Political polemics in Iran are replete with such terms as tuteah (plot), jasouz (spy), khianat (treason), vabasteh (dependent), khatar-e kharejeh (foreign danger), cummal-e kharejeh (foreign hands), nafouz-e biganeh (alien influence), asrar (secrets), naqsheh (designs), arosak (marionette), sotun-e panjom (fifth column), nokaran-e estecmar (servants of imperialism), posht-e pardeh (behind the curtain), and posht-e sahneh (behind the scene).

This vocabulary treats Iranian politics as a puppet show in which foreign powers control the marionettes — the local politicians — by invisible strings. The message is that the intelligent observer should ignore appearances and focus instead on the hidden links; only then can one follow the plot, understand the hidden agendas, and identify the true villains. Needless to say, the picture assumes the puppets are devoid of all initiative; the puppeteers are not only omnipresent but also omniscient and omnipotent; and the playwright, whoever he may be, works to a grand scheme, knowing beforehand exactly where to start the story, how to develop it, and when to end it. Moreover, the plot, like any children’s pantomime, is entertaining but contains no ambiguities, portraying the characters in absolute, good or evil terms.

The conspiratorial interpretation of politics is not, of course, unique to Iran. In fact, the title of this essay is borrowed from Richard Hofstadter’s classic “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Published nearly thirty years ago, that article described how throughout American history nativistic groups have claimed that Washington was being subverted by foreign conspirators — at times by Freemasons, at other times by Roman Catholics, at yet other times by Jews, and, in more recent times, by International Communists, such as General Eisenhower and Chief Justice Earl Warren. Similarly, fearful politicians in Britain have been known to conjure up a variety of fantastic conspiracies — all the way from the Luddite-Jacobin plot during the Napoleonic Wars, to the Zionist “manipulation” of the 1908 revolution in the Ottoman Empire, and, more recently, to the KGB’s “control” of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Such paranoia not only sees plots everywhere but views them as the main force of history. “According to this style history is a conspiracy,” writes Hofstadter, “set in motion by demonic forces of almost transcendent power.”