This essay ought to be a wake-up call for the US foreign
policy field. Yet the same problem also affects Washington’s analysis of
Russia, China and many other places.
Imagine a field of study in which less than a third of the
experts had related doctorates, half of them could not read, speak or write the
language required, and just as many have never set foot inside the relevant
country. Preposterous, you might say – yet scientific observation has shown
that this is precisely what the US expertise on Iran looks like, according to an
essay by political anthropologist Negar Razavi, recently published in the
journal Jadaliyya.
Razavi describes the think-tank culture of DC as “a
wider system of knowledge production in Washington – one which has consistently
rewarded ungrounded, ideologically driven assessments of the Islamic Republic
at the expense of qualified, in-depth, and evidence-based analysis.”
This is her conclusion after two years of “ethnographic
fieldwork” in the US capital, attending hundreds of events, following the
writings and presentations of think-tank experts, and interviewing over 180
people between 2014 and 2016. In other words, this was a serious academic
study.
This culture of “expert impunity” when it comes to
Iran has combined with historical and contemporary US grievances against Tehran
to produce the current policy of confrontation, in which allegations are
treated as unquestioned facts while any nuanced assessments are dismissed as
the work of “regime apologists,” according to Razavi.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because the problem is not
limited to Iran. Though Razavi focused exclusively on the state of Iran
expertise, her assessment applies in equal measure to the self-styled experts
on Venezuela, or Russia, or China, or the Balkans...
The examples are legion. Razavi herself mentions (though not
by name) “Heshmat Alavi,” a supposed expert on Iran who recently
turned out to be a construct – an online persona operated by the Iranian
exile group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). This is an outfit that seeks regime change
in Tehran, and has been endorsed by former National Security Advisor John
Bolton and President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Gordon Chang, who predicted the “coming collapse of
China” in a 2001 book, has been embraced by CNN and Fox News alike as an
expert on Beijing – despite the obvious failure of his prediction to actually
materialize. Likewise, Swedish economic Anders Aslund has heralded the demise
of Russia since 2000 – and cashed in his “expertise” with the
Atlantic Council and the governments of Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and the Baltic
states.
If this
sounds familiar, that’s because the problem is not limited to Iran. Though
Razavi focused exclusively on the state of Iran expertise, her assessment
applies in equal measure to the self-styled experts on Venezuela, or Russia, or
China, or the Balkans...
The examples are legion. Razavi herself mentions (though not
by name) “Heshmat Alavi,” a supposed expert on Iran who recently
turned out to be a construct – an online persona operated by the Iranian exile
group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). This is an outfit that seeks regime change in
Tehran, and has been endorsed by former National Security Advisor John Bolton
and President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Gordon Chang, who predicted the “coming collapse of
China” in a 2001 book, has been embraced by CNN and Fox News alike as an
expert on Beijing – despite the obvious failure of his prediction to actually
materialize. Likewise, Swedish economic Anders Aslund has heralded the demise
of Russia since 2000 – and cashed in his “expertise” with the
Atlantic Council and the governments of Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and the Baltic
states.
Reference:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/468959-iran-experts-incompetent-washington/
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