The Leveretts go to Tehran

Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett just got back from a trip to Tehran. They write: Shortly before we arrived in Tehran, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Islamic Republic is turning into a “military dictatorship”.  As we drove around Tehran, we looked hard to see a soldier anywhere on the street but did ...

Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett just got back from a trip to Tehran. They write:

Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett just got back from a trip to Tehran. They write:

Shortly before we arrived in Tehran, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Islamic Republic is turning into a “military dictatorship”.  As we drove around Tehran, we looked hard to see a soldier anywhere on the street but did not see a single one—except for a couple at the entrance to the Behest-e Zahra cemetery just south of Tehran, where many of the Iranian soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq War are buried.  Over the years, we have spent a lot of time in a lot of Middle Eastern capitals.  We have never been in one—including in Egypt and Israel—that has fewer guys in uniform on the streets than in Tehran right now.

I’m not sure this is a good metric. You won’t find a lot of soldiers on the streets in Damascus, either — and few would argue that Syria is not a dictatorship backed by force. As the Leveretts well know, Iran’s apparatus of repression contains a lot of tools that aren’t "soldiers," strictly speaking, and they don’t need to be standing around in uniform to be nefarious.

Tag: Iran

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