Islamism expresses the relation between pre-existing reality, religious tradition and it is translation to political ideology. Regardless the western theories of democratic peace, perpetual peace and democratic export, Islamism remains today the main political ideology in the Muslim world and certainly the solely viable one, reshaping and ordering society and government in Islam. Islamic fundamentalism cannot be described as uniform, and the majority of its shapes and forms, change, improve, evolve and diversify. Islamism has become the primary vehicle, dominating the political vocabulary in the entire Muslim world.
Muslims turn their faces towards the Islamic sources to discover the general principles of a good government and to redefine concepts of social and economic justice. In this part of the world nationalism was not part of the solution as Islam does not recognize other but the Muslim citizenship, the left is marginalized since it’s principles contradict the Islamic concepts on private property, society and economy, and liberal democracy does not have support, as it is a doctrine never inspired by Islam principals and law. Due to this reasons, mentioned briefly above, Islamism has every chance in becoming, if it has not yet become, the dominant intellectual theory in the region. The process is just at its beginning. It is for this reason that the only way peace and stability could be achieved in this part of the world is to support Islamism, as it will prove itself as more successful as imported western democratic models.
Being so complex and so dynamic of a phenomenon, Islamism includes many manifestation forms, being creative, free and independent. Not every form of Islamism should be accepted as bringing stability to the world, but the Iranian model has been a success and has represented a real evolution inside Islamist lines of state behavior. Iran represents the proof that a doctrine with an explicit religious vision can promote a truly stable, progressive, tolerant and pluralist politics. It is what the Islamic Republic of Iran is trying to accomplish. The Iranian model being more natural for the Islamic world, as opposed to the occidental one, imposed by the west will certainly be more acceptable by the Muslim society everywhere and should be supported to perfect by every responsible politician.
In this paper, I demonstrated why Islamism is the only suitable option for the Muslim world, showing the total failure that democratic peace theory has proven to be in Islamic countries, presenting the cases of Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan and proving why we should consider the Iranian model as the only suitable model of Islamism. In this purpose, I have also tried to set out a comparison between the western Democratic Peace Theory and the Islamic Theory of Mahdism messianism. I discussed the reasoning that led me to this conclusion, considering the Iranian Islamist view of the state, form of government and its continuous improvement in the light of Mahdism teaching, its vision towards private property, society and economy. Here I have also approached the issue of the Iranian constitution. Comparing the Iranian model to the other two known models of Islamist Sunni states, Afghanistan and Sudan, I demonstrated their failure in representing guidance to the Muslim world.

The democratic peace theory, is it a total failure in the Muslim World?
War, the most aggressive and nightmare like form of interaction between social groups, societies and nations represents a terror that standing above our heads and threatens our existence ever since the beginning of humanity. The nature of war as well as the means available to avoid war has always represented one of the main concerns of international relations theories.
Every international relation theory and every school of thought, and every political doctrine has developed its own understanding of the causes and nature of war. At the beginning of 1980, the liberal internationalist school of Democratic Peace Theory started to gain way being largely accepted by western elites.
Its importance does not derive from the fact that a large number of western theoreticians, academics and intellectuals came to consensus regarding its validity but in the fact that the Democratic Peace Theory begun to influence widely states foreign policy.
According to Christopher Layne “Michael Doyle’s concept of “democratic peace zone” begun to be used today officially as well as unofficially by US representatives”, becoming at least the theoretical base of US foreign policy doctrine. From Woodrow Wilson who justified war against Germany as setting-on the world for democracy extension, to Clinton’s ”third column” of American’s foreign policy, to Anthony Lake who said that at the end of the Cold War Americans should concentrate their external efforts in promoting and extending democracy abroad, since it alone could bring stability and security to America. The Democratic Peace Theory began its ascension becoming the base of American foreign policy as well as a key in understanding some western foreign actions.
The essence of the theory lays in the idea that democracies do not engage in war against one another, though being as warlike as any other regime when relating to non-democratic regimes. The theoretical origins of Democratic Peace Theory lay in the philosophical works of Immanuel Kant, considered the most appropriate philosopher in explaining the reason why liberal states manage to maintain peace between them, but not in relation to other states. The development of perpetual peace between world nations, he said, is possible in if world states become republics, meaning democracies, as democracy is a regime in which the central authority deciding to go to war has to ask the population in this matter population who is unlikely to desire war as population pays the price of war in democracies and not the military aristocratic class. More, Kant argues that the spirit of commerce could prevent war since free commerce is always affected by war, and due to this reason population is unlikely to sustain war.
In his vision, democratic states would eventually form federations that would respect every country’s right and sovereignty, this federation will unite in time to form a greater, stronger Pacific Federation that should extend in time until it shall gather peacefully all nations of the world, bringing perpetual peace and stability to the world. The Pacific Federation becomes in Kant’s vision a collective security system that guarantees non-aggression between its members.
In a 1983 published article Michael Doyle, preloading Kant’s argumentation, demonstrated that “political regimes and institutions have a cert influence in international relations”. Doyle wrote in this famous article, studying the last two hundred year’s wars, that the realist anarchical international system theory is no more reliable in the case of international liberal regimes, determining that none of these wars was ever fought between democratic regimes.
Doyle states that the international regime instituted by the democratic states gives away nonviolent means in resolving disputes and that the pacification of the liberal zone becomes a derivate of liberal democratic values that dominate the democratic world. Liberal states, he says, admit their citizens their right to liberty and moral autonomy, rights that reflect in relation between democratic states that respect one another their autonomy and independence.
The axiom of mutual respect and autonomy in which all democratic states gather, makes inter-liberal peace an unique phenomenon, as other groups of social structures (socialist, feudalist, fascist) have never generated a separate peace phenomenon among them, argues Doyle. He accepts the Kantian argument that capitalism produces peace as long as war destabilizes commerce and international capital. He sums up freedom of speech and freedom of the press in producing peace as these means give citizens the permission to control central government that lead them.
The second argument that Michael Doyle brings to light is that democracies become aggressive when related to non-democracies, as there is between them a tendency to violent conflict that cannot be stopped because of different set of values. Doyle says that occidental imperialist politics outside the Pacific Union do not contradict Kant’s principles of non-intervention and hospitality, and as long as that state is non-democratic, the intervention is not only justifiable but also necessary.

The democratic peace theory became the main school of thought after the end of the Cold War, as most of the former communist countries became democracies. They were considered the third wave of democratic enlargement. After 1989, western countries and their leaders became more interested in this theory as it was thought that only promoting democracy would ensure security and stability for the western world. In this historical context, The Democratic Peace Theory became the leading doctrine for the United States of America that considered itself a promoter of democracy. This was partially true, since with American help and support the former soviet republics in Europe began the long process of democratization. The American post cold war security strategies were all democracy oriented, promoting free trade, liberalization and democratization. This became the foreign American policy for democrats as well as the republican’s candidates and presidents of The United States.
The “third wave” of democratization that swept through southern Europe, South America, and much of eastern Europe in the 1970s and 1980s was conspicuous for its exclusion of the Middle East. Initially, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dawn of a supposedly “new world order,” some observers of the Middle East viewed the advent of democracy into the region as inevitable, arguing that such basic ingredients of democracy as civil society and parliamentary politics were beginning to foster conditions for democratic transitions in a number of Middle Eastern countries. To this day, however, authoritarian systems of various types are pervasive in the region.
The democratization wave though did not touch the Muslim world, and this became a problem of security for Americans and westerners after 9/11 as America has been hit and attacked by individuals of a Muslim country. For its security, as well as for the economical interests to be stabilized, America had to assure stability in the region. It therefore set out the bases of a plan for democratization in the Extended Middle East area.
This plan consisted in rejecting Arab exceptionalism, which held that democracy – for reasons of culture, politics, and religion -- could not progress in the Arab Middle East, as it had over the course of the “Third Wave” in every other major region of the world, from Latin America and the post-communist countries to sub-Saharan Africa and East and South Asia. Second, linking terrorism with political stagnation and failure and saying that it would be reckless to accept the status quo. In addressing this plan, the U.S president George W. Bush called for a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East.
He stated that becoming a successful modern society involves the development of institutions and values that promote the rule of law, representative and accountable government, human rights, including the rights of women and minorities, an independent media and civil society, and a market economy – in a word western democracy.
Although democracy has been said to have global features and values, the presence of diverse identities and their different demands and expectations from the democratization process requires applying specific approaches of advancing democracy in the Middle East. As shown western democracy and definitely the westernization, process may sometimes contradict to the values and morals of Islam.
As history acknowledges, western democracy could never been imposed in Muslim countries. Some rely on the example of Turkey. Turkey has let international forces directly shape its domestic priorities. As a result, the desire to be considered European and to be admitted into the European Union has prompted state elites to consistently maintain an imperfect but functioning democratic system since 1983. However, we must analyze it as an atypical model of democracy since it is a democracy imposed by the army. In Turkey the military establishment continues to exert considerable political influence through the powerful National Security Council, to the extent that in 1997 it launched a “silent coup” against an elected prime minister and banned his political party. Turkish society is lacking the democratic control over the military; unfortunately, Turkey has an inversed model of army-controlled democracy over the population.
Following the democratization plan of the extended Middle Eastern region, the west begun two wars that had as declared purpose democracy promotion in the region, the expected regime change doctrine.
As expected, these wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq were at least a total failure from this point of view. After discovering that their plan would not work in the region, at least for some time, and realizing that war had created problems rather than resolving them, the west and the U.S.A begun to understand slightly that probably this was not a solution in the Muslim world. Their democracy promotion discourse begun to teach about the difficulties of the region, the good of pacific means and the evil of the military means in democracy export, the U.S. declaring that in the democratization process in the area regimes should be encouraged to reform from within, even if the process would take a while. They stated that the US will encourage in the beginning the free election process in the region, even if that will bring extremism to power.
Although democracy has proven itself to be of global resurgence in recent years, authoritarianism has shown remarkable resistant in staying in power in the Middle Eastern Zone. There are several factors that underlie this resilience, firstly the weakness of civil society, the continued strength of state institutions, and the societal relevance of state institutions as guaranteed through ruling bargains that rest on nationalism, patrimonial, and corporatism. Of course, equally important has been the absence of international pressures for democratization, which were of paramount significance in influencing the demise of authoritarian polities in Eastern Europe and South America. No state, of course, is immune from the unfolding of international events and their potential consequences for domestic politics. Nevertheless, so far a vast majority of Middle Eastern states have not confronted international developments that have had domestic consequences for democratization. Ironically, the United States’ invasion of Iraq and its subsequent overthrow of the Iraqi state in 2003 appear to have strengthened authoritarian hard-liners throughout the Middle East.
The Democratic Peace Theory was a true disaster in the Middle East as it was a guaranteed success in other parts of the world. The theory based on export of democracy and the bureaucratic state worked in various parts of the world as bureaucrats treated citizens equally regardless of religion. It did not work in the Middle East, as the state here did not view its citizens equally. Even if there was no discrimination for religious minorities, even if the state gave these minorities equal rights, the state view them differently, naming them and even positive discriminating them as different, as this states were and are based on Islamic Law and canonic judicial systems.
The Iranian model, a possible solution
The failure of western democracy was not a surprised in the region, as Islamism becomes the main political ideology in the Muslim world, the solely viable one, reshaping and ordering society and government in Islam. Islamism represents the primary vehicle, dominating the political vocabulary in the entire Muslim world. Islamic sources are viewed to discover the general principles of a good government and to redefine concepts of social and economic justice. In this part of the world nationalism showed that it was not part of the solution as Islam does not recognize other but the Muslim citizenship.
The left is marginalized since its principles contradict to the Islamic concepts on private property, society and economy, and liberal democracy does not have support, as it is a doctrine never inspired by Islam principals and law. Islamism has every chance in becoming, if it has not yet become, the dominant intellectual theory in the region. The process is just at its beginning. It is for this reason that the only way peace and stability could be achieved in this part of the world is to support Islamism, as it will prove itself as more successful as imported western democratic models.
Given that in the Middle East the state is by far the more dominant and powerful partner in state-society relations, any meaningful moves toward a greater opening of the political process are likely to be initiated from within the state itself. The most likely course of a democratic transition in the Middle East is that certain actors within the state begin using the state resources and institutions at their disposal to reform the system from within and make it more democratic. The internal tensions within the state—the competition between “soft-liners” and “hard-liners”— set off a slow, nonlinear process whereby the state becomes increasingly less authoritarian and more democratic. In turn, the more open political atmosphere that ensues allows members of the intelligentsia and other state-affiliated or state-approved figures to engage in dialogues over the essence and propriety of state-society relations. The defining characteristics of the dialogue—its main premises, its intellectual content, the venues of its expression, and its censorship or tolerance—all vary from case to case and country to country. But it appears that such a dialogue is indeed in the offing in Iran, where, relatively meaningful processes of state-originated opening have been taking place.
In Iran, a subtle but profoundly important dialogue over the essence and proper functions of the state has been emerging now for more than a decade. Though this dialogue was never fully extinguished, only after the end of the war with Iraq in 1988 and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 could it move out of private homes and into popular publications and, more recently, into some corners of the state. The specific ideological dispositions of its articulator notwithstanding, the main parameters of Iran’s emerging democratic dialogue concern proper notions and functions of civil society and the rule of law. With the discourse on civil society still evolving, and facing innumerable governmental and unofficial obstacles, it is not yet clear how Iran’s writers, politicians, and other politically minded actors define civil society and democracy. Nevertheless, notions such as (cultural) “reformation,” political accountability, and freedom of expression predominate in much of the writing of the country’s most popular public intellectuals.
At the same time, the evolving discourse is keenly aware of, and is in significant ways shaped by, the pervasiveness of religion at all levels of Iranian life, rural and urban, rich and poor, politically apathetic or aware. Whatever “democracy” this debate may one day bring, it will surely be deeply imbued with religion. In Iran, the situation is quite different from the other countries in the Middle East. The election of reformist President Muhammad Khatami in 1997 the pace and intensity of the state-approved debate over civil society could be influenced only by extreme measures that were never taken.
The Islamic Republic of Iran represents a form of parliamentary democracy as defined by Iranians, although a uniquely brand of democracy for the western eye. Its progress manifested throughout its existence as a republic, in the light of Mahdism teaching is a promise and an example for the Muslim world. It clearly represents an evolution between Muslim lines and can constitute a model of stability. The Iranian Islamist view of the state, form of government and its continuous improvement in the light of Mahdism teaching, its vision towards private property, society and economy has made it not only an Islamist model but also of model of stability , a uniquely brand of Islamic democracy.
The Iranian revolution was a series of spontaneous, sometimes not organized demonstrations that begun at the end of 1970’s, that culminated in January 1979 when its leader, Imam Khomeini returned to Iran from his French exile. From 1979 to the present days, passing through different phases, the revolution succeeded not only staying in power but through it, Iran, met a true milestone and an unparallel degree of institutional maturity. Following the end of the Pahlavi monarchy, the revolutionaries opted as expected for the republican form of government. Since Islam had been the prime vehicle of revolution in opposing Pahlavian monarchy, religion was inevitably playing a major role in post revolutionary system. On March 30 and 31 1979 Iranians were asked through a historical referendum if they thought Iran should be an Islamic Republic. 98.2 percent responded affirmatively. As a result, in the aftermath of the referendum, Iran became an Islamic Republic.
Throughout its existence as an Islamic Republic, Iran passed from a radical post revolutionary form to a relatively moderate and reconstruction period. Iran opened up to the world and began to give substance to the modern Islamic Republic. The end of the 1990’s, has marked the beginning of the Third Republic that appeared to be far clearer in its vision of the future and the means available to achieve it. Through progress and modernity, up to present days, The Islamic Republic of Iran was taken to a more and more developed stage, a stage where internal politics will be entirely supported by civil society and where foreign policy will argue for a dialogue of civilizations.
The respect for the rule of law, the restoration of the civil society, the greater normality of political life, the less intrusive state and the more persuasive social and cultural environment, transformed Iran in a model of stability in the region. After years of fear and silence, intellectuals and academics had finally the liberty to debate and discuss on political topics as social identity, postmodernism, civil society, political accountability, representative democracy, democratic governance in Islam, the essence of society and the status of women.
Lately, Iranian society managed to initiate a dialog on key topics that is needed to enhance the country’s larger sense of identity, the nature of the relationship between religion and politics and the appropriateness of concepts such as the Faqih.
The progressiveness of Iran shows not only that Islam caries within it the seeds of renewal and progress, but that Shiaism could be catalogued as a revolution between revolutionary lines. Scholars as well as intellectuals of Shiaism are progressive, pointing toward the ideal of society in the Muslim world. While other Islamic scholars have preached from the beginning of Islam for submission and acceptance to rulers even though they were corrupt and oppressive, the Shiaism preached resistance against them and denounced them as illegitimate, as Imam Khomeini beautifully said it. The Shiaism had always opposed oppressive and illegitimate governments. In comparison to the Sunnis, that states that oppressing government contradicts to Islam’s teachings, Shiaism had always a mind of their own. The examples throughout history are abundant. Shiaism only accepts as legitimate the rule of Imams and the one they appoint as holders of authority.
In addition to other concepts found in Middle Eastern society, the Iranian model constitutes a step foreword to what Islamism means. However, what is it that makes Iran so unique? There are two elements that contribute to this uniqueness and that can set Iran in being a model of internal stability and societal wellness. First is ijtihad, the fight for truth. In the way of ijtihad, the jurist must work intellectually to determine the details of God’s divine commands. The goal is not to set laws, but to understand and acknowledge an already present law. Why is it that this principle, common in the Muslim society, both Sunni and Shia, is considered such a breakthrough for the Islamic Republic of Iran? It is for the Shia in comparison to the Sunni that do not consider ijtihad as a closed gateway. The ijtihad is vivid in the Shia world and in Iran, it contributed to the modernization of society and law. It reshaped Muslim society in a modern matter. For Shia jurisprudence, the intellectual and hermeneutical flexibility of the Ulama gave them an ascendant to their Sunni counterpart, permitting to modernize the entire society in an Islamic matter, allowing them to surpass the Islamic Golden Age, and to prepare for the awaited day of the appearing of the Mahdi.
The second is velayat-e-faqih, the Khomeini view over government, who said that government should be left in the hands of the high hierarchy clerics. This concept of velayat-e-faqih (jurist\'s guardianship), was predominantly apolitical. Clerics were to “study the law based on the Koran, the Prophet\'s traditions, and the teachings of the Twelve Imams. They were also to use reason to update these laws; issue pronouncements on new problems; adjudicate in legal disputes; and distribute the khoms contributions to worthy widows, orphans, seminary students, and indigent male descendants of the Prophet. In fact, for most the term velayat-e-faqih meant no more than the legal guardianship of the senior clerics over those deemed incapable of looking after their own interests — minors, widows, and the insane.” For some, velayat-e-faqih also meant that the senior clerics had the right to enter the political fray temporarily, when the monarch clearly endangered the whole community.
Khomeini exposed various reasons why the fuqaha, (religious judgments) had the divine right to rule. He differentiated between the religious judges and the other members of the senior clergy who were specialized in other subjects. He said, interpreting a quranic commandment that Muslims had to follow their religious judges. “The Prophet had handed down to the Imams all-encompassing authority the right to lead and supervise the community as well as to interpret and implement the sacred law. The Twelfth Imam, by going into hiding, had passed on this all-encompassing authority to the religious judges. Had not Imam Ali ordered "all believers to obey his successors"? Had he not explained that by "successors" he meant "those who transmit my statements and my traditions and teach them to the people"? Had not the Seventh Imam praised the religious judges as "the fortress of Islam"? Had not the Twelfth Imam instructed future generations to obey those who knew his teachings since they were his representatives among the people in the same way as he was God\'s representative among all believers? Had not the Prophet himself declared that knowledge led to paradise and that "men of knowledge" had as much superiority over ordinary mortals as the full moon had over the stars? Had not God created the sacred law to guide the community, the state to implement the sacred law, and the religious judges to understand and implement the sacred law?”
He therefore concluded religious judges, had the "same authority" as the Prophet and the imams; and the term velayat-e-faqih meant jurisdiction over believers. “In other words, disobedience to the religious judges was disobedience to God. “

Khomeini told his listeners that "true Islam" might appear "strange" to them, as the pre-existing false ideas and continuous misinterpretation.
The concept velayat-e-faqih reappeared in the Iranian Islamic Constitution. Described as the Supreme Religious Jurist, it was given the authority to dismiss the president, appoint the main military commanders, declare war and peace, and name senior clerics to the Guardian Council, whose chief responsibility was to ensure that all laws passed by Parliament conformed to the sacred law.
This two-stage electoral process was meant to help harmonize the concepts of divine rule and clerical supervision with those of popular sovereignty and majority representation. It involved the notion of a "social contract" between the religious judges and the population.
The clergy was theoretically divided into two distinct groups: those most knowledgeable about religious scholarship, including the sacred law, and those most knowledgeable about the contemporary world, especially economic, social, and political matters. The latter was chosen to rule because they were more in touch with the "problems of the day."
The two concepts make Iran a special model of government as well as a break true of Islamic fundamentalism, as the other two models of Islamism states Afghanistan and Sudan never had that ability in working as a light. They never had the institutions of a state, resembling more to war or occupation administrations and could never accomplish the power of central government and the stability that characterizes the Iranian modern state.

Conclusion
In the lights of Mahdism teachings Shia’ Muslims have to fight to the improvement of the world, to bring it closer to that model of perfect society that should bring peace to the world, to prepare the world for the coming of the Mahdi. In this perspective, the Iranian Republic has evolved greatly, and became more and more of a progressive and stable society based on equality, justice and truth. This is just the beginning, but its forms and means will progress hopefully continuously.
The awaiting of the Mahdi return is an inspiration to Shia Iran to think its policy more optimistic, to believe in a better future of humanity, and to help to its construction. The awaited victory of right, virtue, peace, justice, freedom and truth over forces of evil in all its forms, motivates continuously Iranian society and will help to its every day improvement.
Mahdism argues about just government with equal distribution of wealth and property among men, eradication of vices, war and restoration of peace, good governance, friendship cooperation and benevolence. These are all constructive expectations that manifest lately in Iranian policy.
We cannot know how the world would look like in the future, and no one can predict to the future of the Middle East. Where western solutions have proved to be wrong, the solution is now due to come from Islam. In this sense, The Islamic Republic constitutes a model for the region. In time, Muslim societies would perhaps import the Iranian revolution. Perhaps the Muslim nations will find their own way. Meantime Iran should progress on its path and inspire nations in the Middle East. One thing is certain. Without the continuous fight towards improvement, the Iranian society would not be what it is today, and in this perspective, the role played by the Mahdism Doctrine should be stressed out.



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