“As I was saying, isn’t democracy wonderful?’ joyfully exclaims a caricature resembling Condi Rice in yesterday’s Guardian. On the left of Martin’s Rowson’s version of the US secretary of state is an explosion labeled “Iraq”, while on the right stands Iran’s new leader holding a nuclear missile above his head.
For me it succinctly sums up America’s failed policies in the region under the faux banner of spreading “freedom and democracy”.
Not only is US policy not achieving the desired effect from Washington’s perspective, it appears to be producing a reverse backlash. If anyone harbors doubts about this, surely the Iranian election of a religious and political hard-liner is yet one more proof positive sign.
Moreover, the fact that former Mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spectacular electoral triumph caught the US and Europe napping, on the surface, says much about the lack of political expertise among so-called Western Mideast specialist advisors.
Indeed, American and European leaders seem so bound up with regional minutiae that they appear to have forgotten the basic principle of “every action has a reaction”, which clearly applies to the state of play in today’s Iran. The accent here is on “appears”.
Prior to the arrival of the neocon/born again bandwagon on Pennsylvania Avenue, a research paper on the Brookings Institution website written by Suzanne Maloney and dated June 2000 is headlined: “Elections in Iran: A New Majlis and a Mandate for Reform”.
Writes Maloney: “After a campaign marked by bitter factional rivalries and unprecedented public liberties, Iranians went to the polls on Feb. 18 to elect a new Parliament. They handed an overwhelming victory to the advocates of reform and a humbling setback to the stalwarts of the revolution.”
Five years on, Iranians appear to have completely swung the other way with the stalwarts firmly in the driving seat, leaving wealthy modernizers, along with middle-class intellectuals, reformists and democracy activists contemplating packing their bags.
What happened in the interim? Why has the public mood been so radically altered? Forget election fraud. The guy won by a whopping eight million votes.
Let’s go back to Sept. 14, 2001 when hundreds of young Iranians, clad in black as a sign of mourning, held a silent candle-lit gathering in Tehran to pay homage to the thousands of victims of the terror attacks in the United States. At the time, AFP quoted one of those demonstrators as saying: “We wanted to show our solidarity with the American people, which is in pain.”
Just five months later, in his first “State of the Union” address, George W. Bush singled out Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, claiming these states “and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world”.
An analysis on the BBC’s website “Iran and the Axis of Evil” dated Feb. 11, 2002 reads: “Iran’s inclusion in Washington’s ‘Axis of Evil’ has caused anger in Iran and consternation among several European governments.”
The BBC article predicts that the “Axis of Evil” concept “can only radicalize Tehran further, make the work of Iranian moderates and reformists far harder and, in the long-run destabilize the region.” All that has been achieved by reform and international engagement...”could be stopped and reversed by Tehran’s inclusion in the ‘Axis of Evil’”, it concludes. And that’s exactly what has happened folks!
Now that this prediction has come true, should we conclude that the BBC is staffed with psychics? I don’t think so, this was merely common sense based on the “every action has a reaction” principle. But why did Washington get it so very wrong?
Let’s face it, if you go out into your garden and scream invective and threats at your neighbor while he’s mowing his lawn, you might want to consider the possibility of receiving an earful of expletives, a visit from a nice policeman or even a brick through your window.
Now given that Washington is choc-a-bloc with political talking heads, erstwhile institutions and think-tanks you might wonder why the US government didn’t similarly conclude that its Iranian strategy was doomed to fail — if, indeed, it wanted a free and democratic Iran that is. And this is the nub. Iranians could well have fallen right into a carefully laid trap. What if “call me Hashemi, I wanna be America’s buddy” Rafsanjani had come out on top in last week’s run-off poll? In a country where two-thirds of the population is under-30, the disco-type balls decorating the 70-year-old cleric’s campaign headquarters and the accompanying techno music should have lured the jeans-sporting youth to board his bandwagon.
But on this occasion, those hip accoutrements didn’t work with the majority of voters. While his bandana-wearing supporters were chanting “Disco Hashemi, freedom, democracy”, the majority of young Iranians were grooving to another tune, in an environment where Condi’s future as a poster girl looks bleak.
Instead, their budding hero was a simple man, who is committed to Iran’s nuclear ambitions for peaceful purposes, which is its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and who vows to uphold their nation’s dignity.
In sync with the “behind-the-scenes” ruling mullas, Ahmadinejad, while proclaiming his eagerness to cooperate with friendly nations, has virtually told the United States and its client state Israel (or is the other way around?) to shove it. In response, the Tehran Stock Exchange has dived, oil prices have gone through the $60 ceiling and foreign investors are suffering a bad case of the jitters.
The Guardian has quoted a British Foreign Office official as unflatteringly labeling Ahmadinejad as “a head case”, while another has referred to him as “a throwback to the early 80s”. Britain, along with France and Germany, has been instrumental in seeking a peaceful conclusion to the Iranian nuclear contretemps.
But does the US want a peaceful conclusion? Does Israel? Neither has come forward to cooperate with European efforts and there have been indications that one or both of those countries would like to see Iranian nuclear facilities bombed to smithereens, in the same way as Iraq’s was in 1981. The main obstacle to those ambitions has been objections from the international community.
Hardly were the votes counted before Israel’s foreign minister called for a stern and unified international policy toward Iran. Iranian voters may have unwittingly handed Israel ammunition to succeed in that aim.
Alternatively, Ahmadinejad’s may be posturing vis-a-vis Washington and Tel Aviv. It’s too early to tell. One thing is certain. The world and its wife are holding Iran’s self-styled “street sweeper” firmly under the spotlight.
