An unlikely suspect was fingered at the recent show trials of Iranian dissidents: Max Weber, whose ideas on rational authority were blamed for fomenting a "velvet revolution" against the Islamic Republic. "Theories of the human sciences contain ideological weapons that can be converted into strategies and tactics and mustered against the country's official ideology," Saeed Hajjarian, a leading strategist in the Iranian reform movement, explained in his forced confession.

A political scientist by training, Hajjarian "admitted" that Weber's notion of patrimonial government wasn't applicable to Iran. The theory, Hajjarian declared, is relevant only in countries where "people are treated as subjects and deprived of all citizenship rights," which is "completely incompatible with and unrelated to current conditions in Iran."

Hajjarian's coerced denunciation of Weber is ludicrous but unsurprising. Since the disputed presidential elections of June 12, the hard-line government in Tehran has started a broad campaign against social scientists.