Iranians continue to protest Ahmadinejad’s implausible landslide “victory”
Barack Obama is under fire from Republicans, Iranian-Americans, and even many liberals because of his “timidity” in the face of the all but certain election fraud committed by the Iranian regime in that country’s presidential election. Incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inexplicably garnered 63% of the vote for reelection over his reformist rival Mirhossein Mousavi who tallied 34%.
The results are inexplicable because under the incompetent and nepotistic Ahmadinejad, Iran finds itself in dire economic straits of the kind never before experienced by most of Iran’s population. The country has been dealing with inflation hovering around 25% and an unemployment rate of over 10% for some time now thanks to this man’s disastrous fiscal policies. Furthermore, like his predecessors, Ahmadinejad has failed to address his country’s crumbling oil infrastructure and lack of refineries. Increasingly, Iran is being viewed as a potentially unreliable source for crude, not because of internal strife, but because of the seeming inability of any Iranian leader to make the most of the country’s vast oil reserves.
It is uncertain whether the current protests over the dubious election will bear any fruit and bring about change in Iran’s government. What is certain, however, is that President Obama’s circumspect response to these events is an appropriate reaction given the dynamics of the situation. When people such as Senator John McCain or the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto call for a strong rhetorical response from Obama condemning Iran’s regime for the questionable election and its subsequent crackdown on protestors, they show just how gauche their understanding is of this volatile state of affairs.
Iranians have a mixed perception of the U.S. While many Iranians—especially young professionals—admire the U.S. for its freedom and openness, they view America with some suspicion given our history of unwelcomingly intervening in their internal politics. To understand why Obama is acting with such caution, a few words must be said about the history of American-Iranian relations.
In 1953 the U.S. and the United Kingdom clandestinely orchestrated a successful coup attempt against Iran’s prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq. Mossadeq had committed the crime of believing that at least half of Iran’s oil profits should go to the Iranian people and not the British-run Anglo-Iranian Oil Company—a company borne out of a 1901 contract between Shah Mozzafar al-Din Shah and a wealthy Londoner named William D’Arcy, in which the latter received exclusive rights to the oil reserves in a huge chunk of Iranian territory. Shortly before Mossadeq became prime minister, the Iranian parliament voted outright to nationalize the AIOC, sparking a bitter dispute between Iran and the U.K., and prompting Western oil companies to boycott Iranian oil. Previously the U.S. had attempted to mediate the quarrel, even trying to pressure Britain into agreeing to a 50-50 share of the profits, which would rectify this lopsided imperial-era agreement through which a sovereign state had been robbed blind. Despite America’s efforts, the Brits—who had actually occupied Iran a decade before with the Soviets after their successful (and now forgotten) joint invasion of that country in 1942—refused.
Frustrated and politically weakened, Mossadeq intimated that if America could not help Iran, perhaps someone else could. That someone else was the Soviet Union. While we may not know how sincere the prime minister was in threatening to seek out Soviet assistance in its dispute with the West, Iran expert Ray Takeyh notes that Mossadeq simply wanted the Americans to step up pressure on the Brits, and that threatening to play the Communist card was likely just a bargaining tactic. If so, this was a catastrophic miscalculation. The Eisenhower administration took this “threat” quite seriously and proceeded to exploit the politically weak Mossadeq’s fractured coalition by supporting a group loyal to Iran’s exiled Shah—Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—which it funded via the CIA. Subsequently, Mossadeq was overthrown and the Shah returned to power.
The rest is history. Over the next quarter-century the tyranny of the Shah was backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government until his overthrow by an unlikely coalition of professionals, clerics, intellectuals and others fed up with this autocrat beholden to Western interests. Unfortunately, the professionals and intellectuals lost the post-Revolution power-grab to Ruhollah Khomeini—a cleric who formed a government that reflected his dualistic persona as an imam who was also well-versed in Western political thought. The result was a hybrid political system in which most power was vested in a religious Supreme Leader chosen by the clerics of the Guardian Council. The remaining powers were instilled in a democratically elected president.
Over the years, many Iranians have sought to blame the U.S. for certain ills endured by their country. Sometimes these feelings have been justified, sometimes they have not. Nonetheless, the perception in Iran is that there is a long rich history of American meddling in Iran’s affairs. If Obama were to intensify his rhetorical condemnations of the Iranian regime at a time when the (U.S.-favored) opposition has some promising momentum, this could only have a negative effect on the outcome. Ahmadinejad has already accused the U.S. of butting into Iran’s post-election turmoil, not because he actually believes this, but because he knows that if he can convince Iranians that America is somehow actively backing his opponents, the Mousavi faction will be seen as tainted goods—a proxy coalition for the advancement of Western interests whose accession to power would undermine Iran’s political sovereignty.
At this moment the Iranians aren’t buying Ahmadinejad’s lie, partly because there is no evidence to suggest that it is true. But if Obama were to heed the clumsy advice of critics and come down strongly on Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics for shrugging their shoulders in response to the credible allegations of massive voter fraud, he would be playing right into the hands of these hardliners. For if Iran’s ruling elite can show that the U.S. is playing favorites in this dispute, the implication would be that the side favored by America must the wrong one.
The momentum behind Mousavi and the opposition is so palpable that the prospect for positive change is quite real. While the clerics will almost certainly retain their power when all is said and done, they may find that going to bat for the unpopular Ahmadinejad is simply not worth the trouble. Hundreds of thousands of protestors continue to line the streets of Tehran, and they show no signs of going away. If the opposition can convince the clerics that their grip on power is in jeopardy, Ahmadinejad will suddenly become expendable. As much as Supreme Leader Khamenei and the rest of the mullahs want to keep a self-proclaimed reformer like Mousavi out of national office, they would readily allow him the presidency if it meant holding on to their power were it threatened by the growing anti-Ahmadinejad coalition. The longer these protests persist, the more likely it is that Ahmadinejad will indeed be thrown under the bus.
-Max
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