An Iranian Civil War?

Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, accused Israel and Western intelligence services of planning to divide the country and start a civil war.The announcement amplifies the question on everyone’s mind more than sixty days after the beginning of the country’s new revolution: where is Iran heading to?

The authorities, or those with some organic connections to them, have started, long before the minister’s musings, to whisper one answer: civil war, like those in Syria and Libya. A troubling image of scenes of destruction, killing, and displacement of millions of people, like what happened in Syria, comes to mind.The benefit reaped by the government from spreading this image is clear and needs no explanation. But a few points need to be mentioned: In 1978, the official media of the Shah’s regime highlighted the terrible image of Lebanon’s civil war, reminding the demonstrators who took to the streets against the Shah in Tehran of Lebanon’s painful fate. A scenario that never came true in Iran.However, those who now war …