Gary Sick:

There are many different ways to look at the developments in Iran. One perspective that seems to have been ignored is what I regard as the cardinal role of the Revolutionary Guards.

Over the twenty years that Khamene'i has been the rahbar, or Leader, He has allied himself ever more closely with the Revolutionary Guards - to such an extent that it is no longer apparent to me who is leading and who is following. The Revolutionary Guards have been granted extraordinary influence over all functions of the Islamic Republic - military, political, economic and even Islamic. Technically, they take their orders from the Leader, but has he ever dared to contradict them? On the contrary, he seems always to court them by granting them ever-greater influence and responsibilities. [...]

[The military and economic roles of the Revolutionary Guards] combine to form an impenetrable core that arrogates to itself all authority in the Islamic Republic. Needless to say, it also provides tangible benefits to very specific groups: the Leader himself, who is thus promoted to a position not simply as first among equals but as the equivalent of an absolute monarch; the top leadership of the Revolutionary Guards, whose profitable dominance of all aspects of the government's operations is guaranteed; and the conservative politically minded clergy, who want a true theocracy with no meddling by those who are not properly anointed. The objective, quite simply, was to remove the "republic" from the Islamic Republic.

This is a formula for the kind of a militarized and nationalist corporate state under a single controlling ideology that is not dissimilar to fascist rule in an earlier day. Like fascism, it defines itself not only in terms of its own objectives but even more so by what it opposes: liberalism, individualism, unfettered capitalism, etc. There is no need to push the definition too far, since fascism tended to be specific to a particular time and set of historical circumstances. But the resemblance in nature and practice seems to justify use of the term.

All is changed, changed utterly. What happens next is unknowable, but the Islamic Republic will never again be the same.

[T]his perspective helps to illuminate some puzzling aspects of the current circumstances. Why did the regime resort to such a frantic manipulation of the vote when it was entirely possible that Ahmadinejad would have made a respectable showing - or possibly even have narrowly won - a fair election, and when the opposition in any event was devoted to the concept of the Islamic Republic as it existed? The answer may be that the corporate entity saw this election as one of the final steps in cementing its absolute control. Accepting the Islamic Republic as it is and not as they wanted it to be was simply unacceptable. The emergence of a relatively mild reformer - or even a substantial reformist vote - would undercut the kind of absolute authority that they were getting ready to assert. It would, in a word, complicate the coup that they were in the process of carrying out.

[W]here are the people of Iran in all this? Certainly they would be better off under a reformist government, rather than the smothering absolutism of the oligarchy. It was the brief glimpse of that possibility that brought them to the streets in the millions. They also sensed, as did the oligarchs, that there was a possibility that the existing regime would splinter and result in more humane governance.

The willingness of the corporate clique to brutalize the people they claim to represent has for the moment pushed the fire of revolt beneath the surface. But in Yeats' immortal words: All is changed, changed utterly. What happens next is unknowable, but the Islamic Republic will never again be the same.

Will the recent protests against the re-election of President Ahmadinejad have a lasting impact on the nature of the Iranian regime, then? Might this be the moment at which government by ideology is transformed into government by sheer power, as arguably happened in Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968?

Richard Bulliet:

The Iranian protest movement has focused on allegations of election fraud. If those allegations are not addressed in some fashion, public confidence in elections as a means of effecting change will diminish, and some disillusioned individuals will undoubtedly decide that change can only be achieved through non-constitutional means. If underground political activist groups form, the government will assuredly enhance its surveillance and repression capabilities. Escalation in a contest between protest and repression could lead to more severe regime challenges some five to ten years from now. However, this would be more reminiscent of what happened in Iran after the coup against Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 than what happened in Hungary or Czechoslovakia, where the Soviet Union played a role that has no Iranian analogue. Elections under the Shah were widely seen as farcical, and underground political movements and secret police repression grew proportionately. The result was a revolution twenty-five years later. Given today's means of communication, through which young Iranians have gained a much greater awareness of international norms of political and social life than their predecessors had in the 1950s and 1960s, and given the fact that the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has no Great Power backing comparable to what the United States afforded the Shah after 1953 in the context of the Cold War, it seems more likely that a serious challenge would arise in well under 25 years.

Students and young people will be the easiest to repress...

Eden Naby:

The question of "face" enters into the picture as does the fear of an increasingly disenchanted population. The regime, especially Ahmadenejad, has lost face in the region and internationally. He, and the theocratic system that backs him, can no longer claim to speak for the people: they must resort to the "God's command as we absolutely know it to be" argument.

Even within the dominantly Muslim region, this argument weakens Tehran, especially as coupled with the latent fear of Iranian hegemony supported on the "Arab street." Ahmadenejad in particular had gained a certain hero status for appearing to defy the West even in the Sunni Arab world. Largess from oil funds to Hezbollah and Hamas - one Arab Shi'ite and the other Arab Sunni - became part of this defiance. This basis for his popularity will diminish greatly if he is seen as the murderer of his own people. In part, Iran's nuclear stance is based on defiance. If the defiance stance is diminished - as it has been - then will the position of the Arab states and Turkey, who do not want a nuclear Iran, be strengthened?

In order to resume their path toward the bluster, if not the actuality of regional hegemony, the Iranian government must deflect the accusation that they are brutal and undemocratic. They are pursuing two paths to achieve this goal. First, they are blaming the UK, US and Israel - an old saw that they may not be able to pull off yet again. Second, they have begun the process completely to repress and send into their own form of "gulag" any and everyone involved in the opposition.

Who was involved and can they be repressed? There were three categories: students and young people; intellectual and non-bazaari middle class people; and members of Majlis, the Iranian Parliament. The first category will be the easiest to repress: they can be "disappeared," forced out of universities and jobs, or executed after sham trials in which they confess to being foreign stooges. Their parents, the second category, will be terrified for their progeny and may be easily blackmailed into silence. The members of Majlis, 180 (out of 290) of whom begged off attending the inauguration of the re-elected president, will find it hard to escape punishment. Punishment may not be immediate, but slow elimination, starting with exclusion from the lists of those who can stand for the next legislative election, will take place.


What, in your opinion, are the underlying causes for the recent protests? Are they primarily directed against perceived electoral fraud or was this merely the occasion for airing more fundamental grievances?

How will the government deal with these underlying grievances? Repression seems to be the only option.

Eden Naby:

Electoral fraud appears to have taken place without much doubt - at least in the case of the Moussavi count in Tabriz, his home region. And if they manipulated electoral results in Tabriz, then they also did so elsewhere. Hence the chances are that if you took a poll of the middle class, they would doubt the authenticity of this election whether or not they themselves had voted for Ahmadenejad.

That said, there certainly has been an accumulation of grievances, especially among women and the parents of girls. Keep in mind that the sudden decreed fecundity of Iranian women during the early 1980s has created many problems for the country. For whatever reason, 60% of university students are women. Given that the unequal position of women has been an overt issue over the past 2 years, underlying the dissatisfaction is the increased educational level of women and their lack of opportunity. That women played a major role in the demonstrations represents this underlying and fundamental dissatisfaction.

How will the government deal with these underlying grievances? Repression seems to be the only option. Compromise has already been ruled out in the widespread arrests of women leaders this winter.

Richard Bulliet:

I don't believe that grievances against the regime as such were the primary driver in the election protests. Given the absence of political parties and the role of the Guardian Council in vetting candidates for office, Iranian elections have not been free by international standards. Nevertheless, they have hitherto been perceived in Iran as reasonably representative of the wishes of the voters. Well established figures have occasionally lost elections, and lesser known individuals have sometimes won. So the current challenge to the electoral process reflects an anger that is not easily reducible to a particular ideological stance. Assuming that there was serious election manipulation, as several statistical studies have indicated, the rationale for deciding to interfere with the electoral process probably stems more from a concern over the changing profile of the electorate than over a concrete and specific ideological challenge. After all, Mr. Mousavi, the person around whom most of the protestors rallied, has no credentials as an opponent of the Islamic Republican form of government. In terms of the profile of the electorate, however, the baby boom generation of Iranians born during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), when the regime was wedded to a pro-natalist philosophy and the country's fertility index was over 7 children per woman (as opposed to barely over 2 today), has now fully entered the electorate. In ten years they will dominate the middle ranks of employment throughout the country.

For many (though not all) Iranians of the slightly older generation who lived through the revolution and bore the brunt of the fighting against Iraq, these young people seem hedonistic, self-centered, and lacking in religious zeal. The older cohort, particularly those who have benefited from veterans' preferences and involvement in the politically active branches of the armed forces (the Revolutionary Guards and Basij Corps), do not want to see their lives of sacrifice go for naught in a wave of popular Westernization. This kind of clash typically takes place 25-30 years after a revolutionary change--compare Algeria in 1992, China under the Cultural Revolution, and the Stalinist purges after World War II--and it is also analogous to the conflict between America's generation of veterans and the hippie, antiwar counterculture of the 1970s. In other words, the protests in Iran fit a pattern of generational conflict in which ideology as such is less important than the inevitable process of one generation aging and another pushing ahead.

Can an accommodation between hardliners and reformers be ruled out by now? Can we venture an educated guess about the outcome of the Revolution?

Gary Sick:

Based on my own experience of watching the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis from the White House thirty years ago: don't expect that this will be resolved cleanly with a win or loss in short period of time. The Iranian revolution, which is usually regarded as one of the most accelerated overthrows of a well-entrenched power structure in history, started in about January 1978 and the shah departed in January 1979. During that period, there were long pauses and periods of quiescence that could lead one to believe that the revolt had subsided. This is not a sprint; it is a marathon. Endurance is at least as important as speed.

There may not be a clear winner or loser. Iranians are clever and wily politicians. They prefer chess to football, and a "win" may involve a negotiated solution in which everyone saves face. The current leadership has chosen, probably unwisely, to make this a test of strength, but if they conclude that it is a no-win situation they could settle for a compromise. The shape of a compromise is impossible to guess at this point, but it would probably involve significant concessions concealed behind a great public show of unity.

They know how a revolt can be turned into a revolution. They also know they have everything to lose.

Leadership is key. Ayatollah Khamene`i, the rahbar or Leader, has chosen - again probably unwisely - to get out in front as the spokesman of the regime. Unlike his predecessor, the father of the revolution Ayatollah Khomeini, he has openly taken sides with one faction over another. He is clearly speaking for the ultra conservative leaders of the Revolutionary Guards and their equally reactionary clerical supporters, who fear any possible threat to their dominant power. Curiously, President Ahmadinejad has largely vanished from sight, which adds to the impression that he is more of a pawn than a prime mover in this affair.

On the other side is Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the erstwhile colleague and now principal antagonist of the rahbar. He has chosen, as he usually does, to stay behind the scenes as a master strategist, leaving the public field to Mir Hossein Mousavi and the other disappointed candidates and their followers.

The irony of two former colleagues now competing for power over the expiring corpse of the Islamic Republic that they created with such grandiose expectations, is lost on no one. The important subtext, however, is that these two understand very well what they are doing. They know how a revolt can be turned into a revolution. They also know they have everything to lose. The shared consciousness of high stakes has until now prevented an all out political confrontation between rival factions in the elite. That may help explain why the rahbar and the Revolutionary Guards were so reckless in their insolent contempt of the reformers and the public. They may have believed that no one would dare take it to this level.

Now that it has arrived at this point, both protagonists are faced with decisions of unprecedented gravity. There has been nothing like this in the thirty year history of the Islamic Republic, and today there is no Khomeini father figure to moderate and mediate among the warring factions. They must improvise in conditions of severe uncertainty. If anyone tells you that they know how this will turn out, treat their words with the same regard you would have for any fortune teller peering into a crystal ball.

Can the United States have a positive impact on the situation in Iran?

Gary Sick:

For the United States, the watchword should be Do No Harm. The situation in Iran is being exploited for short term domestic political purposes by those who have been looking for an opening to attack the Obama administration. Wouldn't it feel good to give full throated expression to American opposition to the existing power structure in Iran? Perhaps so -- but it could also be a fatal blow to the demonstrators risking their lives on the streets of Tehran, and it could scotch any chance of eventual negotiations with whatever government emerges from this trial by fire.

The crisis in Iran is an Iranian crisis and it can only be resolved by the Iranian people and their leaders. There is no need to conceal our belief in freedom of speech and assembly and our support for the resolution of political disputes without bloodshed. But we should not be stampeded by domestic political concerns into pretending that our intervention in this crisis could be anything but pernicious.

Can President Obama play chess as well as he plays basketball?

The Iranian constitution combines theocracy with democracy. Could such a mix ever be stable?

"Israel may ... be seen as a model for a transitional Iran"

Eden Naby:

The other theocracy/democracy combination is Israel. But the difference between the two is enormous: Israeli theocracy extends deep into family law but less deep into political control of institutions. Agitation for change and modification does not draw down the wrath of god expressed by human hands. If anything, Israel may in fact provide the combination of theocracy and democracy that could be seen as a model for a transitional Iran.

That would be ironic, wouldn't it, to have Iran's theocracy modeled on Israel?

Theocracy in one form or other still lingers in vestigial forms in many countries: but Saudi Arabia and Iran stand out as the worst exemplars. Moreover, the idealized theocracy, built into the educational systems, renders change difficult for people to understand because they have no opportunity to debate or realize there are alternatives.

'The Supreme Leader is not far different from what we would have in the United States if we had only one Supreme Court justice'

Richard Bulliet:

The Iranian constitution establishes a religious figure as the overseer of the political system. Yet that religious figure is not a divinely selected Imam who is deemed to be infallible. Clerics popularly elected to an Assembly of Experts choose him. More importantly, the dominant understanding of Islamic law in Iranian Shi'ism accords to the highest-ranking clerics the capacity to change or adapt religious law in response to current conditions. Though the law is based on the Qur'an and the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, it is not an immutable code, and the interpretation of it by contemporary religious jurists is considered provisional insofar as the only truly authoritative voice is that of the Twelfth Imam, who departed from human society over a thousand years ago leaving no sure indication of when he would return. So what we have, in effect, is not far different from what we would have in the United States if we had only one Supreme Court justice.

To sharpen this example, consider what the American political scene would be like if every proposal by President Obama would ultimately have to be approved by Justice Antonin Scalia, a supreme jurist appointed for life. Whether the "governing jurist" (vali faqih in Persian) emerges from a seminary in Qom as a specialist in Shi'ite law or from Harvard Law School as a specialist in constitutional law is not all that important. The U.S. Constitution can be amended, but only with difficulty; the same is true of Shi'ite law. The ultimate problem, therefore, is not theocracy vs. democracy but democracy vs. juridical monarchy. What this means is that the problems that are preventing the Islamic Republic of Iran from achieving a stable system come from the implementation of the founder's idea of a governing jurist, not simply from the idea of that jurist being religiously trained. In other words, the IRI might achieve a workable democracy if the function of the governing jurist were shared by a panel of individuals, and if the Guardian Council, an institution stemming from Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1906, were eliminated.

Do the Reformers - and does Moussavi - hope to take theocracy out of Iran, or merely to reform it?

Gary Sick:

Mir Hossein Mousavi, the presidential candidate who has come to represent the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, issued a formal statement on June 21st. Although he denounces the "lies and fraud" of the leadership, particularly in the recent election, he views the fraudulent election as only as the symptom of something far more serious. He describes a revolution gone wrong, a revolution that was originally based on attention to the voice of the people but has resulted in "forcing an unwanted government on the nation."

This moment is "a turning point," he says, and he defines the " the movement that is forming around him of having a "historical mission" to accomplish nothing less than "renewing the life of the nation" according to its own ideals.

No one knows where any of the parties are likely to go next. It is like standing on the edge of a glacier and feeling the ice begin to crack under your feet.

He acknowledges, interestingly, that his own voice at the beginning was less 'eloquent' than he would have wished and that the people were ahead of him in turning the movement green. But now he accepts the "burden of duty put on our shoulders by the destiny of generations and ages"

He denounces both extremes of the political spectrum: those on one hand who believe that "Islamic government is the same as Tyranny of the Rightful;" and on the other, those who "consider religion and Islam to be blockers for realization of republicanism," i.e. those who believe that Islam and democracy are incompatible.

Mousavi says his call for annulment of the election and a revote, supervised by an impartial national body, "is a given right." The objective is nothing less than "to achieve a new type of political life in the country."

That is truly a revolutionary statement. He says he will stand by the side of all those seeking "new solutions" in a non-violent way. He accepts the principles and the institutions of the Islamic Republic, including the Revolutionary Guard and the basij, but denounces "deviations and deceptions." He demands reform "that returns us to the pure principles of the Islamic Revolution."

He calls for freedom of expression in alll its forms, and says that if the government permits people to express their views "there won't be a need for the presence of military and regulatory forces in the streets."

It is apparent from this statement that Mousavi's movement -- and Mousavi himself -- have evolved enormously in the past week. The candidate started as a mild-mannered reformer. After the searing events of the past several days, he has dared to preach a counter sermon to Khamene'i's lecture on Islamic government. Although he never mentions the Leader by name, there is no overlooking the direct contradiction of his arguments. This open opposition to the Leader by a political figure is unprecedented.

Mousavi has in fact issued a manifesto for a new vision of the Islamic Republic. The repression and disdain of the government has brought the opposition to a place they probably never dreamed of going. And no one knows where any of the parties are likely to go next.

But for outside observers, it is like standing on the edge of a glacier and feeling the ice begin to crack under your feet.

Do you think it is possible for liberal democracies to exist peacefully alongside Islamic theocracies?

Eden Naby:

No. These two philosophies are in opposition because Islamic theocracies cannot lose any argument when religion is their ultimate answer to any human rights, economic, social or political issue. In Shi'ism in particular, where interpretation of Shari'a can be done as a matter of routine by religious leaders, hopes for democracy are crushed when those leaders are backed by bullets.

Iran is now a very dangerous country. Having lost "face" and credibility inside the country, and in the region, it cannot risk compromise or any further loss of power for its current leaders. It is hard to imagine any factors that would induce the Iranian regime to voluntarily give up power. These men, bloated with wealth acquired in 30 years of lining their pockets, do not share the kind of concern that the Shah had to not kill Iranians, especially after the catastrophe at Jaleh Square. Doing the work of God allows these men to kill with impunity - whether they are Ayatollahs giving the orders to shoot and bludgeon, torture and try, hang or make disappear or the fanatical minions represented by the basij. This situation makes Iran's ability eventually to produce a nuclear bomb even more unacceptable. Where would the regime stop in order to maintain itself and promote the word of God?

I don't see Iran as a theocracy. It is a constitutionally flawed democracy

Richard Bulliet:

I don't see the IRI as a theocracy. It is a constitutionally flawed democracy. I am also suspicious of the term "liberal democracy." It makes sense to contrast a "liberal democracy" with a fascist, communist, militarist, or other regime type that regularly holds bogus referenda to endorse the policies of the autocracy; but there is a long history of such pseudo-democracies coexisting with democracies that regularly hold free, fair, and credible elections. The United States, for example, treats Egypt as a close ally even though there is nothing "liberal" about Egyptian elections. So is the question whether the Islamic Republic of Iran can exist peacefully with a "liberal" United States? Or with an "illiberal" Egypt? I would say that it can live peacefully with either, particularly if the flaws in its constitution are corrected. On the other hand, if by "Islamic theocracy" you are talking about Saudi Arabia or the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, I think there is a more serious question to be raised about long-term coexistence. Yet again I would observe that the United States, a "liberal democracy," considers Saudi Arabia, an "Islamic theocracy" the best of friends.

To what extent will the re-election of President A impact upon efforts to effect a rapprochment with Iran with respect to their nuclear programme?

I don't think it makes much difference who is President in Iran.

Eden Naby:

Rapprochement with Iran has receded. Nuclear breaks through heavy sanctions are in order. But the door to dialogue cannot be closed. If the regime becomes repressive enough, some who sense an opportunity to benefit from the disrepute of the current murderers will succeed in rising from within the ranks of the ruling class.

Richard Bulliet:

The best achievable outcome in the nuclear arena is probably international recognition of Iran as a threshold nuclear power with a probable, but undeclared and untested, weapons capability. The question, to my mind, is not how to keep Iran from continuing its uranium enrichment program, but how to persuade Iran that any manifest departure from its oft repeated denial of a nuclear weapons ambition--this means any test of a weapon--would not be in its interest. I think a carefully calibrated relaxation of international pressure through diplomatic initiatives and selective removal of sanctions would be more effective than a ratcheting up of those sanctions. If Iran were tacitly accorded the respect appropriate to its status as a threshold nuclear power, I think that the desire for a continuing improvement in international relations would prove more effective in staving off a weapon test than punitive sanctions that could backfire by rallying the nation behind nuclearization. In this context, I don't think it makes much difference who is president in Iran.



Gary Sick, a member of the US Security Council under the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, was the principal White House aide for Persian Gulf affairs during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis.

Interviews with Richard Bulliet and Eden Naby were conducted via e-mail. Texts by Gary Sick are drawn, with friendly permission, from his blog: gary's choices.

The British press in a full self-righteous battle-charge is a fearsome sight. Rarely, in recent years, have they been more self righteous - or more fearsome - than when discussing the issue of Sharia Courts. That Muslim religious courts exist in Britain at all, let alone in innocuous dwellings in leafy suburbia, is a shock to most. That they are also legal seems a self-evident outrage.

To many there is no better metaphor for a supposedly discredited policy of multiculturalism than that minorities can now impose their own law. If this can happen, then what does it mean to be British at all?

Dr Suhaib Hasan has more practical concerns. Inside his Francis Road offices, he is discussing the difficulties of observing Sharia - Islamic law - in the UK. "It is a real problem," he says, earnest suddenly behind a greying, scraggy beard. "The days are so long. Prayer times are connected with dawn and the disappearance of twilight, but sometimes twilight never disappears. Some say that we should combine two prayers at sunset, others that we must wait until midnight."

Dr Hasan, flanked by bookshelves of Arabic legal texts, gives the impression that he is happiest discussing these theological niceties. But, as secretary of the Islamic Sharia Council, he has other duties. Sitting in the waiting room outside his office is a middle-aged woman holding a toddler, accompanied by her female cousin and a bored teenage girl. Dressed in bright, formal, shalwar kameez, they are here - as with most visitors - to seek advice about divorce.

Speaking in Urdu, Mrs Khan (not her real name) explains her reasons for wanting to split with her husband - from whom she has been separated for two years. "He is a drug addict and he beat me," she says, as her turquoise-clad daughter yomps happily around the office. She claims that he has been imprisoned for domestic violence.

The next step, as far as the court is concerned, is to contact the husband. Afterwards, Dr Hasan explains that this is often the most difficult part. "She has no details - she says his own family disowned him. So we have only her word. We will put an advert in the local paper, and hope her husband responds. But I don't think she is lying, she is a simple woman."

Once they are satisfied that they have gathered all the necessary information, or at least as much as is possible, a file on the case will be presented - along with others from around the country - to a group of scholars at a monthly meeting in the Regent's Park Islamic Cultural Centre. They then have the power to decide the outcome.

Whilst the public debate around Sharia courts is coloured by images of stonings and hands being cut off, the practical reality in the UK is cases very similar to those of Mrs Khan. Since its creation in 1982, Dr Hasan's organisation has considered 7,000 divorces. In this respect it is similar to the long-established London Beth Din, a Jewish court based in Finchley that is consistently of less interest to the tabloid press.

But when Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, suggested in 2008 that the inclusion of some aspects of Sharia into UK law was "unavoidable" - that Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty" - he managed to create one of the most unlikely coalitions in recent political history. The Right joined with the Left, liberals with authoritarian, religious with atheists - all to oppose him. The Sun newspaper reported the story under the headlines "What a Burkha!" and "Bash the Bishop."

In reality, Sharia is little threat to UK law.

Most who apply to the Sharia Council are already divorced in UK law, or involved in civil divorce proceedings. That is a necessity. What the Islamic divorce adds, as with the corresponding Jewish divorce, is acceptance in their own community. It does not usurp UK law, because it has nothing to do with UK law. In some civil matters, such as financial disputes, the court has power to arbitrate - but only in the sense that a coven of witches would have the power to arbitrate, if both sides agreed to abide by their decision.

"There are many things that English law does not cover," Dr Hasan explains. "In Islam, there is a dowry amount attached to each marriage. It may be nominal, it may be exorbitant. If a man wants a divorce and has not paid it, we ask him to pay. If a woman wants a divorce, she must return it."

This problem has an analogue in UK law: Dr Hasan is effectively arguing for legally-binding pre-nuptial agreements. But he goes on to describe aspirations that come closer to the tabloid caricature of Sharia - lamenting a system that does not recognise marriage under 16, and arguing in favour of polygamy. "Many Muslims, including those in high positions, keep mistresses in hiding along with a legally wed wife. We say, what is better? To have a legally wed wife and a mistress, or a second wife? Mistresses are allowed, but second wives are not. Isn't it ironic?"

The Sharia Council is technically powerless. It would like to have enforcement powers, but with no official status, its authority comes solely from its standing in the community. During the course of an afternoon, I sit in on a succession of meetings with people discussing extremely personal issues. None of them knew I was coming, but equally none of them even questioned my presence - if the council trusted me, so did they.

The second appointment of the afternoon is a man, stubbly and in his late twenties. Accompanied by his brother, he wants a fatwa - a religious edict - to get him out of a predicament worthy of a daytime TV show. In a rage, three years ago he told his pregnant wife he divorced her. For men, that is all that is required to be separated in the eyes of Islam.

Now he wants her back. "I made a lot of mistakes in my life," he says, shuffling and looking down. "But I have changed. So long as Islam permits me to do this, then I want us to be together."

He claims she feels the same, yet there are problems. The first is, he said "I divorce you" three times. In Islam you are allowed to remarry someone, unless you have been divorced from them three times before: many scholars believe that repetition counts as consecutive divorces. Dr Hasan disagrees - issuing a written fatwa to that effect. "If I ask you: 'Bring me a bottle of water, a bottle of water, a bottle of water,' I mean one bottle, not three," he says. "This is one divorce."

The second problem is that his wife remarried - a quickie ceremony with a cousin in Pakistan to save face. They claim she can get a divorce, but want to know if it is a problem that her current marriage was never consummated. "She doesn't have to spend a night with that person?" his brother asks. "I need to take an answer to our family."

"No," Dr Hasan replies. "This is prostitution - you made the mistake by divorcing her, why should she suffer?"

In the angels-on-pinheads legalistic interpretation of Sharia, if someone does have three divorces from the same person, then that count can be reset if the wife remarries another man and divorces him. Because of this, there are stories of men ordering their ex-wives to marry someone for one night only. Dr Hasan is keen to avoid any implication that he is advocating this approach.

The Regent's Park Mosque is the largest Islamic Centre in Britain. More than a place of worship, it is a complex with meeting rooms, shops and a cafe. Even on a humid weekday afternoon, when we convene for the monthly meeting of the Council, it is busy - groups of young men, and women in hijabs, walking across the central courtyard.

The meeting is late starting. I wait in a slightly scruffy, stuffy, room, chatting to one of the scholars. An Egyptian lawyer, Hamdy El-Sawy chairs a Citizens' Advice Bureau, runs a travel agency and organises trips to Mecca for the Hajj. He also has the conversational skills of a good taxi driver ("I had Yusef Islam on my Hajj once, lovely man - Cat Stephens, you know...The Swedish ambassador as well, he said we were the best agency...").

As we chat about the perception of Islam in the West, he tells me a story about a visit to Cordoba, the city in central Spain dominated by a cathedral that, until the 13th century, was a mosque. "Standing in the middle of the Cathedral, my young son ran off. His name is Islam, and I shouted after him, calling him back. I suddenly realised I was standing in a disputed religious site, shouting 'Islam! Islam!'," he laughs. "I got some funny looks."

The other scholars are a collection of academics and imams with beards in various states of disrepair. Dr Hasan, the chairman, opens the session with the brisk sense of purpose of a parish council meeting. "If you will turn to case 3684," he says, quieting the room, and we begin.

The first few cases are fairly simple. Mainly wives abandoned by husbands - who have rarely even responded to the council's requests. The only debate is whether to send a final warning by recorded delivery, or grant the divorce then and there.

One husband, who has not seen or helped his wife for more than a decade, has ignored three letters from the council. There is discussion as to whether they should send him one final letter. The council president briefly stops chewing tobacco. "For 15 years he is not caring about his wife. What kind of a husband is he?"

The afternoon is hot, and by the second hour it is difficult to maintain concentration. Someone answers their mobile phone, and is reprimanded "I hope you will say that we told him off," the treasurer (he told me he preferred the title Exchequer) says.

The council deals with all UK Muslims - from Pakistanis to Somalis. This means that often the plaintiffs come from communities very different to the council's. In one case, a husband tries to mitigate his wife's accusations that he abandoned his family by arguing that someone has cast a spell on her - an allegation that the council treats with the careful cultural sensitivity, and studiedly lowered eyebrows, of a well-trained liberal social worker.

We come to case 4475, the largest file on the table. It concerns a Middlesbrough couple who have been married for 14 years, with three children.

The wife wants a divorce, claiming that her husband abused her and is a drug dealer. The husband counters, in a letter claiming that the wife committed adultery - with a drug dealer.

"All this is about the house, the money, living a westernised life. The whole Asian community in Middlesbrough knows the truth," the husband says in the letter. "I have no interest in divorce, unless she gives me full custody of the kids. I can safeguard their religion, future, life, behaviour, attitude. I will let them marry into good, respectable Muslim Pakistani families only."

"I still love and respect my wife," he later writes. "But I find it extremely difficult to trust her. She is my first love, my last love." One of the council seems convinced, sighing audibly - like he has just seen a puppy perform an endearing trick.

Others are less sure; the husband has, after all, refused to meet with the council's representative in Middlesbrough.

Working down the file, the wife provides a letter of support from a women's advice centre. "This means nothing, they always support the women: I should join Fathers4Justice," the Treasurer says, referring to a campaigning group where divorced men refused access to their children protest in superhero uniforms. "There is too much discrimination against men in this country." Dr Hasan gamely tries to move the conversation on, but Sheikh Haisan won't let him. "I'm pondering the injustice," he says - faux intransigent. One suspects this is a favourite topic of his, but it is also a welcome diversion as the afternoon gets hotter.

A pneumatic drill starts up. The case seems intractable. Atif, the office manager, suggests a solution would be to find out who is really the drug dealer. "Maybe we should send someone there to buy drugs, and see who is selling it," he says.

It is a good time to break for evening prayers.

I wait for them to finish in the cafe below. A cross between a school canteen and a kebab shop, it advertises itself as a venue for block-booking and parties.

After leaving the mosque, the council comes to eat. "There is a lot of misunderstanding about what we do," one of them says between mouthfuls of curry. "Sometimes I think people don't want to understand - but the media certainly don't help."

Earlier, I had tried to visit a similar organisation in Dewsbury, North England,. but the scholars there refused to speak to me - citing negative reports in the tabloids as the reason. "We received a lot of harrassment," they said. "Some of us have children, and we just don't need that. We now reject any media requests."

"Quite apart from anything else, it scares off the women; it might surprise you, but most of our work is helping women." There was a hint of bitterness in the last part of their answer, and reading the articles in question it is easy to see why. They describe "quasi-judicial religious zealots" ruling communities with "a rod of iron" and for whom "superstitious, barbaric, misogynistic...anti-female discrimination is part of their theology."

This clash describes the great contradiction in UK Sharia courts. The system is in many ways the antithesis of feminism. Men can divorce their wives by simply uttering the words "I divorce you", whereas women have to apply to a council of men - it is always men - and plead their case. And yet the work of the court itself is almost entirely on behalf of women who - short of abandoning their religion - feel they need its ruling.


Tom Whipple is a journalist at The Times.

The Lega Nord has been a member of Silvio Berlusconi's government since the 2008 general election. Until very recently, however, the Lega was regarded with some scepticism, and was treated with a certain degree of caution. This was not without reason. The Lega has been an unreliable and even dangerous member of previous Berlusconi governments. Claiming that the terms of their electoral pact had not been respected, the Lega dramatically withdrew their support and caused the collapse of Berlusconi's first government in December 1994. Despite this, Berlusconi knew that he needed them when it came to forming his fourth government just over a year ago. Only with the Lega's support could he command a majority. Yet when it came to policy, Berlusconi remained wary. The Lega were a necessary partner, but they were nevertheless a junior partner and many of their more extreme wishes were quietly pushed to the sidelines. Barely a month ago, however, everything changed.

On 6th June, Italy held elections for the European Parliament as well as for provincial and communal governments. Beset by scandals and shaken by controversies, the elections were a key test for Silvio Berlusconi's government, of which the Lega Nord is a member. Despite his recent upsets, however, 'il Cavaliere' - as the flamboyant Berlusconi is known to Italians - had nothing to fear. It was, as Berlusconi himself declared, 'un successo nonostante le calunnie' - a success despite the calumnies. Across the country, the parties of the centre-right swept the board.
The results of the elections were seismic. In the European elections, Berlusconi's PdL (Popolo della Libertà - People of Freedom) gained 35.5% of the vote, up from 31.6% in 2004 (combined results for Forza Italia and the Alleanza Nazionale). In the administrative elections, the results were yet more impressive. The right had made massive gains. In those provinces and communes which they had previously administered, the centre-right succeeded not merely in retaining control, but even increased their share of the vote. No fewer than fifteen of a total of 62 provinces changed hands from the centre-left to the centre-right.

Most strikingly, Italy's so-called 'Red Belt', the central regions that have been the traditional home of left-wing politics since the glory days of Togliatti and the Italian Communist Party (PCI), shifted dramatically to the right. In Umbria and La Marche, the PD (Partito Democratico - Democratic Party) ignominiously slipped into second place. The province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna - a region in which the centre right has never held power at any level - elected Massimo Trespidi as governor with 52.77% of the vote, while Alessandro Ciriana seized control of Pordenone in Friuli-Venezia Giulia from the centre-left with an impressive 62.81% of the vote. In Florence and Bologna, the symbolic epicentres of the left's history, centre-left candidates failed to achieve an absolute majority at the first ballot, requiring a run-off to defeat their opponents. The centre-left, by contrast, made not a single gain. The PD was simply no-where to be seen.

Commentators rightly saw the elections as a ringing endorsement of Berlusconi's government. Despite all the recent scandals, the electorate had unequivocally endorsed his administration. But it was the Lega Nord which was the true winner. In the European elections, Bossi's party gained 10.22% of the vote and nine seats in Strasbourg, up from 5% and four seats at the 2004 elections. Indeed, this was the biggest share of the vote that the party has ever received in a nationwide election. In Lombardy, the Lega won 22.72% of all votes cast for the European Parliament, pushing the PD into third place. In the administrative elections, the Lega tightened its grip on provincial and communal government in the north. In Bergamo, in Lombardy, the Lega gained 35.44% of the vote and 14 seats in the provincial elections, making it by far the largest and most powerful party (the PdL gained 22.45%, while the PD managed a mere 15.51%). In the province of Padua, it gained 24.84% of the vote, only just behind the PdL's 27.52% and significantly ahead of the PD's 20.97%. Extending its sphere of influence beyond its historic base in Lombardy and the Veneto, the Lega took 20.42% of the vote in the province of Novara in Piedmont, and won as many seats on the council as the PD.

The results of the 2009 elections effectively changed the balance of power within Berlusconi's governing coalition. The Lega has made the transition from being a potentially dangerous minor partner to wielding an influence which Berlusconi can no longer afford to ignore. Although it is notoriously difficult to extrapolate from the results of local elections, all the signs indicate that the Lega is building on the trends of recent years and is progressively strengthening its hold on northern Italy. With no obvious indications that this mounting base of support is likely to decline any time soon, and mindful of the devastating effect of the Lega's abandonment of his first government in late 1994, Berlusconi has been forced to recognise that his political future relies on maintaining good relations with Bossi and his party. In the harsh world of political realities, this means giving ground in key policy areas. As L'Espresso, a leading Italian weekly, put it, Bossi is now in the driving seat.

To outside observers, the growing power of the Lega Nord is cause both for fear and bewilderment. The Lega maintains an openly xenophobic platform which is given expression in frequently racist rhetoric and staunchly anti-immigration policies. An infamous and much-used campaign poster depicts a Native American chieftain with the slogan 'Loro hanno subito l'immigrazione - ora vivono nelle riserve' ('They suffered immigration - now they live on reserves'). Recently, Bossi even proposed that the Italian Navy should open fire on boats carrying illegal immigrants to Italy.

However frightening the Lega's xenophobic policies may be, it would nevertheless be mistaken to suggest that the party's success should be attributed to a growth of racist attitudes in Italy. Commentators who have rightly highlighted the frightening implications of the Lega's growing influence for Italy's approach to immigration have erred in concentrating on its xenophobia when seeking an explanation for its rise. While there is no question that the Lega's racist pronouncements are a cause for profound concern, the party is something of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Its deeply unpleasant xenophobia is veiled by a broader package of policy proposals which have been carefully constructed to have wide appeal at a time when the left-wing PD is experiencing a crisis. Indeed, the results of the 2009 elections have more to do with economic policy and the disarray of Italy's left than anything else.

At present, Italy is struggling to deal with the effects of the global recession. While it may not be suffering from the rampant inflation and fiscal chaos to which is was so regularly prey in previous decades, ordinary Italians are feeling the pinch. Consumer price inflation is forecast to decline to 0.5% from an annual average of 3.4% in 2008, but there are widespread predictions of Italy's GDP shrinking by 4.6% in 2009 as a result of weak external demand. In April 2009, the Banca d'Italia recorded that exports of goods and services from Italy had shrunk by 21.7% since April 2008. Major Italian employers, such as Fiat are experiencing severe difficulties and further significant redundancies are expected, while Italy's banks are not only having to place restrictions on borrowing, but are also having to fall back on state support to preserve their capital base. The burden of taxation remains high and, in part as a result of high debt-servicing costs, is unlikely to be brought down in the near future. Italy's many part-time workers are worst hit. In February 2009, the salaries of those employed on a part-time basis were reported to have declined by 35.5%, while rents are rising slowly around the country. Despite much-vaunted investment in new employment agencies throughout Italy, government efforts to combat unemployment have been nothing short of a flop. Only 3.2% of people entering the working world find their jobs through state-run job centres, while 30.1% are hired as a result of family connections or through the intervention of a friend.

These are the conditions which have traditionally favoured the left. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, periods of particular economic strain in Italy tended to favour the left at the expense of the right. Coming during periods of unusually high inflation and economic contraction, for example, the old PCI and Italian Socialist Party (PSI) significantly increased their share of the vote in the elections of 1953, 1963 and 1976, while the centre-right Christian Democrats (DC) either lost support or failed to make any gains. Today, however, precisely the reverse seems to be true.

But there is yet more to the picture. Not merely is the Lega gaining support during a period of economic uncertainty, but it is gaining most of its support from former left-wing voters. This is far from being a new trend. At the 1992 general election (when it garnered 8.7% of the national vote), 25.4% of its supporters were previously Christian Democrats, 18.5% had been communists, and 12.5% had been socialists. The trend is, however, accelerating. As the results of the 2009 administrative election reveals, the Lega is enticing more left-wing voters than ever before into its fold.

This is no coincidence. The deeply regionalist identity of the Lega Nord has left it well-placed to respond to such concerns. Since its foundation in 1991, the Lega Nord has consciously developed a brace of economic policies which an expression of its commitment to furthering the prosperity of the North. As Alberto Spektorowski has observed, one of the Lega's key beliefs is that 'the centralization of political authority and economic resources has both disregarded and harmed regional interests.' As well as seizing upon a long-standing opposition to statist bureaucracy - embodied in the epithet of Roma ladrona, or 'Thieving Rome' - this belief has given rise to a series of economic policies which are of a broadly left-wing nature. Umberto Bossi, himself a former Communist supporter, has explained that his party has strong socialist tendencies. In a recent article in Corriere della Sera, Dario Di Vico has pointed out that there are many respects in which the Lega has adopted the PCI's commitment to abolishing distinctions between socio-economic classes and opposing monopolist interests. In addition to advocating fiscal federalism, the Lega has come to support a social market economy and has loudly called for reform of the pensions system. As part of its emphasis on the need to put a stop to the waste of public money, it has advocated using a reduction in taxation to alleviate the financial burden on small and medium-sixed businesses, and the limitations on shop-floor employment. In this way, the Lega has articulated many of the frustrations of left-leaning voters and in responded to the grievances aired in the Italian media for many years.

But while it has a history of attracting some support from the left-wing at elections, the Lega has struggled to make significant inroads at previous elections. Then, successful and effective left-wing parties succeeded in propounding policies which made it difficult for the Lega Nord to mark itself out as a viable alternative in the economic field. Recently, however, the situation has changed. As Italy has slid ever deeper into an economic crisis stimulated by the global recession, many Italians have naturally become fearful for their financial futures. Whereas in the past, the parties of the left were a natural rallying point for those with such fears, however, the PD has fragmented to the point at which it no longer appears able to offer meaningful solutions for a large number of Italians.
Formed out of a number of smaller left-wing parties on 14th October 2007, the PD initially attracted a significant amount of support under the leadership of Walter Veltroni and - despite failing to win - garnered an impressive 37.5% of the popular vote at the 2008 general election in coalition with the IdV (Italia dei Valori - Italy of Values). Success was, however, short-lived. The growth of warring internal factions soon weakened the PD and the party was convulsed by internal squabbles over policies which struggled to broach the chasms which divided the party's constituent parts. By early 2009, the situation had become grave. On 16th February, after weeks of damaging public spats, the PD was humiliatingly crushed in a regional election in Sardinia. The following day, Veltroni resigned and was replaced by his deputy, Dario Franceschini.

Franeschini, like Veltroni, has found it increasingly difficult to bring the diverse factions of the party to consensus, especially on economic policy. Obstructed by the breadth of interests which it contains, the PD has found it almost impossible to agree upon a coherent set of policies which might address the mounting economic crisis and appeal to the fears of Italian voters. Since the publication of its 'Manifesto dei Valori' ('Manifesto of Values') on 16th February 2008, the PD has not managed to articulate a single effective policy position in this area. The dignity of work, the need to overcome the clash between big and small interests, the desire for equality of opportunities, the idea of an open society, and the interdependence of enterprise and work have all been cornerstones of PD rhetoric for more than a year, but such notions express vague areas of general agreement between party factions rather than solid foundations for clear economic policies capable of safeguarding the financial future of millions of Italians. Attempts to transform these 'values' into a concrete platform have done little but cast both Veltroni and Franceschini into the midst of intense party rivalries.

The weakness of the PD has effectively created the political space for the Lega Nord's economic policies to gain support. Fearful of the mounting economic crisis, disenchanted by the PD and unwilling to back Berlusconi's PdL, Italian voters have sought refuge in the Lega. That is not to say that those who have turned to the party are in sympathy with its militant xenophobia, but that with few other alternatives, its left-leaning economic policies have come to seem increasingly attractive at a time when the future appears more and more daunting.

This, however, poses a problem. As Bossi observed, the growth of support for the Lega has made it an indispensible member of Berlusconi's government. In the wake of the 2009 elections, the Lega will exert a stronger influence on government decisions - particularly in those ministries run by its members - and Berlusconi will be less willing to rebuff the party's demands. Immigration is already being handled in a more aggressive fashion, and it is more than likely that the Lega's strengthened position will allow it to impose its often violently right-wing agenda on social policy. There is no doubt that this is cause for deep misgivings and there can be but few who would not look on such a prospect with anything but fear. But if the Lega are to be stopped, and Italy is not to slide into xenophobic legislation, the reasons for its success must be addressed. However counter-intuitive it may seem, the Lega must be challenged not on its racism, but on its economic policies. The sheep's clothing must, in other words, be removed for the wolf to be driven off. This can only be accomplished if Italy's left manages to outline an effective economic position. Despite the deep divisions which separate those in the party, the PD must realise that it is the only bulwark against the Lega and that it has to overcome the factional squabbles that are ripping it apart. Still reeling from the results of the election and with a party congress due to be held in July, Franceschini is no doubt anxious to gloss over party differences and to make the PD tent as big as possible. What is needed, however, is a firm line. If the PD is committed to ensuring a free and open society in Italy, as its Manifesto dei Valori declared, then Franceschini must be prepared to risk dissent by pushing forward with clear economic policies which hark back to the strengths of the Italian left and which directly address the economic fears of the Italian people. If the frightening prospect of a more racist, more intolerant and more oppressive Italy is to be avoided, the PD must, like Danton, dare, dare again, always dare.

Alexander Lee, co-founder of The Utopian, is an historian of the Italian renaissance, living in Northern Italy.

Talking Heads 2: The New Europe? from The Utopian on Vimeo.

Dr. Timothy Stanley, historian at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London, discusses the recent European elections with Yascha Mounk, co-founder of The Utopian. Was the demise of left-wing parties and the rise of far-right parties a harbinger of the New Europe?

Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War, often claimed (perhaps dubiously) as a precursor to modern political science, sets forth the famous trilogy of motives said to compel states both to their imperial heights and bring them to their inevitable debasements: fear, honor and interest. But fear, not glory or gain, is the leitmotif of the untitled narrative. Thucydides deems Spartan alarm at Athens' blooming maritime empire to be the "truest cause" of the twenty-seven year war that tore Ancient Greece to shreds. His Athenian characters argue that their empire was driven not by pecuniary motives but fear, and others would have acted identically. Little wonder, then, that this two and a half millennia-old account of a regional conflict resonated so sharply in the panic-gripped America of the Cold War, fixated on a quasi-Spartan adversary, an autocratic land-power with opaque internal workings and disdain for the individual. It was the terrifying thought of Sputnik and spies that propelled Americans to fling men and materiel across the globe over the subsequent decades.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who was enamored with Thucydides' political sensibility (and undertook a translation himself), imported wholesale that tripartite psychology. In Leviathan, he argued that of the "three principal causes of quarrel", fear was "the passion to be reckoned upon". But demonstrating the state of nature's full depredations - the poverty, the brutishness, and the whole train of now-hackneyed horrors drawn from the contemporary English Civil War - required invoking politics between polities, the lawless condition in which states dealt with one another. His theoretical edifice pivots on what would later be dubbed the "security dilemma". In the absence of a world sovereign, actions undertaken by one state in its defense are indistinguishable from those directed at harming another, prompting the smallest of disturbances to erupt into an unstoppable arms race.

This notion of a perpetual standoff reached its apogee with the generation of mathematicians-cum-Cold Warriors who drew on game theory to generate lessons for American nuclear strategy. Perhaps most famously, the Nobel Prize winner Thomas Schelling sketched out in the 1950s an extreme form of this dilemma. This was the perverse logic of the "reciprocal fear of surprise attack". "If I go downstairs to investigate a noise at night, with a gun in my hand, and find myself face to face with a burglar who has a gun in his hand, there is danger of an outcome that neither of us desires", since the fear of each that the other would preempt the fear of his opponent would catastrophically multiply. Only a few years later, Soviet rockets would be placed ninety miles from the American mainland, and the academic formalization of fear in fiendishly complex models of political choice would become commonplace.

It is this near-dystopian intellectual tradition, devoid of trust and suffused with danger on a local and global-historical scale, on which the contemporary study of international politics rests today. For many years, the benchmark theory of international politics was that of Kenneth Waltz. Labeled "Neorealism", it spat out two major hypotheses: balances will form, and certain types of balances - above all, multipolar ones - are prone to war. Its notability lay in its parsimony. Whether through alliances or arms buildups, states would balance against those more powerful, regardless of their apparent intentions.

In a seminal article published in the heady days of 1990 titled "Back to the Future", John Mearsheimer (perhaps now more notorious for his co-authorship of the Israel Lobby) pushed this theory to its limits, arguing that "the prospects for major crises and war in Europe are likely to increase markedly if the Cold War ends". For half a century, America's fear of a Soviet-dominated heartland fortuitously led it to suppress the plethora of fears that had bled the continent dry. Germany was protected from the USSR, France and others from Germany, and these interlocking arrangements were formalized in a grand military alliance built from the start on Senator Vandenburg's exhortation that Truman "scare the hell out of the American people". (By mid-1946, this was superfluous anyway: they were already petrified). One of Mearsheimer's scenarios portrayed the "Balkanization of Europe" in which a reunified Germany, absent its American counterweight, would threaten Poland, Czeschoslovakia and Austria. A lumbering, potentially nationalist, Germany would seek nuclear weapons to protect itself from a conventional Soviet attack, and the established nuclear powers could launch either preventive or first strikes.

This dark, even absurd, vision stemmed from the indiscriminate application of the logic of balancing, shorn of Thucydidean nuance. In reality, states patently balance not against the fact of power, but its potentially threatening use. This is not unrelated to power's physical properties, such as proximity and deployment. But it is even more to do with idiosyncratic assessments of intentions. This is the true limitation of the academic study of international politics: political science has been largely unsuccessful in explicating what states do and do not find threatening. We have no "theory of fear".

Perhaps in part as a result, the relationship between the study and practice of international politics has been tenuous at best. The last US Secretary of State, Condolezza Rica, was an expert on the Soviet Union. She famously drew upon her intellectual reserves to state that she was proud of invading Iraq "especially as a political scientist, not as Secretary of State, not as National Security Advisor, but as somebody who knows that structurally it matters that a geostrategically important country like Iraq is not Saddam Hussein's Iraq, that this is a different Iraq under democratic leadership".

Rice's remarks were hardly unscholarly. The discipline really has long claimed that, as a general rule, democracies do not go to war with each other in part because they are not afraid of one another (though few scholars would agree on the reasons for this). If Woodrow Wilson spoke of making the world "safe for democracy", then one (perhaps charitable) reading of the Bush Doctrine was that it aimed at making the world safe with democracy, an awesome and blood-soaked attempt at democracy's selective implantation in a corner of the Middle East. Rice's comments, in other words, are predicated on the notion that autocrats are inherently more threatening to the US than democracies - that we ought to be more fearful of their intentions because of reasons innate to their character.

It is an outstanding historiographical puzzle as to which of Thucydides' three motives drove the events of 2003, but what is certain is that in 2005, 64% of Americans continued to believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda. Their overwhelming preference for violent "balancing" is unsurprising: in their case, we can safely surmise that support for the Iraq war was based on politically mobilized fear. Like Truman before him, Bush had scared the hell out of the American people. They came to resent this. We would do well to remember that in the early days of his presidential campaign the now-fading trope of "hope", insufferable and invigorating in equal measure, represented a backlash against what Obama was calling the "politics of fear".

What are we afraid of today - and how can we coolly analyse whether our current fears are well-grounded? The cesspool of international politics offers relatively bottomless supplies of things of which one might easily be scared, though it is difficult to evaluate whether one really should be scared. We have been told with some regularity that the Taliban are poised "sixty miles from Islamabad", that North Korea's new missiles can reach the American mid-west, that Israel is preparing to send nuclear-tipped missiles burrowing into Iran, and the suchlike. Perhaps the biggest elephant - or, rather, dragon? - in the room is the rise of China, reminiscent of Thucydides' reflections on the "truest cause" of his war: "The growth of power of Athens and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta". The analogies fit imperfectly, although like America and the USSR, and America and post-1971 China, Athens and Sparta had previously cooperated to see off a common enemy (the Nazis, Soviets, and Persians respectively).

The American strategic community's occasional paroxysms of fear (you will recall the coming Japanese hegemony of the 1980s) do often subside without causing conflict. But fear is the most visceral of motives, not always subject to placid scrutiny. We abjectly lack any objective way of knowing when fear is warranted, and when it feeds either on itself or the self-serving motives in whose service it has been cynically yoked. The very premise of the academic study of international politics should be to overcome this dangerous limitation.

In the not-too-distant glory days of the Bush administration it seemed as though the partisan use of fear was a potent form of political alchemy. We now know that political alchemy, too, has its limits. But they are limits which are imposed by human actions, not natural laws - and that a better understanding of the role of fear in international politics is a first step towards safeguarding them.


Shashank Joshi researches the role of fear in international relations at Harvard University's Department of Government.