www.ipwna.ir The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs" www.ipwna.ir This page intentionally left blank www.ipwna.ir The "Great Satan" vs. the "Mad Mullahs" How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other William 0. Beeman •R\ Westport, Connecticut RRAEGER London www.ipwna.ir Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beeman, William O. The "great Satan" vs. the "mad mullahs" : how the United States and Iran demonize each other / William O. Beeman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-98214-9 (alk. paper) 1. United States—Relations—Iran. 2. Iran—Relations—United States. I. Title. E183.8.I55B43 2005 327.73055'09'045—dc22 2005003454 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2005 by William O. Beeman All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005003454 ISBN: 0-275-98214-9 First published in 2005 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 98765432 www.ipwna.ir For Frank www.ipwna.ir This page intentionally left blank www.ipwna.ir Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii 1. Discourse and Demonization 1 2. American Myths 13 3. Middle Eastern Myths 23 4. Discourse and Rhetoric 35 5. Images of the Great Satan 49 6. Images of the Mad Mullah 69 7. The Framework of U.S.-Iranian Relations: Modernization and Development as an Index of National Worth 91 8. The Sins of the United States 119 9. The Sins of Iran 137 10. The Birth of Postmodern Conflict: How Iranian Media Came of Age 165 11. Living with Iran: Resistance as Postmodern Discourse 189 Notes 217 Comprehensive Bibliography 239 Index 273 www.ipwna.ir This page intentionally left blank www.ipwna.ir Preface This book is a work that has had a long gestation. As a linguistic anthro­ pologist I have had a fascination with understanding the concrete effects of communication in face-to-face interaction. The idea that the dynamics of small-scale interaction might be applied to larger entities was reinforced by the work of several disparate scholars. The first was the great anthro­ pologist Margaret Mead. She had known the two great wars of the twentieth century—World War I as a child, and World War II as a fully established adult professional. With her strong emphasis on children and the family in her research before 1940, it is not surprising that she would come to focus on the ways that the so­ cieties of the world could work toward peace and safety for all. She hoped that a better world would emerge through the process of cultures learning from each other. Above all, Mead was a firm believer in the ability of all human entities to benefit from each other's cultural wisdom. In this regard, she saw anthropologists as central and essential in this process, since it was uniquely the task of anthropology to make the knowl­ edge of different cultures explicit to all. Mead viewed anthropology as both a pure science and an applied policy science. Although the academic goals of anthropology were to explicate the cultures of the world, compare them and continue to develop knowledge of the nature of humanity; it was also a sacred goal of anthropology to inform, advise, and persuade those who have the power to change the policies and actions of government for the betterment of humanity. Mead had a particular interest in war and conflict. She authored more than sixty-five academic papers and countless more informal articles on this subject. She pointed out that the reason for war should be not simply "to bash somebody over the head but to build a better world." Thus, the focus for anthropologically informed policy needed to be not on war itself but www.ipwna.ir X Preface rebuilding afterward. During World War II, she wrote that even during the war we needed to make preparations for the postwar period and develop a better world through better understanding, even of our enemies. This is an important message for us today—certainly an important message for the U.S. government, who launched a war in Iraq without giving any thought to the postwar scenario. In reading what she wrote during World War II, I was continually struck by the message she had for Americans, and ulti­ mately for the world—a positive message even during a time of war. With the purpose of preparing the peoples of the world for life in an in­ ternationalized postwar world, she began work on a magnum opus: Learning to Live in One World. This book was to have been a "manual" for an international community, in which the cultures of the planet would learn to "cherish" one another, learn from each other, and find ways to live together. The book was a gift to all people everywhere, from one of the few people on the planet who had the breadth of perspective to be able to see the world as a whole, rather than a collection of small factionalized groups continually in conflict with each other. The book as a whole is an appeal to humanity to work toward a world in which racial, cultural, and economic differences will not be the occasion for prejudice between peoples, but rather a source of pride, appreciation, and wisdom for all. The manuscript is reposited in the Library of Congress, but the following passage may provide sense of the thrust of the book: the significant points for a sort of dynamic science of inter-cultural relationships are the whole positions of one group vis-a-vis another. Such positions are not merely international, or inter-racial or inter- religious, but they are also inter-class, and inter-situational. One has only to look at the chasm which yawns between state and federal of­ ficials and then realize that two years ago, all of the federal officials in question were state officials, to recognize that systematic vis-a-vis attitudes must be taken into account in any discussion of social ac­ tion. Mead's book was also to have been a "manual" for anthropologists, showing them how to refocus their work to concentrate on the interna­ tional community. Her approach was both theoretical and methodological: we will assume that the system of relationships which we call na­ tionalism has certain similarities wherever it occurs in the world, that it is in fact a social invention, springing perhaps from multiple sources, but now, since the whole world has come within one system of communications, tending more and more to become a strictly com­ parable phenomena [sic]. This being the case, it is permissible to ex­ amine international attitudes of any two countries, vis-a-vis each www.ipwna.ir Preface XI other, to describe the regularities in these attitudes, and outline the dynamics of the inter-relationship. The writing of this book was cruelly interrupted by an event that would leave its mark on Margaret Mead's work for the rest of her life: the drop­ ping of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mead was horri­ fied at this act. She wrote about it many times before her death, both in professional, anthropological publications and for the popular press. The prospect of the annihilation of humanity through military technology was a clarion call—an emergency. At this point Mead abandoned the writing of Learning to Live in One World. Indeed, she hinted in her autobiography, Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years,1 that she had destroyed it. From her correspondence we can discern that she felt that the message of the book was perhaps not strong enough. The idea of a halcyon postwar period, with nations gradually mov­ ing toward peaceful coexistence, was shattered for her. With the possibil­ ity of the destruction of the peoples of the world now present, a more active stance was needed. She later expanded her concerns to include concerns about the environ­ ment, food supply, race and ethnic relations, and all things relating to the survival of humanity, and she began to push for explicit policies, testifying before congress, serving on national advisory commissions, and always speaking out in every possible public forum. She did a tour with the Na­ tional Aeronautics and Space Administration with a lecture entitled: "The Next Billion Years: Our Uncertain Future," and many other acts as a pub­ lic intellectual. Though many anthropologists did not appreciate her work in this arena, she made the voice of anthropologists legitimate in policy cir­ cles. To the extent that anthropologists have influence in governmental pol­ icy discussions today, we can thank Margaret Mead and her colleagues, including her great mentor and friend, Ruth Benedict.2 The idea that anthropological analysis could be applied to the actions of governments acting in a coroporate fashion was not limited to Mead. The late Lloyd Fallers wrote a slim book, The Social Anthropology of the Na­ tion State,3 which articulates approaches to looking at governmental units as whole cultural entities. The notion of "governmentality" as a set of cul­ tural institutions or habits exhibited by the corporate actors of states and other official authorities has slowly gained currency in anthropology, through the inspiration of Michel Foucault, and others who have devel­ oped this idea.4 With these thoughts in mind, it seemed that an examination of the cul­ tural underpinnings of the long-standing feud between the United States and Iran would prove fruitful.