In my previous two postings on the topic of Iran, I made two general points. The first ("Iranians Give Their Answer") was that Iranians had overwhelmingly re-elected Ahmadinejad as President, despite his virulently anti-Semitic, anti-West, anti-U.S., Holocaust denying, terrorist supporting rhetoric and actions. I recognized that there were allegations of electoral irregularities, but no clear evidence of massive voter fraud which would account for 11,000,000 or so votes. I also referred to pre-election American conducted polling which predicted the result. The second posting ("Who is Hossein Mousavi?) looked at the "reformist" Hossein Mousavi and his history. The suggestion there was that his policies and views are not that much different than those of Ahmadinejad.
A few days have past. There have been massive protests in Iran, accompanied by violence, a media clamp down, and general ugliness. The election of Ahmadinejad has been confirmed by Iranian authorities. A fair question can be asked of me - have my views changed?
The answer is "no". As for the election, we still have not seen any definitive evidence that Mousavi actually won. The fact that there are millions of people in Iran and in the West who wanted Mousavi to win, and Mousavi supporters who are prepared to risk their lives on the streets of Iran to make their point, does not make the case for a rigged election. At any event, the point is now surely moot as the election results have been confirmed by Iranian authorities and nothing anyone in the West does will change that fact.
As far as what Mousavi himself stands for, again there is no change in my position. He clearly wanted to win, thinks he won, and is apparently prepared to become a "martyr" for his own cause. His history of anti-West, anti-US, anti-Israel views and his previous willingness to crush dissent is a matter of record.
As for criticism of Obama for not doing more, I have to say here I am with Obama. Despite the views of some of my critics who falsely claim that I have a "nervous twitch" when it comes to Obama and disagree with every one of his policies, as with some of his other decisions, I agree with his position. There is nothing useful or helpful he can do about "regime change" in Iran, and getting involved by supporting Mousavi and the protesters, will unify the Iranian people against the US. Of course, he should condemn the violence and the deprivation of human rights, as he has in fact done. But in terms of influencing the outcome of the election by his words or deeds, or supporting one group of Ayatollahs against another - no. The best thing that the USA can do, is to stay out of what seems to be an internal power struggle.
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Hi Professor Klar,
ReplyDeleteI agree that President Obama's doing the right thing. Tough line to walk.
Regarding the election: when you say there weren't enough irregularities to change 11 million votes, I think that logic is missing a key point about the allegations being made. As many commentators have suggested, the most likely scenario is that the Interior Ministry, who tallies all the votes, simply reverse-engineered the spreadsheets to get a desired outcome. This isn't ballot stuffing, it's cheating in Excel-- Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight demonstrated that this process is no more difficult for 11 million votes than for one.
You're right to say that protests don't necessarily mean the election was fraudulent (though they do make clear millions of Iranians think as little of Ahmadinejad as you and I do). Unlike protests, statistics can tell us an election was fraudulent. See Walter Mebane, the foremost U.S. expert on election fraud weigh in here. He suspects widespread fraud.
(I note, too, that Leverett and Leverett's flip, self-satisfied analysis looks very premature a week later. They would have been wise to hold their tongues a little, rather than declaring there was "no evidence" of fraud and suggesting those who thought there was were rather dense wishful-thinkers.)
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the Iranian authorities have "confirmed" the election. Do you mean sided with the winner, or verified that the election was free and fair? If you mean that some Iranian body has verified the vote counts, I would point you to the recent, trustworthy reports that in some precincts there was more than 100% turnout, as would be expected if the central body counting the votes fudged the numbers.
Or do you just mean that since the Ayatollah and the Guardian Council haven't decided to annul the election, it's a moot point whether it was rigged? I'm surprised that you think that. For one thing, the milk hasn't even totally spilled yet-- now's the time to cry about it. For another, the true vote count represents the real will of the Iranians. Doesn't that matter more than who the Ayatollah certifies?
As for Mousavi's politics, I don't think he's the point, either, though you're absolutely right that the West is seized by an Anyone But Ahmadinejad fever (that's life in the region; we're always rooting against the total crazies, but we accept the slightly-less so if they're a little more US friendly).
The last ten days have brought out widespread democratic feeling that undermines the power of the Ayatollah. Regardless of the winner, it's impossible for me to look at the protests and see anything but a hopeful sign that the his days are numbered.
Good points as usual, Scott.
ReplyDeleteWhen I say "confirmed", I do not mean verified that the election was free and fair. I mean that they have approved of the results, and put an effective end to the matter. To use your earlier analogy in your previous comment, sort of like what the US Supreme Court did in Gore v Bush.
I do not know what the "real will" of the Iranians is. The protests are probably about a lot of different things. If the Ayatollah's "days are numbered" as you hope for, which Ayatollah will take his place and to what end? My fear is that whatever progress Obama hoped to make in US relations with Iran has been set back, not advanced by what is going on. But we shall see.
The BBC has done a number of good analyses on the election results, both online and on the BBC news. Here's one:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8110877.stm
Leading Clerics Defy Ayatollah on Disputed Iran Election:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/world/middleeast/05iran.html?ref=global-home