[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]
Iran has announced the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by an overwhelming majority of more than 62 percent of the popular vote, cast by a record 85 percent of Iran’s eligible voters. The Iranian reform candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, on whom the United States had pinned much hope for a change for the better in our bilateral relations, garnered a measly 36 percent.
Was there election fraud at work here? One would suspect so, but what we think is clearly irrelevant to Iran’s leadership. What matters to the leadership – the only thing that really matters to them – is that they have maintained and continue to maintain power. That is a truth that America needs to understand and accept. If their power is threatened, the Ayatollahs will pull out all the stops to end the threat.
If you doubt that, look at the content of the Supreme Leader’s speech to the faithful on Friday the 18th. As far as he is concerned, everything is OK with the election and any future trouble will be blamed on the protesters.
It is clear, particularly if you believe that fraud decided the election, that the specter of a popular, liberal candidate like Mir Hossein Mousavi was simply more than the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Council of Guardians could stand. It is important to understand that a change to Mousavi would not result in a new Iranian revolution. Whoever becomes the president, it is highly unlikely that there will be changes in nuclear or foreign policy. What the Iranian protest marchers want is some liberalization in social and economic policies, not a wholesale change in government. Despite that, the Supreme Leader and his allies clearly saw sufficient potential disaster peering at them over Mousavi’s liberal shoulder to take matters into their own hands. The numbers of voters alone must have jarred the leadership. In short, they are not about to give up power through any means, let alone democratic elections, irrespective of whatever propaganda damage may accrue to them as a result. In that regard, the Supreme Leader’s recent call to investigate the allegations of fraud my simply be an attempt to mitigate such damage.
The re-election of Ahmadinejad, whether legitimate or fraudulent, will have some major regional and international impacts, but most importantly, it will highlight all the negatives that we Americans see in current Iranian policies. In this context, it is completely irrelevant whether or not the election was fraudulent, and, if so, whether or not Ahmadinejad knows it. What matters is that he will base his future policies on the overwhelming 62 percent “mandate” he received from his countrymen for his past policies. That will make him more difficult, more combative and more cantankerous in his dealings with us. Liberalism and the possibility of change are the real losers in this election.
In purely Iranian terms, this new “mandate” will exist as reality as long as a Supreme Leader of Iran is in place and as long as the Ayatollahs retain power. That power, despite post-election street demonstrations, will not be seriously threatened as long as the police force, the Army and, most important, The Revolutionary Guards are on their side. There is no reason today to think that they are even close to losing control.
The election results will exacerbate Israel’s paranoia about Iran as an existential threat. It will make them more inclined to undertake military action against Iran and that will further complicate their relationship with us. Americans who do not support military action against Iran will see Israel as unnecessarily aggressive. Americans who believe that Iran really does represent an existential threat to Israel will see increasing Israeli bellicosity toward Iran as completely justified. That deepening divide will make decisions on all aspects of our regional policies even more difficult than they are today.
Under Netanyahu, Israel has said clearly that it does not want a two-state solution. In his speech on June 14, his demands for Palestine to have no arms, no control over its airspace, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and no consideration of the long cherished Palestinian “right to return” or hegemony over any of Jerusalem, he managed to hit just about every button that is unacceptable to Palestinians and, by extension to Muslims in general. At the same time, his only concession to the Palestinians was the creation of a politically gutted state. It would seem that his formulation was consciously designed to preclude any serious future discussion of a two-state solution.
In response to President Obama’s resolve to pursue that solution, Netanyahu’s coalition will likely do everything possible to avoid any negotiations that would bring down their government and, in their eyes, threaten their national interests. Substantive discussions of Jerusalem, settlements, border adjustments, Palestinian repatriation do not appear to be on his agenda.
The new Israeli awareness of the American position and their own still-evolving attitudes, hardened by Ahmadinejad’s reelection and Obama’s speech, will make a solution to the Palestine problem even more difficult. Everything the Israelis say about Palestine and a two-state solution will be couched in terms of the “existential Iranian threat”. We saw the beginning of this in the Iran-centered reaction of the Israelis to President Obama’s Cairo speech. The result of the Iranian reelection will only harden that position, making any constructive approach to the Palestine problem even more difficult.
Netanyahu’s intransigence stems from his having welcomed the right wing, pro-settler political parties into his coalition government. Absent a change of heart in the more liberal Kadima Party of Tzipi Livni and their willingness to join in a coalition with Netanyahu’s Likud party, the Likud must keep those parties on board or lose power.
All of these issues will complicate the delicate balances and incipient conflicts that have always existed in the region. The tensions, problems and centuries-old conflicts between Arabs and Persians, Sunni and Shia, and Kurds with Turks and Arabs will become exacerbated. Even those farther afield; the Taliban with Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as the issues between Pashtuns and Punjabis in Pakistan will have their negative impacts.
Unfortunately, given our extensive involvement in and commitment to the Middle East, they will all make our already almost insolvable tasks even more problematical. More proof positive that in that complicated region, we are at the mercy of things over which we have no control.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as Chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.
