𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁: 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 #𝗭𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗳’𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄

Many commentaries on #Zarif’s interview tend to read it as the definitive confirmation of a #dual_power situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran ( #IRI). /1

They see two ultimately opposed liberal-progressive & illiberal-reactionary political tendencies embodied in #reformist movement & #IRGC + supreme leader, respectively, that are locked into in a zero-sum struggle for power & Iran's future. /2

This view’s logical implication is that progressive and democratic forces inside & outside #Iran ought to support the reformists (represented by the likes of #Zarif, #Khatami & #Rohani) as the best way to democratise Iran. /3

#IRI’s media & academic lobby in the west has been relentlessly advancing this argument which many Western #leftists & liberal forces have uncritically bought. But this assumption of reformists & IRGC representating mutually exclusive projects is fundamentally flawed. /4

#IRI is a political-ideological whole of which #IRGC & reformists are key constitutive parts. Their frictional interaction reproduces IRI. Their concrete political power & actual consequentiality are uneven & shifting but their interrelation is one of mutual constitution. /5

Misreadings of IRI’s Janusian character is rooted in a socio-historical 𝘞𝘦𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘶𝘶𝘯𝘨 that takes developmental sameness/linearity as the (ultimately prevailing) ‘norm’ derived from a supposedly universal #European experience. /6

This outlook has been effectively challenged by a wealth of #postcolonial, #decolonial & heterodox #Marxist scholarship over past few decades but it remains dominant in mainstream media and public discourse. In western leftis discourse it is imbued with reversed #orientalism. /7

The Islamic Republic is a coherent incoherency. It’s a unity of contradictions. It combines divine & popular sovereignties whose fundamental tension underlies its historical identity. The identity which #Zarif declares must change before IRI can reconcile with the #West. /8

Just as Labour & Tories are constitutive of UK as a capitalist-racist state, reformists & #IRGC are also integral to Islamic Republic of #Iran as a semi-fascist state based on hierarchies of gender, ethnicity & class. IRI holding preengineered elections shouldn't obscure this. /9

‘The marriage of iron and rye’ is the seminal sociological conceptualisation of the industrial-feudal amalgamation that historically underlay #Nazism. The Islamic republic of IRan can be politically conceptualised as ‘the marriage of bayonet and ballot box'. /10

Those investing hope in Iranian reformists for building a democratic #Iran will remain disappointed. Only a revolution of women, workers & oppressed nationalities, supported by international leftist & progressive forces can bring radical democracy & social juistice to Iran. /end