JURIST Contributing Editor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law and Founding Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone from 2002 to 2005 says that in responding to post-electoral unrest Iran's Supreme Leader is utilizing a method employed by history's most notorious dictators…

Events in Iran are tragically unfolding before our very eyes. The raw boned spectacle of tyranny is displayed on television and computer screens, and via text messages and twitter posts. Censors attempt to stop the information flow, but the clean sands of the truth slip between their fingers. The world sees what the Islamic Republic of Iran truly is — a tyranny ruled by demagogues.

After the so-called “election,” Iran’s leaders, in a whirlwind of statements bordering on the shrill, lashed out blindly at mostly perceived threats from within the country and internationally. They allege that the unrest in their country has been caused by a terrorist conspiracy backed by the United States, Great Britain, and, of course, Israel. Trying to deflect worldwide condemnation surrounding both the recent presidential elections and the heavy-handed way they have dealt with those who have taken to the streets in protest, the Supreme Leader and his President are using a centuries-old tactic that many tyrants, dictators, and thugs have relied on to focus the attention of their citizenry away from their oppressive internal policies and toward a supposed external threat to the nation.

In effect the Supreme Leader is creating what I call a “bogeyman” to justify his government’s actions. What these thugs are essentially saying is: “I am taking away your liberty and your freedom, arresting you without charge, even killing you to protect you from the real threat: the great Satan, the bogeyman, who seeks to destroy the nation.” I know this sounds absurd, but history has shown us that it works in the short term. Over the past thirty years in Iran, the bogeyman has helped the regime to hold on to power.

The 20th Century — what I call the bloody century — saw the deaths of over 100 million human beings at the hands and policies of their own governments. Tyrants, dictators, and thugs such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Charles Taylor, and Robert Mugabe (to name a few), all justified their atrocious actions by claiming to protect the nation from a real or perceived external threat; to rally their citizens to sacrifice for the good of the nation, the motherland. What they admonish is, “I am protecting you!” What they were really doing was trying to gain and maintain their control of the nation.

At various times in recent history, the Jews, NATO, the West, capitalists, the infidels, former colonial masters, and the United States (by virtue of its political position on the world stage), have been characterized as the so-called bogeymen. These tyrants each claim to be the one person capable of saving their citizens from themselves and from that external threat. Without this, their policies and efforts to stay in power lose any justifiability whatsoever.

History also shows us that using the bogeyman tactic to stay in power is a short- term strategy that generally backfires on those who use it. These tyrants are generally overthrown, killed, indicted, forced to resign, or forced to flee. In Iran, the Supreme Leader is walking down a very slippery path, a path that most likely will lead to his demise. The desire for freedom is difficult to quash. All peoples want to be free from want and fear, to have the freedom to worship in their own traditions, and to speak their minds. This younger generation of internet savvy Iranians know that there is a world out there far different from that which has been depicted to them by the Supreme Leader. There is no bogeyman!

Query: Will the next bogeyman used by the rulers in Iran be the worldwide web?

It remains to be seen how this will all end, but at a minimum the end product will be a politically and morally diminished Iran. Their place in the world community will be that of a nation feared, isolated, and feeding upon itself from within. The regime will howl, lash out, and blame others for their problems and challenges. It may appear that they have all the cards for now, but they don’t have the ace of spades — freedom — and because they don’t have that card, they will ultimately lose.

David M. Crane is a professor at Syracuse University College of Law, and founding Chief Prosecutor for the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone (2002-2005).

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