Author Archives: Bjorn Schey

You have to know about this by now. It is the biggest story going on right now.  The Iran elections, were they rigged? If they were, what the hell is anyone going to do about it? Nutzo right wingerz are criticizing Obama for not doing something……oye, they haven’t learned anything. Despite the precedent his predecessors have set, it’s generally unacceptable to step in and toy with the governmental workings of another nation, much less one that has threatened nuclear force, and who clearly despises us.

Before I go any further, I have to link to these “Big Picture” sets.

1, 2, 3, and 4.

Yea, that’s what 200, 000 people protesting in the streets looks like. Unreal.

This has the potential to be one of those most significant things to happen in my short lifetime. I don’t think people comprehend how powerful Iran is. The biggest economy in the Middle East after Turkey (27th worldwide),  4th largest producer of oil in the world, and 17 th most populous nation. Anything that happens here will be felt worldwide. Iraq and Afghanistan are small potatoes compared to Iran.

I have no idea what is going to happen here, or how other governments should intervene (if at all). I hope the change is positive, but I am not optimistic.

I do however, have 2 observations:

1.  Appropriately occurring within a week of the event’s 20th anniversary, this reminds me a lot of Tienanmen Square. Students protesting in the street, the government forbidding all congregation and attacking the protesters.  Some estimates put the death toll in the thousands by the end of Tienanmen. We can only hope that doesn’t happen here, but at this rate, what is to stop it? After Tienanmen, very little positive change occurred except for economic growth. Very little head way was made as far as civil rights. Will we see these efforts in Iran yield no fruit as well?

2. This entire conflict seems to follow the same pattern of religious groups vs. educated groups. This seems to be the new theme for our world. Iran is ruled by a religious figure who controls the country by using the military as a tool of oppression. But, he is the religious leader of country as well as political he can control the oppressed (the poor) because, as in most cases, the poor are the most devout. All that’s left is the small, educated middle class who reside almost entirely in the major cities of Iran. It’s not hard to liken this to recent US elections, religious middle America vs. the secular, educated cities on the coast.

Now that my rant is done, our resident inside the loop buddy DNoll is going to tell me how dumb everything ive just said actually is, and let you know what is really happening.

Take it away Daniel:

Great post Bjorn. You’ll forgive me if I become a little long-winded with my response. Indeed the imagery of unrest in Iran that has canvassed U.S. media in the last two weeks has been stunning. Outrage first flared up amongst supporters of presidential candidate Hossein Mousavi after dubious election results spelled defeat for the reformist at the hands of the incumbent Ahmadinejad. The government’s heavy-handed tactics of intimidation and violence to suppress the protests (mostly through employing proxy civilian gangs) have led to national – and indeed international—mourning for the victims of the one-sided fight. The choice of protestors to remain mostly peaceful has helped their claim of victimhood, as mourning ceremonies for victims of the bloodshed – no better symbolized than by the death of Agha-Soltan –curry sympathy from otherwise neutral onlookers. Thus the violence has fueled the street protests and swelled the ranks of its members. What was once political outrage over a stolen vote has gained momentum and transformed into a broader movement for regime change.

There are a number of reasons why the American public is particularly captivated by the story unfolding on the streets of Tehran. First, there is in our own history a sense of righteousness attached to revolution. As we prepare to celebrate July 4^th, our country will soon be singing songs, listening to our national war hymns and celebrating the “bombs bursting in air” that define our origin as a nation—a nation forged from revolution. From this we feel a sense of commonality with the Iranian protestors and a natural inclination to support their bid for democratic reform. Second, we are united with the protestors against a common enemy. The current Iranian regime, and in particular President Ahmadinejad, are perhaps the most identifiable enemy the United States has. As a nation we condemn the regime’s nuclear program as flagrant war-mongering and distain their leader’s anti-Semitic rhetoric as insulting to our shared Judeo-Christian ancestry with the Israeli people. Thus, to use a cliché: the enemy of our enemy is our friend.

I think we also still hate Iran for seizing our embassy in 1979. In the midst of the Cold War it was an act of aggression that destabilized our bipolar view of the world order – a monolithic struggle between the two titan powers. That a small country would take such an action to violate diplomatic protocol was deeply unsettling. Granted the CIA had overthrown their government in 1953 so their fears that we were about to do it again weren’t completely unfounded. Still, capturing and imprisoning U.S. civilians for over a year wounded US-Iranian relations and has never recovered. Not to mention it single-handedly destroyed Carter’s presidency. THANKS A LOT.

Third, the basis for protest—a stolen vote—violates a core American value. Namely, our belief in the irrevocable equality amongst our citizenry that each man and woman should have an equal opportunity to participate in choosing our government. As Americans we are passionate about the need to change our leaders from time to time, but as a country we are extremely hesitant to alter our constitution or the institutions of our government that allow our system to operate. For many of us the concept of a system of government without accountability to the people or democratic representation is difficult to grasp. Therefore, a stole vote in another country represents a crime against our own model of civilization; a crime that might as well have been committed against us.

Yet as observers of this conflict it may be easy for our perspective to be shaped by the seat we sit in, and we may easily mistake optimism for pragmatism and street protests for regime change. In short, change in Iranian leadership cannot come from populist revolt alone. It will require support from Iran’s cultural and religious elite. Whether this movement has the ability to supplant the Ayatollah and his allies with a new line of rulers has yet to be determined.

To respond to your post I’m going to break your observations down into three arguments:

1. We are witnessing a populist uprising of Iran’s citizenry that is unlikely to lead to regime change.

2. The current conflict represents a struggle between religious elites and reform-minded intellectuals.

3. President Obama is correct to temper his criticisms of the Iranian government because the U.S. has no right to undermine the sovereignty of another nation by interfering with domestic elections.

We are witnessing a populist uprising of Iran’s citizenry that is unlikely to lead to regime change.

Public unrest in Iran is not a new phenomenon. From the 1979 revolution that deposed Pahlavi’s dynasty (a ruler the U.S. put in place after WWII with the help of the British) to the 1999 student protests, political discord has been the norm in Iranian life. With each conflict since 1979 public outrage has flared but been unable to debase the incumbent regime. The protests seen in the last two decades however were mostly limited to specific interest groups or geographic regions of the country. I have three reasons why what we’re seeing today might be different:

1. Protests today are widespread throughout Iran. Far from being a localized uprising, the conflict today permeates neighborhoods in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, and indeed is receiving international support. The size and scope of unrest serves to insulate protestors and provides them anonymity, this in itself fueling the movement.

2. The defection of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and other political and religious elites to the side of the protestors provides a real opportunity for change. Equally important to public unrest in the streets will be behind the scenes negotiations between Iran’s most important clerics and political leaders who hold the keys to power. Without a sufficiently mobilized elite, protests in the street are unlikely to be more than an unfortunate tragedy.

3. By attempting to steal the election, the Ayatollah and President attempted to change the rules of the game, and in doing so destroyed their own legitimacy. In a sense, this uprising would be more difficult if Iran was not a country with a democratic (if somewhat limited) electoral process. Although historically brief, Iranians value their democratic rights. By trying to steal the election, it is possible that the Ayatollah has done irreparable harm by publicly discrediting Iran’s representative institutions. Even if this uprising is not enough to immediately displace Ahmadinejad, it seems odds of his long-term political survival have been severely weakened. Don’t be surprised if you see a landslide victory in the next election for his opponent.

The current conflict is a microcosm of a global struggle between religious elites and secular intellectuals.

This is a tempting analogy, but I’m going to disagree with the parallel you draw between America’s political dichotomy and Iranian politics for a couple of reasons. First, the de facto leader of the protestors, Mousavi, is anything but a secular intellectual. The 68-year-old former Prime Minister has a longstanding association with the status quo of Iranian politics and his idea of reform are small token changes like relaxing laws governing the wearing of a hijab. Iran remains a theocracy with a deep cultural commitment to its religious ancestry. Religion permeates every aspect of society and will likely continue to in the future. This is not to say that there is not an internal battle within Islam between old school clerics and their reform-minded counterparts. But to say that this is a battle between religious and secular groups ignores the distinctly religious context within which this political conflict is being played out. I’m not sure if we are seeing any evidence of Iran or other Middle Eastern countries becoming more secular societies—societies in which the lines between religion, culture, and government are impossible to distinguish.

President Obama is correct to temper his criticisms of the Iranian government because the U.S. has no right to undermine the sovereignty of another nation by interfering with domestic elections. 

I am going to agree with your point but for a different reason. I think Obama has shown an appropriate amount of caution with his measured response to the post-election conflict in Iran. He seems to be avoiding the common Washington trap of optimism for regime change and realizes that at this point the US could do more to harm to our interests in the region that help them through any public pressure we could put on Iran’s leaders. Where I disagree is the reason why he is correct in doing so. The claim that the United States has no right to undermine the sovereignty of another nation by interfering with domestic elections ignores the fact that we have historically done this dozens upon dozens upon dozens of times. We will continue to do this throughout history dozens and dozens of times because the current geo-political structure of the international politics lends itself to a realist approach to foreign policy. As long as U.S. economic and national security interests sprawl across the globe, our leaders will continue to use hard and soft powers both publicly and privately to influence the course of history in our favor. Or at least that’s what we’ll try to do. Whether we succeed in achieving this goal is another question with a mixed answer, but I’ll save that for another post (if you ever let me back after this admittedly verbose reply).