Iran and a hard place
These are interesting, groundbreaking, and heartbreaking times in Iran.
After days of presistent protests – relatively peaceful by day, horrifying at night – Ayatollah Khamenei has put his foot down – the elections were “fair”, rigging on the scale alleged is “impossible,” and the political elite would be held “responsible” if demonstrations continue; a thinly-veiled threat at his man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s moderate opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi. He has come out giving fair warning to those who still want to stir up trouble. History shows that men with such absolute power as Khamenei have many options at this point.
It was only a few weeks ago the 20-year anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square passed. So confident was the communist authoritarian regime in China, they did not hesitate to fire randomly into crowds of unarmed civilians, snuffing out the tiny spark of revolution before it became a flame. The fear of torture and death still keeps the Chinese in line to this day, and their leaders have never been more confident.
Khamenei has seemed less confident after what may have been an unexpected or at least underestimated outcry from Mousavi’s supporters. Still, I believe were he a more foolish dictator, the protests thus far would have been far bloodier; so far about a dozen deaths are attributed to them, as opposed to the scores of dead and maimed at Tiananmen, or more recently in Tibet and Burma.
Khamenei’s apparent “patience’ towards those who lost out is a valuable window for America, yet pragmatist Obama, who seems more invested in the future of engagement with Iran’s current regime than providing more fuel for the Anti-American fire in Iran through political “meddling.” As much as I want Obama to speak out in support of those who are demonstrating and laying down their lives, America’s track record with intervention has been so poor of late, we cannot afford another defeat.
What vexes me is, sure, Khamenei predicted the outcome before the polls even closed, but what if he hadn’t foreshadowed the result? What if instead he’d allowed Iran’s electoral system to carefully and deliberately count the votes – a process lasting days – and Ahmadinejad still won? He remained, and remains, immensely popular amongst the poor and uneducated of the country.
Much of Iran’s moderate, educated population is in the capital, Tehran; they’re a very vocal, very visible minority, but still a minority. It would be better if they weren’t, but they are; the votes of the rural poor don’t count any less than theirs. Wrong-headed and self-defeating it may be, but it’s entirely possible 11 million more Iranians voted for Mahmoud than Mousavi.
The problem is, that result doesn’t look legitimate. The timing was all off and Mahmoud’s victory came too quickly. When the Gazans voted in Hamas, it was a clear electoral victory. It could have been in Iran too, that Ahmadinejad won fair and square, but it’s too late for that now, and even if he had beaten Mousavi fair and square, a lot of moderate Iranians would still be protesting today.
The reason for this is obvious – whether he actually won or the election was fixed: he’s the wrong choice. With him as their president for four more years, Iran’s future remains uncertain; it’s destiny ominous. Ahmadinejad will continue to spend most of his time ruffling feathers and stoking foreign resentment than fixing the economy. Iranians – even those who voted for him – deserve better.
