By Matt Korade, CQ Staff

It is a disillusioned, post-ideological generation that dreams of prosperity. A generation that is Internet savvy, glued to satellite television and dissatisfied with utopian, clash-of-civilization rhetoric peddled by increasingly unpopular leaders. A diverse, dynamic society of student activists and intellectuals, journalists and bloggers, feminists and union organizers.

China? Russia? Berkeley?

No, this is the Islamic Republic of Iran, and according to McGill University law professor Payam Akhavan, who joined a panel of experts in testifying before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on Thursday, the complex civil society emerging there is by far the biggest threat the regime in Tehran faces today.

Akhavan, who is a co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, said positive action on human rights is urgently needed against the Islamic Republic.

“Arbitrary executions, torture, religious and political persecution, even assassination of dissidents abroad, these are the hallmarks of a government that has extinguished the lives of countless thousands as a means of staying in power,” he said.

The federal commission on religious freedom, which was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (PL 105-202) to monitor and promote freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief abroad, called the hearing in preparation for the release of its annual report May 1. This year’s report will include a focus on Iran, which the State Department has repeatedly designated a “country of concern” for the systematic, egregious violations of religious liberty that continue there.

Iran has a history of religious persecution that is embodied in the country’s legal code, said Paul Marshall, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.

The country’s Fundamental Law establishes Iran as a Muslim country, and the leaders of all three branches of government must come from the clergy, writing laws and making decisions that do not contradict shari’a, or Islamic law. Religious pluralism is unacceptable, even considered a Western aberration by the country’s leaders.

While the constitution recognizes Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity, it does little to protect these and other religious minorities, Marshall said. They may not enter government or become military officers, and must pass tests on Islamic theology to enter universities.

The Baha’i faith isn’t mentioned at all in the constitution and has no legal status, he said. In fact, if a member of that faith is murdered, there is no punishment.

Sunnis and Sufis, a mystical Islamic tradition, also suffer persecution, he said, and have joined the others in fleeing religious oppression in their homeland.

“The Iranian government is one of the world’s worst religious persecutors,” said Marshall, who authored a volume titled “World Survey of Religious Freedom,” which ranks Iran last.

Diplomatic Balancing Act

The situation in Iran poses a special problem for U.S. policy makers, who are caught between the desire to rein in the destabilizing influence of Tehran’s nuclear and international ambitions while promoting freedom for everyday Iranians.

It is a difficult balance to strike, the witnesses said, because the more U.S. leaders talk about curbing Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and overturning the current regime, the more that country’s rulers crack down on the civil rights movement that is growing at the grass-roots level.

The schizophrenic nature of Iranian society has its roots in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. That revolution and the civil war that followed established the world’s first and only modern Muslim theocracy — and created an epicenter of religiously inspired activism and virulent anti-Americanism that would radiate throughout the region and across the globe, said Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Yet the Iran that developed in the decades following the revolution represents a contradictory fusion of both the theocratic and democratic institutions and ideals of its founders, Maloney said. Following recurrent spasms of infighting among the country’s political elite followed by experiments in democratic reform, the power structure of the state has become split between the ultimate authority of the supreme religious leader and the legitimizing force of the popular vote — a product of the divergent interests of the reform-minded Islamic leftists and the religious-inspired conservatives who coalesced to topple the Shah, she said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election in 2005 ended further reforms, but had the unexpected outcome of highlighting the stark contrasts between the religious rhetoric of the country’s leadership and the increasingly democratic aspirations of its citizens.

Seeking authority and approval for his relatively powerless office, Ahmedinijad has voiced a number of radical positions — his desire to see Israel destroyed as a Jewish state, his denial of the Holocaust — that have met with the orthodoxy’s satisfaction.

However, his difficulties in dealing with popular economic concerns dealt his party a blow at the ballot box in late 2006.

Now, Iran is entering into another parliamentary election cycle March 14. While a reformist comeback is “at best an iffy proposition” given the current dominance of Iran’s right wing, Maloney said, it would be a grave mistake to discount the significance of these elections for Iran’s future. The personal and policy differences of Ahmedinijad and his more reformist predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, are ample evidence of the uncertainties inherent in any Iranian electoral contest, especially for those who prognosticate from outside of the country.

“Whatever happens next, people in Washington will be the last to predict its coming,” Maloney said.

There are things Washington can do, the witnesses said.

First, it must acknowledge that diplomacy is the only viable alternative, said Maloney. The wide array of negative consequences of military action would far outweigh any limited benefits and do little to ameliorate our security concerns, she said.

This means reviving our past policy of engagement regardless of the palatability of the task, without viewing the end as either automatic rapprochement or the unilateral offer of a “grand bargain.”

“The aim of diplomacy is to advance interests, not to make friends or endorse enemies,” Maloney said.

Finally, any serious effort to promote human rights and religious freedom in Iran must “drive a stake through the heart of the myth of externally orchestrated regime change,” she said.

This would required the United States to retool its democratization program, the witnesses said. Calling Iran a member of the “axis of evil” only causes its leaders to view the millions of dollars the State Department provides to non-governmental organizations as blatant attempts to undermine the government, said Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy.

A renewed diplomatic effort will not be easy, however, said Maloney. Tehran quietly ignored quiet Clinton administration overtures and publicly disparaged gestures intended to show goodwill.

But these failures, and the “stillbirth” of the Bush administration’s offer to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear program, should not discredit diplomacy as a tool for dealing with Iran, Maloney said. As the cooperation of Khatami’s government in securing Afghanistan in 2001 showed, under the right set of circumstances success is possible.

Matt Korade can be reached at mkorade@cq.com.

First posted Feb. 21, 2008 7:25 p.m.

Correction
Roya Boroumand of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran did not testify on the U.S. democratization program before the U.S. Commission on the Promotion of Religious Freedom Abroad on Feb. 21.