Recent Protests in Iran and Revisiting Two Falls through the Eyes of Hossein Alaei

"The wrong approach of Gaddafi in calming public protests provided the best excuse for the US and NATO to use the UN Security Council to take advantage of this opportunity to destroy one of their traditional opponents." This precise statement is an assessment by one of the highest-ranking former members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Alaei, former commander of the IRGC Navy and former chief of staff of the IRGC. He penned this analysis on January 19, 2013, just two days after the death of Muammar Gaddafi. Despite his high military rank, Alaei is one of the rare senior IRGC commanders who is knowledgeable in international relations and writes about it. There must have been a significant motivation for this high-ranking commander to write about the "why and how of Gaddafi's downfall" so shortly after Gaddafi's grim fate. Alaei describes the horrific murder of a leader who "started his government with simplicity," called himself the "leader of the global Islamic revolution," but was killed in the most humiliating way by "his own people." During his leadership, he "initiated free education in the country and managed to raise 25% of the eligible population of Libya, which was six and a half million, to higher education... under his rule, the per capita income was nearly $10,000." However, why was Gaddafi killed in the most horrific way by the same people he believed he had created the best country for? It is hard to believe that Libya during Gaddafi's time has now become one of the bases for ISIS, and that slavery has become a common practice in this country. In response to this question, Alaei meaningfully sheds light on the reasons for the collapse of Gaddafi's regime. He writes, "Colonel Muammar Gaddafi claimed to fight against global colonialism, and under this pretext, he practically deprived the Libyan people of all political and social freedoms and created a closed governmental system. It is clear that closed political systems make more mistakes than open systems because government officials in these types of systems make decisions in a limited and closed environment, and all their activities and actions are carried out with the permission of the first person in the country." He adds, "Gaddafi created an expensive military force and numerous repressive security agencies from the vast oil revenues... During his rule, he took all political freedoms from the people, and there was no independent party or media in this country... Gaddafi pretended to be Islamic, but the people had to submit to Islam as he interpreted it." Alaei notes that while the unemployment rate in Libya reached 30%, Gaddafi was seeking to find a foothold beyond Libya in fierce opposition to Saudi Arabia. However, following the sanctions imposed by the UN from 1992 to 2001, "eventually Gaddafi cooperated with the US in dismantling his nuclear facilities and signed the Additional Protocol, which normalized relations between Libya and the US and the West." However, his abandonment of nuclear ambitions and the beginning of friendship with the West did not lead to a happy ending for him. With the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, which led to the fall of Ben Ali (after 24 years of rule) and the fall of Hosni Mubarak (after 20 years of rule), it was Gaddafi's turn, who had held uncontested power for 42 years. As the uprising in Libya escalated, he referred to his rebellious people as a bunch of "desert rats," and "people's gatherings were immediately suppressed by security and military forces." In this section, Hossein Alaei beautifully explains the reason for Gaddafi's fall by stating, "Gaddafi forgot that politics and power had distanced themselves from their old and historical meaning of despotism and had transformed into the new concepts of 'law,' 'legal system,' and 'responsibility.'" While it seems that Alaei provides a clear image not of a dictator but of any dictatorship, he writes about Gaddafi's fall that "he considered himself the lifelong leader of the revolution... the governmental structures were designed in such a way that it made it impossible for the people to change the leader of the revolution... At the same time, Gaddafi regularly received praise from his entourage and was introduced as a wise leader... Meanwhile, he was incapable of recognizing and understanding the real demands of his people. In the early stages of facing numerous protests and demonstrations, instead of yielding to the people's demands, he chose the path of relying on force, widespread arrests, and gross violations of human rights." Ultimately, Hossein Alaei depicts Gaddafi's end as follows: "Gaddafi's wrong approach to public protests provided the best excuse for the US and NATO to use the legal capacity of the UN Security Council to take advantage of this golden opportunity to destroy one of their traditional opponents and also to expand their military presence in North Africa and strengthen their forces in the Mediterranean Sea and dominate Libya's oil wells." On January 9, 2012 (one year before Gaddafi's fall), Alaei left behind an article that no one believed. He did not describe the fall of the Shah but rather the fall of a regime that, if no measures were taken, would meet the same fate as the Shah. In his note written on the occasion of the uprising of January 9, 1978, he used such clear references that many believed he was comparing the behavior of Ali Khamenei with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. This perception led to a raid on his residence and some attempted to take his life. Alaei begins his description of the Shah's fall: "January 9, 1978, marks the beginning of a popular and widespread uprising that managed to oust the Shah from the country within about a year... The government itself provided the pretext... The Shah's government attacked students and youths in the streets of Safaieh under the pretext of lacking a permit for the march... As the number of street killings and arrests of people and political prisoners increased, the power of the monarchy system was practically diminished." After explaining the reasons and how the Shah fell, using a phrase that Khamenei had used, he writes that the Shah probably asked himself after leaving the country, "If I had allowed the protesting people to hold peaceful marches and did not accuse them of street mobilization and confrontation, would the issue have ended?... If instead of confining some of the dignitaries in their homes... I had opened the door to dialogue with them, would it have led to my fleeing the country?... If instead of accusing the people of being provoked by foreigners, I had not insulted their collective intelligence, would I now have to seek refuge with foreigners?" The Islamic Republic, in similar circumstances, where a high-ranking commander of the IRGC like Hossein Alaei has once written about the fall of the Shah and another time about the fall of Gaddafi, depicting the downfall of two governments, strengthens the assumption that he foresees the same fate for the Islamic Republic if it employs the same methods that the Shah and Gaddafi used. This assumption is reinforced when we recall that Alaei was critical of the regime's overt violence in 2009. Revisiting the fall of Gaddafi and the Shah, especially through the lens of an IRGC commander, has profound meaning when we remember that people in Iran have protested in every corner of the country, especially knowing that the recent uprising is due to poverty, oppression, corruption, and discrimination. Additionally, revisiting Gaddafi's fall from another angle in the current period is instructive, as Gaddafi's fall occurred when the file of his repression of opponents was discussed in the Security Council, and this council voted positively for military intervention. A similar scenario is currently unfolding regarding the Islamic Republic. Military intervention against Gaddafi was executed while he believed he had opened the door to friendship with the West. The Islamic Republic does not even have that. Meanwhile, the triangle of Saudi Arabia-Israel-America has also come together. What Hossein Alaei wrote about the fall of the Shah and Gaddafi predicted a day like today when we are witnessing the uprising of the hungry in Iran, and repression is of no use.