The Threat Of Islamic Fascism.(Point of View)

In recent months, some world leaders have begun equating today's Iran with Hitler's Germany and suggesting that Tehran, like the Nazis, wants to annihilate the Jews. On Oct. 17, for example, President George W. Bush -- citing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial -- warned that the Iranian government is out to destroy Israel. And former British prime minister Tony Blair recently compared Iran to the rising fascist powers of the 1930s.

Alarm over the rise of fascism in Muslim society is nothing new. Twenty-one years ago, I published an article in Iran warning that elements in the regime were trying to interpret Ayatollah Khomeini's theory of government -- velayat-e faqih (rule of the Islamic jurist) -- along fascist lines in order to monopolize power and silence dissent. Eleven years later, I gave a talk at an Iranian university -- for which I received a one-year prison sentence -- in which I again warned against such readings of religion.

But there are important differences between what I said then and what Bush and Blair are claiming today. Drawing analogies between present-day Iran and Hitler's Germany is totally misleading. For one thing, the political, economic, military, technological and scientific circumstances of the world now bear no resemblance to Hitler's era. Iran today does not have the power that Germany did then. And Western governments in 2007 are much more powerful than Germany's rivals were in 1935.

Relying on its military strength, Nazi Germany sought to gain mastery over the world, conquer other countries and destroy countless lives. Even if Tehran harbored such dreams, it wouldn't have the practical and scientific know-how to achieve them. Consider nuclear weapons. Even by the most alarmist estimates, Iran is at least five years away from making an atomic bomb, while Israel alone already has more than 200 warheads.

More important, Iran does not harbor such dreams. The Islamic republic's top leader, Ali Khamenei, may be a megalomaniac, but his energies are directed first and foremost at preserving his regime and turning Iran into a regional power and, perhaps, a leader of the Muslim world.

Another important difference: Iran's political system is very different from that of a totalitarian fascist state. Power is not concentrated in the hands of one person but is diffused among competing factions; the regime is authoritarian, but not totalitarian. While elements of Iran's oligarchy might like to create such a state, they have been prevented from doing so by, among other things, the communications revolution -- which (via satellite TV, radio and the Internet) makes it impossible ...