"Better the devil you know than the angel you don't." --Hama Tuma
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has an interesting choice (or had) in front of him. On the one hand, he has Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a leftist reformer, and former Prime Minister, of whom I'm sure Khamenei is thinking, I thought I got rid of you in 1989. On the other he has President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an extreme conservative with extensive political capital, who is slowly but steadily marginalizing the Ayatollah's power, and of whom I am sure Khamenei is thinking, I would love to get rid of you.
But to who? Mousavi, who stated clearly in his presidential campaign that he intended to greatly compromise the Supreme Leader's power through legislative power transfers? So which is worse? Being a puppet to Ahmadinejad, or being forced to share power with Mousavi, whose ideology you disagree with? The Ayatollah is more moderate than Ahmadinejad, and has wrestled with him more than once over Ahmadinejad's confrontational policies. Mousavi is far to the left of the Ayatollah, and the two have a history of clear animosity over social and cultural leadership. Both have a history with Kahmenei, and I would guess neither is particularly palatable to him.
In the space of a day, Khamenei went from ordering recounts in the Iranian presidential election, even using the word, fraud, to threatening "bloodshed" if the protests didn't stop. There is no way to know what is really going on in Tehran, but the Ayotallah's flip on the protests seem to me very sudden and inorganic.
It seems to me that Ahmadinejad was quick to regroup his power base and put pressure of the Ayatollah to side with him. At the same time as the existing regime was unifying against the protests, its leader, Mousavi began calling for further protests, in spite of new reports that violence is already breaking out. Iranian police and military forces have moved to quell the thousands of protesters with batons, tear gas and guns. Yet, still, the Ayatollah has allowed the Guardian Council (Iran's version of the Supreme Court) to continue their recount, and still sponsored a meeting today with the presidential candidates to discuss the election results. As I am writing this, a news brief has come out indicating that neither Mousavi nor Ahmadinejad attended the mediation, a clear line in the sand.
What happens now is anyone's guess. I personally think if the Ayatollah had thrown his full political weight behind the recount, the rebellion would be going on in the capitol instead of in the streets. It's a hard choice for any leader, and while I think he made the wrong one, it is very possible he had little real choice. Khamenei is flip-flopping, trying to evaluate his own place in the scheme of events. The gauntlet has clearly fallen in front of Mousavi and the Iranian people. The fact that there has now been confirmed bloodshed, and the first strike was made by the government, is a game changer. It means true revolt could be at hand, and the opposition will have self-defense as a shield. In the US, President Obama has stepped up his rhetoric, in spite of accusations from Iran of meddling, urging Iranian authorities to halt "all violent and unjust actions against its own people." He said the United States "stands by all who seek to exercise" the universal rights to assembly and free speech.
Back in March I wrote an article titled, Opening The Door To Iran, wherein I praised President Obama not so much for opening the diplomatic door to Iran, but for humanizing the Iranian people to the American people. I believe these protests, and the international attention they are getting in Iran, are doing that better than any video message could. News outlets are saying there are parallels in Iran right now to the 1979 revolution there. What I think Americans are seeing are parallels to our own presidential election in 2000. Election fraud perpetrated by conservative extremists, dueling law suits to curtail vote recounts, protests, threats of violence, and we all watched as Al Gore, the person who was universally seen as the victim, presided over the official confirmation of the usurper as President. Did Al Gore believe George W. Bush was the rightful winner? No, but he said he did, he put his signature on the electoral college documents, and he conceded. How do we know the Ayatollah isn't in Al Gore's position right now? Albeit by a different means, and within a different framework. I believe this is why the outrage, why the American interest in a country that three months ago was a "Muslim extremist nation," and a "state sponsor of terror." Now we see Iranian people, dressed in Western clothes, getting gassed by the police and "robbed" of "democracy."
Put bluntly, Ahmadinejad is a bad guy. He has regularly spoken for the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state, and although he denies it, he is also a holocaust revisionist, claiming it never happened. He has been quoted saying Israel should be "wiped off the map." Even Greta Van Susteren seems to have made a Freudian slip and compared him to other fascist dictators, in this quote: "That doesn't sound like a good -- can I just tell you that doesn't sound like a good choice. We have either Ahmadinejad, who wants to destroy Italy -- Israel, rather -- Italy!."
Ahmadinejad supports the use of torture, regularly has dissidents detained without trial, and in 2006 he had multiple university professors dismissed who he believed to be speaking against him. In addition, Ahmadinejad's economic leadership of Iran has been generally deplorable, a point of great contention between himself and Mousavi in the presidential campaigns. Mousavi is credited with deft stewardship of Iran's coffers as Prime Minister, and the country enjoyed growth and prosperity as a result of his policies.
President Ahmadinejad is also a stalwart defender and advocate of Iran's nuclear program, which is most of what we knew about him before 2008, when Ahmadinejad and Iran were a persistent source of debate in the American presidential election. Ahmadinejad consistently claims that the Iranian nuclear program is for energy generation only, and persists in ordering uranium enrichment programs to continue, in spite of an United Nations Security Council resolution calling for them to halt. Mousavi on the other hand has called for an abolishment of the "moral police" in Iran, would pass laws protecting women, curtail government spending, open negotiations with the US, and claims that he would cease all hostilities toward Israel. Mousavi has indicated he would continue Iran's nuclear policies, however, claiming it is Iran's right (and maybe it is.) Interesting however, how we (Americans) don't care about that, probably didn't even know it; we care that Iranian citizens -- every day people like you and me-- are getting beat up by police and denied the right to free speech. We see our cultural values getting trampled, and understand that they are someone else's, too.
I've always believed that culture informs politics in a circular pattern, and that popular culture informs deeper, inherited culture. For the first time in contemporary history, Americans are seeing Iranians as people. We feel for them. We feel anger at the pictures coming out of Tehran and other cities. We see corruption that we can comprehend coming from the Ayatollah and President Ahmadinejad. Instead of veiled women and bearded clerics, we see Calvin Klein jeans and Twitter updates. In order for the United States to truly engage with Iran, regardless of the outcome of their situation today, popular sentiment needs to approve. And we've got plenty of that right now. I've already said that I believe President Obama could achieve successes with Iran on a scale with Richard Nixon's accomplishments with China. And, I believe the current uprising in Iran is the vehicle for that public support. If Ahmadinejad stays in office, it doesn't mean game-over. Not for anyone. Iran has been undergoing a social and political revolution for 100 years, and whether or not this is a flare-up or a full scale rebellion happening today, we now have proof in American eyes that Iranian people desire a freer society. And I hope they get one.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The Ayatollah Throws Down The Gauntlet
Labels:
ahmadinejad,
ayatollah kahmenei,
iran,
mousavi,
president obama,
richard nixon
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