There is much talk about the presidential election having been rigged in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's favour, but where is the evidence? Opponents of Ahmadinejad find it incredible that, according to the official election results, the other candidates did not do well in their home provinces. Others say that the results were too quick to come out, and others still claim that the results of the ballot were too similar across the country to be true.
All this may constitute reasonable grounds for some suspicion but it does not amount to evidence, neither circumstantial nor hard evidence.
So what is going on in Iran? I think a number of factors are at play there.
First, clearly, the ruling theocratic establishment is deeply divided, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i and President Ahmadinejad on one side, and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mir Hussein Mousavi on the other. But there are also others occupying various positions in between, posturing, manoeuvring, politicking and hoping to ease themselves into power, one way or another
Second, there is a lot of pent-up frustration in Iranian society. About half the country's population of 71 million people are under 25, and nearly two-thirds are under 30. Many of these youths yearn for what they don't have or don’t have in abundance: a Western life style, the freedom to wear what they like, to drink alcohol freely,to go to discotheques, etc. Also, as with many other peoples in the Third World, they believe in what they see in Western, especially Hollywood movies, and they want to be part of it – the big houses, the flash cars, the huge incomes, the cloud cuckoo land.
Third, and related to this, is the fact that, although Iran has one of the strongest-performing economies of the major oil-producing countries in the Middle East, the general economic indicators are not good: unemployment stands at 9.6 per cent, rising to 20.3 per cent among people under 24, and annual inflation is 25.3 per cent.
Fourth, there is the Iranians who have never come to terms with the demise of the shah and have never accepted the Islamic Republic. They see the large crowds in the streets, the fiery speeches of the erstwhile stalwarts of the Islamic Republic talking about reform – or is it revolution disguised as reform? – Their expectations are raised and, in turn, they do their bit to raise the expectations of other dissatisfied citizens.
Put these together and you'll get the convulsions Iran has been experiencing for the past week.
How events will unfold from here is difficult to say. But the signs are not good. It would seem that defeated presidential candidate Mousavi and his backers are getting carried away by the huge numbers of “supporters” on the streets, to the point where they appear to be losing touch with reality and edging towards irresponsibility, the irresponsibility of leading thousands of civilians into the abyss.
As a progressive Arab nationalist, my instinct is to side with the people on the street, to stand alongside those opposed to theocracy and for democracy, equality and social justice.
However, I am also a realist and, as such, my realism overrides my instinct. First, I do not know precisely what the people on the street in Tehran and other Iranian cities want. I do not even know if they really believe that the presidential election was rigged or whether they are using this as a pretext to destabilize the system. They have failed to come up with any convincing evidence of rigging. And it is not enough to be against the system; they must also be in favour of a coherent, attractive alternative.
Second, is it realistic – or even desirable – to demand a rerun of the election just because it did not yield a particular result? What if the election was rerun and Mousavi lost again? Would they keep on demanding reruns until he won?
Third, from a geopolitical point of view, I do not believe it is in the interest of the downtrodden peoples of the Middle East to destabilize the Islamic Republic. A strong Iran, with a potential nuclear capability and a courageous, “hard-line” leadership is a vital potential counterweight to U.S.-Israeli hegemony in the region and a challenge to America’s Arab lickspittles.
Finally, as a realist and as an Arab I have a deep aversion to something the Iranians seem to have in common with us Arabs: the inability to accept defeat in a free and fair election. Could it be that, as with Fatah in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006, Mousavi and his supporters simply cannot accept defeat?
For all these reasons, I cannot side with the demonstrators in Iran. I hope their leaders – if that’s what Mousavi and Rafsanjani are – see sense and act with responsibility, for the sake of Iran and the rest of the Middle East.
The election victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is likely to complicate U.S. President Barack Obama’s new approach to his country’s conflict with Iran. The reason behind the foreseen obstacle is neither the U.S. nor Iran’s refusal to engage in future dialogue but rather Israel’s insistence on a hard-line approach to the problem.
Iran’s presidential elections on June 12 were positioned to represent another fight between Middle Eastern ‘moderates’ vs. ‘extremists’. That depiction, which conveniently divided the Middle East – according to the prevailing foreign policy discourse - to pro-American and anti-American camps was hardly as clear in the Iranian case as it was in Palestine and most recently in Lebanon.
Ahmadinejad’s main rival, Mir Hussein Moussavi served as Iran’s Prime Minister for 8-years (between 1981-1989) during one of Iran’s most challenging times, its war with Iraq. He was hardly seen as a ‘moderate’ then. More, Moussavi was equally adamant in his country’s right to produce atomic energy for peaceful means. As far as U.S. interests in the region are concerned, both Ahmadinejad and Moussavi are interested in dialogue with the US, and are unlikely to alter their country’s attitudes towards the occupation of Iraq, their support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine. Neither is ready, willing or, frankly, capable of removing Iran from the regional power play at work in the Middle East, considering that Iranian policies are shaped by other internal forces beside the president of the country.
This is not to suggest that both leaders are one and the same. For the average Iranian, statements made by Ahmadinejad and Moussavi during Iran’s lively election campaigns did indeed promise major changes in their lives, daily struggles and future. But yet again, the two men were caricatured to present two convenient personalities to the outside world, a raging nuclear-obsessed man, hell-bent on ‘wiping Israel off the map”, and a soft-spoken, learned ‘moderate’ ready to ‘engage’ the West and redeem the sins of his predecessor.
Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the first negative image - tainted as such by mainstream media, and years of image manipulation by forces dedicated to the interest of Israel - won. The election outcome in Iran presents the young Obama with a major challenge: if he carries on with his diplomatic approach and soft overtures towards Iran, ruled by a supposed Holocaust-denier, he will certainly be seen as a failed president, who dared to perceive Israel’s interests in the region as secondary; on the other hand, Obama cannot depart from his country’s new approach towards Iran, a key player in shaping the contending forces in the entire region.
In some way, Ahmadinejad’s victory was the best news for Israel. Now, Tel Aviv will continue to pressure Obama to ‘act’ against Iran, for the latter, under its current president is an ‘existential threat’ to Israel, a claim that few in Washington question. “It is not like we rooted for Ahmadinejad,” an Israeli official told the New York Times on the condition of anonymity a day after it was clear that Ahmadinejad won another term in office.
But considering Israel’s immediate attempt to capitalize on the outcome of the elections makes one wonder if the defeat of Iran’s ‘moderate’ camp was not a best case scenario for Israel. Iran will continue to be presented as the obstacle in future peace in the Middle East, allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid any accountability as far as the ‘peace process’ is concerned. In fact, with an ‘existential threat’ not too far away, few in Washington would dare challenge Israel’s settlement policies in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, or its deadly siege on Gaza, or in fact its confrontational approach to Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the latter seen as an ‘Iranian-backed militia.’
Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom was one of the first top officials in Israel to exploit the moment on June 13. The results of Iran’s elections, he said, “blow up in the faces of those who thought Iran was built for a genuine dialogue with the free world on stopping its nuclear program.” Ostensibly, Shalom’s message was directed at a small audience in Tel Aviv, but his true target audience, was in fact Obama himself.
Obama’s overtures towards Iran were not necessarily an indication of a fundamental shift in US foreign policy, but a realistic recognition of Iran’s growing influence in the region, and the U.S.’ desperate and failing fight in Iraq. It was Obama’s pragmatism, not a moral-shift in U.S. foreign policy that compelled such statements as that made on June 2 in a BBC interview: “What I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations. On the other hand, the international community has a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region.”
For Israel, however, Obama’s rhetoric is a deviation from the past U.S. hard-line approach towards Iran. What Israel wants to keep alive is a discussion of war as a viable option to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions and to eliminate a major military rival in the Middle East.
Senior fellow at the pro-Israeli American Enterprise Institute, John R. Bolton expressed the war-mongering mantra of the pro-Israel crowd in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled: “What if Israel Strikes Iran?”: “Many argue that Israeli military action will cause Iranians to rally in support of the mullahs' regime and plunge the region into political chaos. To the contrary, a strike accompanied by effective public diplomacy could well turn Iran's diverse population against an oppressive regime.”
Ahmadinejad’s victory will serve as further proof that diplomacy with Iran is not an option, from the point of view of Israel and its supporters in the U.S. Whether Obama will proceed with his positive rhetoric towards Iran is to be seen. Failure to do so, however, will further undermine his country’s interests in the Middle East, and will prolong the cold war atmosphere of animosity, espoused by a clique of neoconservative hard-liners throughout the Bush administration of past years.
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন