Latest Iranian "Show Trial" Targets Khatami Allies

The latest of the Iranian "show trials" — as they have inevitably been dubbed, because that's what they are — of opposition figures involved in the election protests in June is aiming a bit higher than its predecessors, targeting several people who were ministers or senior officials in the administration of President Mohammad Khatami. This may mean that the trials are less about the election protests than about repudiating the reform movement generally by targeting those close to Khatami, whose two terms as President gave the reformists much encouragement. Khatami himself did not openly participate in the demonstrations as far as I know, and his clerical rank, prestige as an ex-President, and links to the late Imam Khomeini may insulate him personally, but the attack on his aides and allies is pretty clear.

Gary Sick, a veteran of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, wrote a piece a week ago (originally for The Daily Beast but reposted at his blog) that deserves attention. Here's how he led off:

Iran today is doing what all aging revolutionary regimes seem to do—transforming itself into the image of the very regime it displaced. Just as middle-aged men and women look in the mirror and are surprised to see their fathers and mothers looking back at them, revolutionaries are startled to see themselves inexorably turning into the tyrants they thought they had banished forever.

To put it another way, “Revolutions revolve—360 degrees.” This aphorism, invented years ago by Charles Issawi, the late Egyptian-born Middle East historian at Columbia, captures nicely in four words the typical lifecycle of the great revolutions.

The whole thing is worth your time, whatever you may think of the election results. His comparison to Stalin's Moscow show trials in the 30s and the Chinese cultural revolution — while emphasizing that Iran's response is not as excessive as those cases — is a useful take, I think, even if, like Flynt Leverett, you aren't convinced the election was stolen.