In 1953 Iranian democracy was interrupted in the most obscene crass manner possible.The US sponsored a coup , installing their man The Shah.As Alan Bennett has stated in his prized "Untold Stories" ( he was awarded a double first in History) revolutions are carried out by the middle class against an elite blocking its path , hence why the British elite has not suffered post-industrial revolutions as it an excellent sense when to give ground and yield enough crumb by piecemeal to sustain its place at the top.The only entity in Iran that could mount a successful revolution and shrug off US external interference was the Mullahs.The primary reason for this was , Dabashi himself misses the point , that the Ulema ( religious scholars and quasi-politicians) from tradition receive funding from the civil population ( in some cases 20% of a patrons disposable income) thus maintaining an independent resource from the grassroots and traditional business and craftsmen which meant that even in the time of the reign of the Shah being at its strongest point the Mullahs and their grassroots backers had complete financial independence from the state.
Dabashis Book , as can be seen from the comments , has a mixed and flawed analysis , as can be judged when the results of the Iranian elections are so incorrectly predicted from the emigres ( some of whom done quite well under the Shah) living in the US giving "expert" sounding on Iranian domestic aspirations and political trends.
The nature of the mixed analysis comes from the false weighting given to merely monitoring social websites and mostly english speaking net , the net is available to the richer students of established neighbourhoods of Tehran.The majority of these participants are 2nd of 3rd generation of Families who would still be doing well for themselves if the Shah was still in place.A good analogy would be if we were getting only the testimony from the established higher class minority in Caracas ( or Florida) and failing to receive the grassroots opinion of the barrios before making up our minds on the nature of the Bolivarian revolution.The other vast void in the emigres now being hopelessly out of touch of Iranian society from the hinterlands who were , under the Shah , completely out of the loop in terms of poverty alleviation and access to further education , more than half born after the revolution and a good portion after the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
As to the flaw , Dabashi himself tries to put a figure on how many Communists are in Iran , he comes up with , a plausible , one third of one percent ( 0.33%) and all of them living in prosperous North Tehran ( you have to come from a rich established Family to afford the luxury of being a Communist) and , he points out , deeply racist towards their fellow rural Iranians ( we are talking a minimum 60% if including rural urban towns), a race they hold in contempt for not being willing bulletfeed for their coffee shop leftist dreams , dreams ( if they turn into a nightmare, they can always enjoy from Times square or the Seine).
The bottom line is the Communist parties in Iran have only had three periods of flowering.Firstly when they were aided by the Russians , the Russians bombed the Iranian parliament in July 1908 killing many MPs , the second when the British promoted the communists in a classic divide and rule procedure and thirdly when Saddam Hussein gave shelter to the communists during the Iran-Iraq War , the communist party sided with the Baathist regime , interrogating/torturing Iranian prisoners.As one can see there is a common denominator of Communism and external components.
The problem , and it is a massive problem with Dabashis book , is , having identified the flaw he continues in a jaunty foxtrot merry march as if nothing is amiss.Hence we get the double entendre of irony , the more he articulates his theses , the more absurd and self-revealing his premise becomes.
Dabashi has become increasingly perplexed , and lesseningly reliable , as Ahmedinijad has won two successive democratic elections.Having declared the current Iran leadership as "fascistic" it is hard to accept that within Iran their candidate can defeat one who enjoys the support of the very powers that have a sordid track-record of blatant unhealthy interference in Iranian domestic destiny and affairs.
The bottom line is Ahmedinijad won the election because he has brought more Iranians than ever from neglect and poverty into mainstream higher education and a functioning middle class.Dabashi ( and his band of 0.33%) socialists emigres will have to accept that for the foreseeable future or they may end up being the vanguard which plays the tune of the next imperial Interruption of a People.
A more realistic analysis not weighed down by dogma ; ideology and wishful thinking is from Flynt Leverett , a realist US high ranking figure who deals with the issue on a rounded basis:
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