Sunday, June 19, 2005

From Washington To Tehran, With Love

From the AP report out of Tehran today:
Iran's spy chief used just two words to respond to White House ridicule of last week's presidential election: "Thank you." His sarcasm was barely hidden. The backfire on Washington was more evident.

The sharp barbs from President Bush were widely seen in Iran as damaging to pro-reform groups because the comments appeared to have boosted turnout among hard-liners in Friday's election -- with the result being that an ultraconservative now is in a two-way showdown for the presidency.

"I say to Bush: `Thank you,'" quipped Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi. "He motivated people to vote in retaliation."

Bush's comments -- blasting the ruling clerics for blocking "basic requirements of democracy" -- became a lively sideshow in Iran's closest election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And they highlighted again the United States' often crossed-wire efforts to isolate Iran.

Bush described the election as an exercise in futility because Iran's real power rests with the non-elected Islamic clerics, who can override the president and parliament. Many agree with that description of a regime that allowed just eight presidential candidates from more than 1,000 hopefuls.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the election shows that the country is out of step with democratic reforms in the Middle East.

"I just don't see the Iranian elections as being a serious attempt to move Iran closer to a democratic future," she said in an interview on ABC's "This Week."

But the harder the United States pushes, even with the best of intentions, the more ground it has seems to lose among mainstream Iranians, who represent possible key allies against the Islamic establishment, say some analysts of Iranian politics.

"Unknowingly, (Bush) pushed Iranians to vote so that they can prove their loyalty to the regime -- even if they are in disagreement with it," said Hamed al-Abdullah, a political science professor at Kuwait University.

But even many opponents of the Islamic establishment objected to Bush's tone and timing.

The president's words sounded too much like the pre-war rhetoric against Saddam, and many on-the-fence voters were shocked into action, said Abdollah Momeni, a political affairs expert at Tehran University.

"People faced a dilemma," Momeni said. "In people's minds it became a choice between voting or giving Bush an excuse to attack."
I've said repeatedly that it is far more productive to use our leverage with supposed allies---Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and others whose citizens can only dream of an election like the one Iran just had---than to try ham-handedly to influence the internal politics of a nation you've already designated as "evil." That's even more true when you have absolutely no moral credibility in that neighborhood (after Abu Ghraib you want to judge our elections before they happen?), your ulterior motives could not be more transparent, and---thanks to the loquacious and apparently still not totally discredited Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle, among others---everyone on the planet knows you haven't changed the playbook you used for Iraq.

Some conservatives in the U.S. happily cite every verbal outburst by Howard Dean as pushing "mainstream America" away from the Democratic party. Courtesy of our Oval Office, it appears the Mullahs just got a gift-wrapped combination of the "Dean Scream" and that election-eve Bin Laden tape---much to their pleasure and benefit.

17 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's hard to tell where to draw the line between mendacity and complete idiocy with this administration.

On a side note, did you notice that Condi said Iraq would be a 'generational conflict" today? That ought to really help with reruitment efforts, shouldn't it? I wonder if even the Republicans thought they were signing on for a "generational" war in Iraq.

6/19/2005 6:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It'll help with recruiting jihadists.
Looks like the Bush Doctrine is a middle eastern success story.
Not for us, for them.

6/19/2005 8:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

All we have to do is look at our past few elections, and I hardly think we should be lecturing anyone on democratic voting procedures for all the people; Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, New Jersey. And it is going to get a lot worse.

When I hear this current Republican party speak I think I'm reading The Onion.

And I'd love to have more candidates, public funding, and real debates.

6/19/2005 11:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sometimes it really scares me the influence America has in the rest of the world. These guys ran out to vote because of something Bush said? Nothing any leader of any other country says would affect the way I vote.

6/20/2005 8:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's true that republicans made a lot of hay with some of their more uni-browed supporters simply by suggesting that Kerry was favored by the French. Why would Iran's nutcase voters act any differently than our own nutcase voters?

And while Iran's electoral system isn't free because the mullahs control who can run, a few small comparisons with our own system spring to mind.

Gerrymandering is permitted despite the fact that it favors the party in power. Districts drawn with the purpose of providing republicans or democrats with safe seats. What's free and open about that?

6/20/2005 10:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is one thing to put your best possible spin forward on what you would like, as any administration will do. This administration is failing us exactly because they apparently believe their press clippings. Duh!...

6/20/2005 11:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rice Today
"For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither,"

This is different. This is what Carter should have said. This is what Reagan didn't believe. If the US can admit its mistakes it can start to deal with Iran.

I think this is big.

6/20/2005 11:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As Cato Org would say: "If the chief natural resource of the Middle East were bananas, the region would not have attracted the attention of U.S. policymakers as it has for decades." Are we all so sure we aren't in Iraq for Exxon? Face it folks, the true cost of oil and gas is our children lives and the cost of our defense.

I think folks that are okay with other kids dying for cheap corporate oil, and are okay with lying about why we went to war, are also people that lack significant ideas. I would say shame on them, but I just read a quote from a ruthless lobbyist that said shame is for sissies.

And I think our president should be held accountable for the lies he told the American public and congress regarding why we went to war and the manipulation of intelligence.

How many billions each year are we going to spend on this war? A great man would have found a great solution and united the world, and that would not have been perpetual war.

Democracy (voting accuracy), Peace, and Truth - The best way to improve the world, is to live by example. Now people in the world point to us and say, even the great USA can't hold honest elections.

6/20/2005 12:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is a saying " the camel does not see its own hump". That is if we are going to preach freedom, democracy, integrity, and just elections to the wold, we should start believing in those words, and apply them at home. Alas, everything
we hear from this administration, is double standard. i wish they would adopt what they really admonish others to do.
Besides Bush and his advisors do not possess the "finesse" the diplomacy, that is required to deal, especially with the Middle Eastern and the Asians. They think that the more they chastise them, they will get what they seek. It does not work that way, in fact the results would be quite the opposite.

6/21/2005 1:37 AM  
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