apparently no religious motivation, as is true even for many martyrs in Palestine today. Thus it provides a unified explanation for suicide martyrdom. Indeed, although religious organizations are important in terrorism today, this was not always the case. For example, in 1968 none of the eleven identifiable international terrorist groups was religious: all were either Marxist-Leninist or nationalist, The most frequent perpetrators of suicide operations in the world remain the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, proponents of a secular, Marxist-nationalist insurgency, and as of this writing there are many nonreligious suicide bombings in Iraq.

A religious group socializes men only by attaching them completely to an identical body of doctrine and socializes them in proportion as this body of doctrine is extensive and firm. The more numerous the manners of action and thought of a religious character are, which are accordingly removed from free inquiry, the more the idea of God presents itself in all details of existence, and makes individual wills converge to one identical goal. 

Waging an effective campaign against an extremist leader is difficult

For example in the Serbian conflict, NATO justified each attack on the grounds that they were only attacking the dictator’s power base, which were held to be just the instruments of his repression. The most interesting issue that arose within NATO and was publicly aired was whether it was permissible to attack Serbian television stations. The idea was that it was only permissible, morally, to attack Milosevic’s instruments of repression, and it was implicitly held that the only thing that kept Milosevic in power was repression. The notion that his popular support was his most important power base was never aired during the war, nor was the implication ever derived that, if it was only permissible to attack his power base, the people of Serbia could be legitimate targets of war. Accordingly, the idea that dictators rule by repression alone also made it harder for NATO to wage an effective military campaign againstMilosevic. In the same way, it has commonly been asserted that only innocent people were harmed by the sanctions imposed against Saddam Hussein and Milosevic.

For all these reasons, bombing a dictatorship can have the effect of solidifying a dictator’s hold on power, as long as it stops short of actually removing him. So it has been argued that Milosevic essentially invited NATO’s Bombing. -> This is the reason why the IR regime often teases the US and Israel a little bit. It doesn’t bother enough to get a response that would remove Khamenei. But it does fuck with them enough to get a limited response, which it uses to solidify its base.

Does globalization foster extremism?

Is there a connection between extremism and the introduction or spread of markets? Has the spread of markets around the world – what is often referred to as “globalization”– fostered or retarded extremism? In order to facilitate this outcome, economic relations should become as transparent as possible, because greater transparency implies lower transaction costs. A larger global division of labor means an expansion of world trade, and greater transparency facilitates this expansion. Democracy, too, thrives on transparency, and dictatorship on obfuscation.  Consequently, on this point of view, it is obvious that the new global world order must be governed by the most transparent systems possible, both to promote democracy and economic efficiency. Another possibility is that while real transparency would indeed be nice, transparency as we know it is often an illusion. 

The main question to be pursued here is the relationship between globalization and extremism. One prophetic analysis of this issue has been that of the sociologist Benjamin Barber in his 1995 book, Jihad vs. McWorld. In that book, globalization, identified as the forces of McWorld, is increasingly pitted against another powerful force, jihad. However, the book also contains a surprising proposition: sometimes globalization (McWorld) promotes jihad. How can this be? 

No organization runs on formal relations alone, and all rely to a considerable extent on informal organization that enables them to function relatively smoothly. One is that, in addition to monitoring and compensation, employees within both the shareholder and the stakeholder systems are members of networks, or will have accumulated social capital within the group. 

Nations also can employ a number of institutional mechanisms to produce solidarity among their citizens. One of these is programs that ensure equality among the group, such as common pensions and universal medicare. The more everyone within a group receives exactly the same treatment, the less energy an individual in the group will put into trying to increase his or her own advantage at the expense of the group and the more will be put into seeking benefits for the group.

What happens to the shareholder and stakeholder systems as the result of increased globalization (McWorld)? First, globalization tends to encourage the adoption of the shareholder system over the stakeholder system. The fall in transportation and information costs makes it more feasible for companies to diversify production internationally. Globalization implies an increase in the elasticity of demand for labor as firms can increasingly substitute foreign for domestic labor. This substitution is obviously easier in the shareholder system, in which workers do not have “rights” to jobs and need not be compensated for their losses if terminated. Moreover, globalization insists on transparency, and this favors the expansion of the shareholder system as well. So, on both these grounds, globalization tends to favor the shareholder system over the stakeholder System.

Globalization also changes the nature of both shareholder and stakeholder systems in that it reduces their demand for solidarity. Globalization also tends to inflate executive salaries in the shareholder system and this makes it more difficult for social capital to be created or maintained within the firm as it is more difficult to have exchanges between parties when they are very unequal. The increased transparency demanded by McWorld also reduces solidarity to the extent that social cohesion rests on equality and therefore requires that obvious inequalities be obfuscated.

Finally, globalization has two effects on common beliefs: on the one hand, it means lower costs of information everywhere, thus making it more difficult to sustain a unique set of common beliefs within a group that are different from those held by other groups; on the other hand, it makes it easier for extreme or unusual groups to find like-minded members around the world. In all these ways, then, it would seem that globalization reduces the capacity of nations to maintain solidarity (while increasing the capacity for individuals to enjoy diversity).

To summarize, globalization reduces the capacity of either system to generate solidarity via the mechanisms of equality of treatment within the firm, raising barriers to entry and exit, or maintaining a unique set of common values. It follows that the demand for solidarity via struggle against some external enemy is increased. Here, then, in broad rational choice terms, is how McWorld stimulates jihad.

The advent of neo-fundamentalist Islam leads to more extremism. the neo-fundamentalist innovation whereby radical Islam is decoupled from a specific nation and made portable –“deterritorialized” – comes from an upward shift in the technology for producing Islamic solidarity in non-Islamic nations and other places where it could not have thrived befor. this would lead the typical individual to take more solidarity than before. and leads to exactly the same conclusion: the group becomes more extreme.

Deriving from globalization’s capacity to increase market opportunities in countries where these were scarce previously. This mechanism is that globalization means greater outside opportunities for individual members of religious or other socially cohesive groups, and may cause some individuals to leave groups in which they previously may have been enthusiastic participants. In order to prevent dilution of the group’s quality, group leaders will tend to raise the sacrifice or level of prohibitions necessary to remain within the group in order to avoid dilution of the quality of the group’s experiences. In other words, they tend to become more extreme.

All of the “enemies” of radical Islam are manifestations of threats to and destroyers of Islamic solidarity: the city is a place inhabited by rootless individuals who are free of traditional constraints; science and reason are independent sources of knowledge and authority that challenge the hegemony of religious authority; self-interest is opposed to the common interest; and the infidel is an apostate.

Many of the ideas common to radical Islam actually have their roots in Western extremist thought. The sources for them can be found in the Counter- Reformation and the Counter- Enlightenment in Europe, in the many varieties of fascism and national socialism in East and West, and in the thought of anti-capitalist and anti-globalization thinkers. For example, Engels was repulsed by “the lack of solidarity in this society of ‘atomized’ individuals, each going after his own ‘selfish’ interests”. The Nazis wanted to overturn the French Revolution. And so on. Thus “today’s suicide bombers don’t suffer from some unique pathology but are fired by ideas that have a history”. In this way of thinking, the 9/11 attack on America played into an ancient myth – the myth of the destruction of the sinful city.

Iranian Traditional Left

Economy: The traditional Iranian leftist groups insist on a Marxist economic model. This cannot and will not have a positive effect on dissolving the IR regime, nor will it have any positive effect on the lives of Iranians. A Marxist system in Iran would not reduce the misery of the population. Marxist economic models have always failed in every country they have been attempted and for good reasons. The main reason is that the central philosophy of these models is wrong, which states that the prices of goods and services must be decided by a central authority (the state). But this will make the economy extremely weak and fragile while taking away any possibility for dynamic investing in advancements by the private sector, which will mean staying technologically behind other countries, which will increase imports and increase the cost of living.

Politics: Among those identifying as the 'the left' among Iranians, most do not have a clear model for political ruling. Some base their political structure around a Marxist economic model, and attempt to develop a type of 'community based ruling', i.e. communism. This will within a short time lead to a dictatorship, as it has always happened. A famous political model of the traditional leftists in Iran is a special type of communism, developed in Soviet Union and called Leninism. Such groups may appear loud on social media and some communication channels but in reality they are not that active, have no popular basis and have no lobbying power in the West. They talk only nonsense, but they keep talking and they fill the Iranian digital space with their nonsense. The main argument they have in their favor is that they are against oppression of minorities and they are against fascism. There is a historical root for this (see below). But as much as they claim to want to support the rights of minorities, the reality is that if they come to power, they will rule with violence and oppression themselves, just like any other communist system has done before.

Iranian Modern Left

Politics: The modern Iranian Left has in principle taken its ideas from the modern European left, this means they are more or less social democrats. The central ideas of the modern European Left is to focus strongly on human rights, social justice, and equality. But most Iranians haven’t bothered analyzing the philosophy deeper to understand its mechanism. They just look at the result (which is a solidary social life in Europe with high levels of welfare and justice, but based on an open market economy). It is not bad to aspire for this and try to establish such a system for Iran. But if we want to create such a system for Iran, we first have to understand it deeply and completely.

Economy: The economic views of the modern Iranian Left varies depending on their place of living, just like how it does for the modern European Left. In Northern Europe and North America, they are more on the side of social democracy, advocating for higher taxes for the rich. In Southern Europe they are more on the side of liberal democracy, preferring lower taxes and a more open economy. But their understanding of the economy is generally too shallow, as a result, some of the younger ones may consider the economic situation in Europe and North America as 'unfair' because they say the rich don’t pay enough taxes and the governments are too weak to develop better policies.

Identity among Iranian Left

The traditional Iranian Left has a much louder voice in the media and especially on the internet. This is not because they are popular or have a large popular basis. Their ideas are so outdated and dysfunctional, that most people easily realize that they have no chance of defeating the regime and establishing something better. But the modern Iranian Left has been fooled by the Traditional Left. The Traditional Left has successfully fooled the younger ones among the Modern Left that any left is left and that these younger people should join the Traditional Left, who are so loud on social media and hence seem to be so 'active' and have 'so much experience'. In reality, most of the traditional left has never been a part of a real political party and hence, their claim to 'experience' is just hot air.

Since no Iranian political figure has ever established a proper organization to educate and enlighten the younger Iranians on the matters of politics, the Modern Left doesn’t realize that the Traditional Left is not interested in human rights, in freedoms and in advancing the welfare of the economy. Some of the hard-core traditional leftists even claim that human rights are a burgoise concept and hence not applicable! The Traditional Left is only interested in opposing the USA, as it was the philosophy of Lenin and they are willing to even help the IR stay in power, if they see that a pro-USA group has a real chance of dissolving the regime.

The modern Iranian Left should learn to develop its own identity. An identity based on working for human rights, on personal and political freedoms and enhancing the quality of life for all Iranians. This requires immense economic and political changes in Iran, which is best done using the most advanced science available. By doing so, Iranians, who will rebuild their country, who will become free and who will have more rights and better lives will be able to take pride in their work and their country, which will give them a sense of Iranian identity, however they want to define it. 

Iranian Traditional Right

Politics: The first king of the Pahlavi family (Reza Shah) misused the concept of nationalism, partially because he thought he had no other option for combatting armed Marxist groups that were trying to establish Soviet style governing in North and North-West of Iran. He wanted to bring Iran into the modern age, which was a good and positive thing. At the same time, he came to power during a troubled time, in 1926. World war 1 had ended and the winners were doing with Asia and Africa as they pleased. The Ottoman Empire had lost and was losing land but they still had enough power to be a threat to Iran. Russia was one of the winners and contemplating expanding its territories as before. The Qajar dynasty was extremely weak and incompetent. 

The Safavid Dynasty also faced a similar situation at some point. In order to unite Iranians and hold the country together, Shah Abbas Savafi decided to make Shia the political religion of Iran. That did unite Iranians, but it also for the first time made mullahs essential parts of political decision making. The same mistake that the Roman Empire did 2000 years ago. This action by the Safavids is the reason for the strong influence of mullahs in Iranian politics. Reza Shah didn’t want to use religion for uniting Iran in that time, he wanted to use the national identity. He was copying the political work of some European countries, especially Turkey. Atta Turk had done that with what Reza Shah considered to be major success.

Reza Shah’s political concept for strengthening the national identity of Iranians had 3 central elements.

• Separate politics and religion and kick mullahs out of political decision making. This was a good decision. Obviously mullahs didn’t like it, which is why they spent every resource they had to discredit Reza Shah and gain access to political power again, which happened with the Islamic revolution.

• Eradicate nomad life in Iran. Reza Shah mistakenly considered nomads to be a sign of backward country. Since some nomads moved over borders, he also saw them as damaging to the national identity. He tried to destroy nomadic life in Iran by forcing the nomads to live in villages and cities.

• Eradicate ethnic differences. The gravest mistake by Reza Shah was the false idea that ethnic differences go against national identity. He mistakenly considered a main reason for the spread of Marxism in the Northern regions of Iran to be the use of local dialects. That is why he tried to force ethnic groups in Iran into following what he defined as the Iranian identity. This lead to strong social backlash among ethnic groups and drove them politically into embracing the leftist ideas and Leninist agendas even more. With the success of mullahs in taking control over Iran's politics and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the leftist groups lost all of their philosophical basis. In desparation some of them were attracted to the nationalistic ideas of Turkey and some other to the nationalist claims of Kordestan.

Some members of the Iranian traditional right, especially the monarchists, still live with that illusion and claim that there are no ethnicities in Iran, everyone should just call themselves Iranians. This last element is the main reason that the traditional Iranian Left passionately hates the monarchists. 

Some of the traditional rightists, similar to the leftists, lie to the younger generation that they respect democracy and want the monarchy back just as a symbol of national identity. But some of them are quite open about their true intensions. Some say that "democracy is not a pressing issue" for our country and we should advocate nationalism in order to unite the people against the anti-Iranian regime of the Islamic Republic. This is again wrong. Modern Western nationalism is different from the natioanlism of 1930s and 1940s. What the Europeans actually mean is patriotism. And if we want patriotism, the reality is that all ethnic groups are also patriotic and love their homeland. But just like the Iranian Left, the Iranian Right has also not educated itself well in politics. As a result, what they initially meant with patriotism, now they consider it similar to modern North American nationalism, which includes certain racist agenda and considers ethnic minorities as a nuisance.

Economy: Since most of the Traditional Iranian Rights moved to the US or France after the Islamic Revolution, in principle the view of the Traditional Iranian rightists is similar to North American liberal democrats of the Reagan era. They generally advocate for letting the private sector take over everything, claiming that the government should have an absolutely minimal influence on the economy. This again shows their lack of understanding for deeper economic knowledge. As the North American experience with 2 financial crises as the result of the Reagan-Economy proves and as the economic sciences clearly show, free market shouldn’t mean a government that has no power and private companies that are allowed to misuse all resources without any attention to the environment, to humanity and to the future. Markets are always bound to fail. And when market failure happens, it is the task of the government to find a solution for it and the costs will become a burden for the society. Hence, modern governments monitor and regulate markets to ensure that market failures can be prevented.

Iranian Modern Right

Politics: Just like the modern Iranian Left, the modern Iranian Right takes its philosophy and ideas from Western countries. In principle they are comparable with center-right parties in Europe that take a type of liberal democracy, combined with moderate religious (Christian) leaning and some elements of the welfare state. The main difference is that the Iranian Right is completely secular. Just like the traditional Iranian Left, the traditional Iranian Right has a much larger presence in the media and on the internet, especially as they have positioned themselves as the main vessel of the will of the Reza Pahlavi (the living one). So the modern Iranian Right finds little support among the established groups and has no voice in the digital world, while the leftist groups shun them.

Economy: The economic views of the modern Iranian Right is quite similar to the traditional rightists. The main difference is, as they have suffered the result of the Reagan-Economy, they are more in favor of a welfare state (a blend of liberal-social democracy). In this sense, their views are similar to the modern leftists, but more on the open market side and less on the heavy taxing side. But their understanding of economy is just as shallow and weak as the modern leftists.

Identity among Iranian Right

Generally, most people consider the identity of the rightist groups as clearly nationalist. But that is only the case for the traditional groups and the older generation. Most of the younger Iranians, especially the ones who have experienced life in Western countries, are rather patriots and not nationalists. This means they love their homeland but are not racists. But since their leader-figure (Reza Pahlavi) doesn’t clearly take a position and has never openly described his political philosophy to help the younger generation understand their situation, they are left in a confused state. They have no other option but to agree with the position of the traditional right, even though it does not represent their views. Alternatively, they simply call themselves centrists. 

Our Position

Politcs: Democracy is a very pressing issue for Iran and it can only work, if everyone has access to all the basic freedoms. This means equality with regards to the law. Democracy is important because it is the best method for ensuring justice for all and it is a major tool for achieving a just and fair system of social cooperation. We cannot under any circumstances put democracy aside. That being said, it is very much possible to appeal to the Iranian identity as a means for combatting this religious dictatorship of the IR regime, because Islam has always been seen as anti-Iranian and especially anti-woman.

As opposed to what some monarchists claim, research shows that ethnic groups principally trust democracy more than dictatorships. The reason is that in a fair system of social cooperation, which can only be achieved in a democracy, people from different ethnic groups will find themselves better off in remaining in the commonwealth of the country rather than trying for independence. They know that the laws are the same for everyone. And no group would want to make a law that would be a disadvantage to themselves. So, no law would be a disadvantage to any ethnicity. 

All of these groups still consider themselves Iranians, even if they stem from different ethnicities. And hence, we should make a very clear distinction between the old Pahlavi doctrine and the modern interpretation of the Iranian identity. At the same time, we must clearly emphasize that Marxist-based economies have never worked and will never work. Iran’s future economy should be based on an open-market system. This doesn’t mean that we want to sell off our country to private companies. There are well-established economic methods for the government to have a proper oversight over the market and guide it for the benefit of the society without limiting innovation, advancement and private enterprise.

This view does not match what most people consider to be the Iranian left or the Iranian right. But the political description of it is clear. What we want to achieve for Iran is not dependent on some fixed ideology. We want every Iranian to have the potential to have a high quality of life. We want all Iranians to be as happy as they can be. As science and experience over the past 250 years have clearly shown, the best way to achieve this objective, is to develop a just and fair system of social cooperation. This is only possible if 

• human rights of everyone are respected,

• the system is democratic (as defined by the World Bank) and secular,

• the principle freedoms are guaranteed for everyone.

Economy: We want an economy that benefits the people and helps support social welfare without destroying the environment. The best solution is using a mixture of social democratic and liberal democratic economic models. This means allowing the free market system, technology and innovation to develop the economy, while ensuring that private companies do not abuse humans, groups or institutions or misuse animals, nature, the environment or natural resources.