Tehran Calling: Day 3

The major political newspapers here in the states aren't buying the notion of election fraud in Iran, in fact both the Washington Post and the New York Times are pushing the notion that Ahmedinejad won fairly. First the Post:

The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.

While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.

Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.

The Times too seems to think that the Iranian people spoke clearly on Friday, and that either way, Ahmadinejad is now the man in charge.

Whether his 63 percent victory is truly the will of the people or the result of fraud, it demonstrated that Mr. Ahmadinejad is the shrewd and ruthless front man for a clerical, military and political elite that is more unified and emboldened than at any time since the 1979 revolution.

As president, Mr. Ahmadinejad is subordinate to the country’s true authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who commands final say over all matters of state and faith. With this election, Mr. Khamenei and his protégé appear to have neutralized for now the reform forces that they saw as a threat to their power, political analysts said.

“This will change the face of the Islamic Republic forever,” said one well-connected Iranian, who like most of those interviewed declined to be named in the current tense climate. “Ahmadinejad will claim an absolute mandate, meaning he has no need to compromise.”

So what's going on here? Two things: the US press got scooped by Twitter feeds from Iran and now they are casting doubt on the information coming from there. Second, let's not forget the neo-cons want us to see Iran as The Enemy, and that the idea of a compliant Iranian populace plays right into the scenario proposed by guys like Max Boot.

On the principle of “the worse the better” for our enemies–and, make no mistake, Iran is our enemy–it is possible to take some small degree of satisfaction from the outcome of Iran’s elections.

If the mullahs were really canny, they would have let Mousavi win. He would have presented a more reasonable face to the world without changing the grim underlying realities of Iran’s regime–the oppression, the support for terrorism, the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. He is the kind of “moderate” with whom the Obama administration could happily engage in endless negotiations which probably would not accomplish anything except to buy time for Iran to weaponize its fissile material.

But instead it appears that the mullahocracy was determined to anoint Ahmadinejad the winner–and by a margin which no one can take seriously as a true representation of Iranian popular will. Ahmadinejad is about the worst spokesman possible to make Iran’s case to the West–a president who denies the Holocaust, calls for Israel’s eradication, claims there are no homosexuals in Iran, and generally comes off like a denizen of an alternative universe. Even the Obama administration will be hard put to enter into serious negotiations with Ahmadinejad, especially when his scant credibility has been undermined by these utterly fraudulent elections and the resulting street protests.

In other words, an Ahmedinejad re-election means it's much more likely that Israel will attack Iran, and that Obama will allow it.

Should the regime instead be brought down from within, why, we might be willing to see Iranians as human beings interested in basic freedoms and democracy rather than an Islamist madhouse run by loonies intent on bombing Israel out of existence.

Remember who's running the press in this country. Remember that the notion that Iranians being willing to choose Ahmadinejad mean the neocons can claim Obama's overtures of peace are useless and were rejected by the Islamists of Iran. The Cairo speech was a flop! See, you can't trust anyone in Iran! They want to get nuclear weapons to destroy Israel!

Brave Iranian resistors fighting for democracy doesn't jibe with the narrative. Iranians rejecting Obama and wanting to re-elect a madman does jibe.

[UPDATE] Juan Cole calls BS on the Post article.