Financial Times Editorial Comment: Iranian theocrats impose their will/New York Times Editorial: Neither Real Nor Free

Financial Times Editorial Comment: Iranian theocrats impose their will
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: June 14 2009 18:31 | Last updated: June 14 2009 18:31
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af1838b2-58fb-11de-80b3-00144feabdc0.html


As passionate street protests erupt in parts of Tehran at what looks, prima facie, like an assisted landslide to re-elect Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad in a highly contested presidential vote, only one thing is clear: Iran’s ruling theocrats are taking a huge gamble with the future of the Islamic Republic.

Domestically, they are patching up a dam that is starting to burst with pent-up desire for change. Abroad they are courting isolation: Barack Obama’s hand, remember, was extended to those who would unclench their fists – not, on the face of it, what has just happened.

It was always the case that Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the former premier whose campaign realigned chastened reformists with pragmatic conservatives, and pulled hundreds of thousands of young and women supporters on to the streets, had a mountain to climb. The rural and urban poor and the regime’s paramilitaries (the basij militia alone is about 12m strong) meant the president had vast reserves of pre-positioned support.

Change for the poor means food and jobs, not a relaxed dress code or mixed recreation. Change to the theocrats and their praetorians threatens the vested interests they have built up since the 1979 revolution. Politics in Iran is a lot more about class war than religion.

Still, the size of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s victory is not credible and the regime – under the ultimate authority of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader – would not need to come down so hard if it were real. So what has spooked them?

They appeared to fear a “green” revolution that might split institutions such as the Revolutionary Guards the way the reformist avalanche for Mohammad Khatami did in 1997 – a fear magnified once figures such as Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president still at the fulcrum of Iranian politics, tilted towards Mr Moussavi. They will also have found Mr Obama’s overtures unhelpful in enforcing national unity, much easier when Iranians feel under external siege.

The US and its allies should remember it is engagement more than confrontation that unnerves the mullahs. Mr Moussavi, more-over, while he might have been more straightforward on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, would not have been more pliant. Furthermore, however bad vote fraud was in this contest, the way it has been managed shows it is no president, but Mr Khamenei, who is in charge.

But for anyone who prefers confrontation with Iran, the apotheosis of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, a pantomime villain out of central casting, is undeniably a political windfall.





New York Times Editorial: Neither Real Nor Free
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/opinion/15mon1.html?th&emc=th


There is no transparency or accountability in Iran, so we may never know for sure what happened in the presidential election last week. But given the government’s even more than usually thuggish reaction, it certainly looks like fraud.

Although a runoff was widely expected between the two top vote-getters, the polls had barely closed before authorities declared victory for the hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And it was a landslide: 62.6 percent versus just less than 34 percent for the main challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

We understand why so many Iranians found that impossible to believe. Mr. Moussavi had drawn hugely enthusiastic crowds to his campaign rallies, and opposition polls suggested that he, not Mr. Ahmadinejad, was the one with the commanding lead. Even more improbably, and cynically, authorities claimed that Mr. Ahmadinejad carried all of his opponents’ hometowns — including Mr. Moussavi’s — by large margins.

When protesters took to the streets in the fiercest demonstrations in a decade, the police beat them with batons. The government also closed universities in Tehran, blocked cellphones and text messaging and cut access to Web sites.

On Sunday, as protests continued, authorities detained more than 100 prominent opposition members and ordered some foreign journalists to leave the country. According to news reports, Mr. Moussavi remained in his home but was being closely watched. In a triumphalist press conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad seemed to threaten his rival, declaring that the former prime minister “ran a red light, and he got a traffic ticket.”

If the election were truly “real and free” as Mr. Ahmadinejad insisted, the results would be accepted by the voters and the government would not have to resort to such repression.

After four years of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s failed economic policies and ceaseless confrontations with the West, many of Iran’s voters clearly were yearning for a change. Mr. Moussavi promised that change; he also promised greater personal freedoms, including for women. If Tehran refuses to recognize that yearning or respect the will of its people — most of whom are too young to remember the 1979 Islamic revolution — the government will lose even more legitimacy.

The mullahs have had a tight lock on Iran up to now. But they should not forget what happened when the shah lost his people’s trust.

The elections are another potent reminder that there can be no illusions about Iran’s government and its malign intent. That is a hard political fact.

Iran’s centrifuges are still spinning and its nuclear program is advancing at an alarming rate. That is an even harder scientific fact.

We know that some in this country and in Israel will say that this election is proof that there can be no dealing with Iran and that military action is the only choice. The last thing the United States or Israel needs is another war with a Muslim state. An attack would only feed Iran’s nuclear ambitions and spur it to take even greater efforts to hide its program.

The only choice is negotiations backed by credible incentives and tough sanctions. Even if the mullahs had allowed Mr. Moussavi to win, that would still be true.




Washington Post Editorial: Neither Free nor Fair - Iran's disputed election makes clear the discontent of its people.
Copyright by The Washington Post
Monday, June 15, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061402399.html


NO ONE outside the inner precincts of Iran's power structure knows who won that country's presidential election Friday. It's possible that a majority voted to reelect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as he claims. It's also possible, as much of his opposition fervently believes, that the election was stolen. What we can say for certain is that the election was neither free nor fair. When a regime peremptorily chooses which candidates can run; shutters newspapers, Web sites and television bureaus; silences text messaging; and throws critics into prison -- such a regime should not expect its pronouncements on election results to garner any respect.

So, as a first step, the Obama administration should take care not to signal more respect for those results than they merit. Administration officials are right to be responding cautiously and to let the process play out. But there are principles that the administration could be defending even now, squarely supporting the rule of law and democratic expression in Iran. The United States could make clear that a government wanting to be taken seriously by the international community should not use violence against peaceful protests, arrest opposition leaders and their followers, jam radio broadcasts, or block Internet use. It could call for a transparent process to address opposition claims of fraud.

If Mr. Ahmadinejad consolidates his claimed victory, there will be time enough to develop a strategy. To deal with Iran's complex power structure without according it more legitimacy than it merits was always going to be a challenge; it would get harder now. President Obama has said, rightly, that Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions are unacceptable. He also has made clear, again rightly, that the West should explore all diplomatic possibilities before setting down a path of tightening sanctions or military action. That will remain true: The United States should be willing to talk about arms control and other areas of national interest with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and whoever else can speak for the nation's foreign policy.

But it is now undeniable that many, many Iranians reject the Ahmadinejad regime and much of what it stands for, at home and abroad. The presidential campaigns revealed tremendous popular ferment in Iran and large swaths of discontent with current economic, foreign and social policies, including the repression of women. U.S.-Iranian relations are unlikely to flourish as long as so many voices there remain suppressed. As Mr. Obama began doing in his Cairo speech, the United States has to find a way to speak to Iran's people as well as the leaders who claim to represent them.