June 22, 2009

Civil War in the Infertile Crescent

Hatched by Dafydd

Most folks see the rioting throughout Iran as a revolution brewing, as if 1979 met 1776. But I'm very skeptical... mainly because in my opinion, and despite the take of most commentators, the two major players are not actually current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh, the other major candidate in the election: Rather, the two players in this game are in fact Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's wealthiest man, the moneybags behind Mousavi, and the man that Ahmadinejad "defeated" in 2005 in an election that was likely just as dirty, corrupt, and stolen as the one this year.

We've tracked the increasingly bellicose and violent schism between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani for a number of years now:

It appears to me that what is unfolding in Iran is not a revolution... it's really a civil war by proxy.

Ahmadinejad is not himself a politically powerful cleric, like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, or his successor and current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad has a "guardian angel" among the mullahs: Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi of Qom. Mesbah-Yazdi is a member of the Assembly of Experts, the group that elects the Supreme Leader -- perhaps the foremost proponent of the so-called Qom school of Shiism, which preaches absolute rule by the mullahs.

He is also Ahmadinejad's spiritual guru, preaching that the return of the Twelfth (or Hidden) Imam and the dawn of the Islamic era is imminent and can be triggered by a military conflagration, even one started by Iran itself.

Wolf Howling reports that there is a split within the clerics of Qom, with some following the Najaf school of Shiism, as personified by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Iraq, and in Iran by former Khomeinist Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. These clerics, both tremendously more respected throughout Iran as spiritual leaders than current Supreme Leader Khamenei, teach that clerics should only set the religious rules, but not control the government. I don't think this "faultline," as GW calls it, enters into the present distress; we all know where Ahmadinejad stands on the question of whether mullahs or the people should rule Iran; and I don't recall Rafsanjani ever calling for Montazeri-style freedom, civil rights, human rights, and women's rights.

By contrast with Ahmadinejad, Rafsanjani needs no "guardian angel;" he is himself the leader of the Assembly of Experts, and a strong candidate to eventually succeed Khamenei. In the last elections, Rafsanjani received more votes than any other Ayatollah for the Assembly -- 1,564,197; Mesbah-Yazdi received less than half that total at 726,498 votes.

Rafsanjani appears to have greater backing from Khamenei; but it's probably more a strategic chess move to keep Ahmadinejad in check than any deep affection between Khamenei and Rafsanjani: I suspect Ahmadinejad just scares the bejesus out of Khamenei; the president is (or was, before the current troubles) consolidating power among the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Barring a major political shakeup, it mightn't be long before Ahmadinejad decides he needs a promotion... say, to Supreme Leader. Alternatively, if Khamenei should die (due to natural causes: "It's only natural he would die after such causes"), Ahmadinejad could engineer the elevation of Mesbah-Yazdi to Supreme Leader. It would be an open question then which would be the other's puppet.

Ahmadinejad has religious fanaticism on his side, but Rafsanjani's strength is more in the line of old-fashioned corruption, the lifeblood of the Islamic world -- think Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, the PA, and so forth. It's Millenarianism vs. Kleptocracy, even more exciting than Alien vs. Predator!

But the irony is that Iran, Persia, is a dying land. It may end, not with a bang, but with the silent lack of enough whimpers.

In a Steynian twist, Iran has the lowest fertility rate of any Moslem majority country, and I believe any country in the Middle east, including Israel (compiled from CIA World Factbook).

Fertility rate is the mean number of children born per female in her lifetime. Bare population replacement rate is about 2.1 children per mother (the extra .1 accounts for children who die before they can have children of their own). A country with a fertility rate far above 2.1, such as Somalia, is growing rapidly; a country with just about 2.1 is holding steady (the United States, for example); and a country with a fertility rate significantly below 2.1... is dying... think of Europe, Australia, Thailand, Cuba, and Canada.

Here are the countries of the Arab League, plus Israel and Iran, in order of fertility rate:

Fertility rate of Arab League, Israel, and Iran
Country Fertility rate/strong>
Somalia 6.60
Yemen 6.41
Mauritania 5.69
Oman 5.62
Gaza 5.19
Djibouti 5.14
Comoros 4.90
Sudan 4.58
Iraq 3.97
Saudi Arabia 3.89
West Bank 3.31
Syria 3.21
Libya 3.15
Kuwait 2.81
Israel 2.77
Egypt 2.72
Morocco 2.57
Bahrain 2.53
Qatar 2.43
Jordan 2.47
UAE 2.47
Lebanon 1.87
Algeria 1.82
Tunisia 1.73
Iran 1.71

No Moslem-majority country has a lower fertility rate than Iran. To put their dire dilemma into perspective, Iran has a lower fertility rate than...

Iran losing the baby war to these countries
Country Fertility rate/strong>
Afghanistan 6.58
Pakistan 3.73
United States 2.10
France 1.98
Turkey 1.87
Ireland 1.85
Norway 1.78
Luxembourg 1.78
Denmark 1.74
Finland 1.73

Iran is about as infertile as...

Iran is on a par with these dying countries
Country Fertility rate/strong>
Sweden 1.67
Netherlands 1.66
United Kingdom 1.66
Belgium 1.66

So what's happening in Iran, right as we're sitting here now? First, a huge number of Iranians -- Persians -- are desperate for freedom and sick and tired of thirty years of theocracy, madness, and horror. Alas, they have fixed their wagon to a supposed "reformer," who is actually a stalking horse for Ayatollah Rafsanjani. Mousavi's only good quality, compared to the current lunatic president, is that he is probably not a "Twelver."

But the underlying reality belies the combination of superficial reporting by the antique media, wishful thinking by those of us who long for the mullahs to be overturned by a 1776-style revolution, and manipulation by Iranians desperate to move the mugwump leader of the free world off his fence and into helping true democracy spread to our bitterest enemy in the world. This "underlying reality" comprises a pair of despicable despots, a madman and a thief, neither with a clue how to defeat the fate decreed by demography, fighting a proxy civil war in the streets of Iran over who will preside over the dying earth.

Persia has a long and great (though I would not say "honorable") history, and its people deserve better; sadly, they need extraordinary outside aid, which the One They Will Continue to Wait For has no intention of ever offering, since he is on the side of the "established order" in Teheran.

I don't think the Persian people will get the "better" they deserve. They may get different; they may trade back King Stork for King Log. And perhaps they'll be satisfied with that.

Meanwhile, the American Hamlet sends out press releases and, like the Bellman in Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark, furiously tinkles his bell. Is this one of those tests that Joe Biden warned us to expect -- and warned us that Barack "Lucky Lefty" Obama would be seen to flunk?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, June 22, 2009, at the time of 2:24 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Geoman

Wow, what a great post.

1) "This was charming, no doubt, but they shortly found out, that the Captain they trusted so well, had only one notion, for crossing the ocean, and that was to tinkle his bell." I've always thought of that line whenever Obama starts talking.

2)Have you read Jihadis and Whores by Spengler?http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK21Ak01.html. "The battered Iranian whore is the alter ego of the swaggering Iranian jihadi." He calls the Iranians a defeated people, which is what makes them so very dangerous.

3) I've always wondered if all the candidates are merely puppets, and the real battle is behind the scenes between Rafsanjani, Khamenei, Mesbah-Yazdi, and Montazeri. It reminds me a little of professional wrestling. Sure, he's hitting that guy with a chair, but is he really hurting him? Or do they both plan on turning on the third guy in the ring? If the ref in on it?

The above hissed in response by: Geoman [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 23, 2009 11:08 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dick E

Dafydd-

Today on NPR (know your enemy) I heard two separate commentaries asserting that Iran’s population is getting younger. This was used to explain the country’s “liberalization” and the apparent youthfulness of the recent street demonstrators.

I recall hearing and reading, over the last couple of years, similar references to an increasingly youthful Iran.

The CIA’s statistics, which appear to be the best information available, seem to contradict this. A low birth rate, they say logically, leads inexorably to an aging population.

Why in the world are the liberal media spreading disinformation on this? Is it just that the people willing to talk to them are younger than in the past? (The older ones having seen their positions distorted and thus being less willing to be interviewed.) Or is something more sinister at work?

The above hissed in response by: Dick E [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 23, 2009 6:32 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Dick E.

Today on NPR (know your enemy) I heard two separate commentaries asserting that Iran’s population is getting younger.

Depends what the meaning of "getting" is.

Iran got younger during the Iran-Iraq war, by dint of a huge proportion of draft-age men and young/middle-aged females being killed by bullets and bombs, starvation, disease, poison gas, and so forth (many families might have sent their children to remote, safer locations during the war). The same thing happened in Russia during WWII.

Even if the population is now aging, it likely hasn't aged back to the point it was at before Saddam Hussein invaded Iran back in September, 1980. (The war raged until 1988.) So if the question is, "What is the mean age now compared to when the Khomeinists took over in 1979?" -- then yes, Iran is much, much younger.

But if the question is, "What is the mean number of children women of childbearing age have today, compared to how many they had back in the days of the Shah?" -- then the answer is probably much smaller (less fertile) now than before.

They're not actually contradictory; the two questions look at distinct data groups. The first describes an incident of war that took place twenty years ago but is still having repercussions today... while the second charts the path of Iran's demographic future.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 23, 2009 8:50 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dick E

Dafydd-

Points taken.

Actually, I think your second data group could also be partly ascribed to the Iran-Iraq war. The war killed a very large number of men who would have sired children. That lack of men reduced the number of children borne by women, thus reducing their fertility rate.

The war may not completely explain why Iran’s fertility so dramatically lags the countries you cite. But I think its effect lingers: A 20-year-old killed in 1988 would have been just 41 today.

The above hissed in response by: Dick E [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 23, 2009 11:23 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Dick E.

The war killed a very large number of men who would have sired children. That lack of men reduced the number of children borne by women, thus reducing their fertility rate.

I don't think so; isn't the fertility rate the average number of children born per woman of childbearing years? If there are fewer such women, that would automatically be factored in, wouldn't it?

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 24, 2009 12:11 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dick E

Dafydd-

I don't think so; isn't the fertility rate the average number of children born per woman of childbearing years?

True enough.

If there are fewer such women, that would automatically be factored in, wouldn't it?

It’s not fewer women I’m talking about -- it’s fewer men. Problem is, it takes two to … uh … tango.

Say Iran before the war normally had roughly equal numbers of males and females of childbearing age. Just for the sake of argument, assume they had two million men and two million women aged 15 to 45. Then the Iran-Iraq war kills one million of these men. Even though you still have the same number of women able (and perhaps willing) to have children, their opportunities have been greatly reduced.

The women are no less fertile, but their fertility rate goes down. The effect would diminish over time but would continue long after the war is over.

The above hissed in response by: Dick E [TypeKey Profile Page] at June 24, 2009 5:54 PM

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