I admit that I didn’t think that Iranian protests would still be dominating the news headlines, more than 10 days after the election results were announced, but here we still are.
Strangely enough, it seems that this still is the story, and it doesn’t seem to be nearing a happy ending. Of course, I don’t have an interest in one outcome or the other, nor do I favor one candidate or another. Indeed, all along, I thought, and still do, that both candidates are establishment candidates, and that within Iran’s power structure, either one would serve the regime rather well. And, to a large extent, I also believed that Iran’s presidential elections are, for the most part, fair and free, once you accept the selection criteria of the official candidates.
What I find perplexing and, indeed, disingenuous, is this impassioned support for Mir Hossein Moussavi in the West. All of a sudden, this committed Islamic revolutionary and ex-Prime Minister who served under Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iraq war, has miraculously been transformed into a quasi-liberal reformer and even the anti-establishment candidate, by many in Western media and political circles.
To be clear, I never thought that much of President Ahmedinejad. To me, he always seemed a quasi-comical character whose loose lid was craftily leveraged by the real power brokers within the Iranian regime to their own advantage, particularly in regard to the relationship with the West in general, and America, in particular. That’s not to say President Ahmedinejad is a toothless figurehead, but, by most accounts, the President is more of a super-mayor of sorts, rather than the final arbiter at the top of the power pyramid of Iran. And, from a PR perspective, I have always thought that, as a provincial layman, President Ahmedinejad, was more sincere to, and reflective of, his wide base among Iran's poor and downtrodden, but that he did a great disservice in representing this ancient and rich people and civilization to the rest of the world.
That said, Mir Hossein Moussavi, until recently has been…well, a “has been”. By most accounts, he is not a name that resonates with most Iranians. He lacks the real power base that Ahmedinejad has among the lower segments of Iran’s economically deprived population, while not appealing to the upper echelons who despise the entire Islamic establishment, of which he has always been an integral part.
All of this is to say that I believe, based on my own reading of the situation, that given the candidate choice offered to Iranians in the election, it was, likely won by President Ahmedinejad, as the regime asserts. I am not claiming that the elections were faultless, but the charge that this election was rigged rings hollow to me. Instead, what I am seeing are significant segments of the Iranian population, who have long been frustrated and alienated by a cocktail of social, economic and religious grievances with the regime, taking advantage of a great opportunity to register their displeasure and anger, aided and abetted by a biased and 'invested' America, well-armed with high technology, and modern traditional and social media.
I am no apologist for the Iranian government, to be sure. As an ardent secularist, I find any system of government with any hint of religion utterly objectionable. However, I am just as committed to judgement based on facts and objectivity. Now, let’s consider, for a moment, the opposite of what’s presumed and presented by Western media: WHAT IF President Ahmedinejad had, indeed, won the election? What would be expected of the Iranian authorities? Are they supposed to sit idly by as they see many of their people being manipulated, from outside, into causing civil strife and threatening the security of the regime? Would they not be expected to protect the regime and impose order?
Finally, regardless of the outcome, I find American and Western positions on the election results myopic and self-defeating. President Obama’s instincts were right at the beginning, when he chose not to interfere and take a strong official position on what should be a purely Iranian issue. However, it quickly became politically costly for him to remain measured, and he was pressured into taking a progressively stronger position. This tells me that the West, and America in particular, has not learnt from its past mistakes in the Middle East in general, and in Iran, specifically. Fifty five years after the CIA's overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in ’54, which opened a wound between Iran and America that has yet to heal, here comes America and the West, again interfering in Iran’s internal affairs, and supporting one group of Iranians against another.
To me, there can be no winner here. If President Ahmedinejad emerges from this crisis on top, Obama’s efforts toward improving the political climate for a direct dialogue with Iran will have been significantly undermined. And, if by chance, the regime loses and some sweeping change envelops Iran, America’s gain will surely be short-lived, as the will of large and significant segments of the Iranian population will have been thwarted by America’s meddling yet again. And the stage will then be set for another round that is good for neither Iran nor America.