[Peace-discuss] IPS: Iranian-Americans move towards Obama

[Robert Naiman]

POLITICS-US: Iranian-Americans Seek Least-Hawkish Candidate
By Omid Memarian*

BERKELEY, California, Feb 6 (IPS) - Jaded toward their government back
home and cynical of the current U.S. administration and the
Republicans they historically supported, a new generation of
Iranian-Americans appears to be looking to Barack Obama to bring about
change, especially with regards to U.S. foreign policy toward Iran.

Many observers believe the refusal by the other leading Democrat for
the presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton, to rule out
force against Iran in campaign statements, paired with her strong
support of Israel, has substantially weakened her support in the
community.

What troubles Iranian-American voters is the uncertainty about Senator
Clinton's position on employing military force against Iran. At least
with the leading Republican presidential contender, the option is
clear: John McCain believes that Iran is resolute on the destruction
of Israel and favours sanctions and military action against Tehran.

"Every option must remain on the table. Military action isn't our
preference. It remains, as it always must, the last option," said
McCain during a speech to the group Christians United for Israel last
July. Unfortunately, his rendition of the Beach Boys song entitled
"Barbara Ann", i.e. "bomb, bomb, bomb, (pause), bomb, bomb Iran"
earlier this year clearly depicted his frame of mine.

Other Republican contenders, such as Mitt Romney, hold a similar
stance: "There is one place of course where I'd welcome [Iranian
President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad with open arms: and that's in a court
where he would stand trial for incitement to genocide, under the terms
of the Genocide Convention," Romney said.

The 2000 census estimates the number of Iranians in the United States
at 330,000, more than half of them living in California. This figure
reflects a major wave of immigration in the years immediately
following the 1979 revolution. Iranian-American political and
community groups believe the estimate is vastly understated and that
the population in fact may be as high as one million.

"We are witnessing a rather stark shift in the Iranian-American
community," Trita Parsi, director of National Iranian American
Council, a nationwide non-partisan institute based in Washington, told
IPS. "The Republican Party has lost much support in the community, and
it doesn't help that McCain is the likely Republican candidate,
mindful of his singing about bombing Iran. This breaks a pattern in
which the community has tended to support the Republican Party for
fiscal reasons."

"Obama's momentum seems to be even stronger in the community than in
the country in general. Many people I've spoken to tend to believe
that the difference between Clinton and Bush isn't great enough,"
Parsi said. "Her vote in favour of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment [which
threatens to "combat, contain and (stop)" Iran] has particularly hurt
her in the community, and reinforced the perception of her proximity
to the Bush foreign policy."

Traditionally, Iranian-Americans who left Iran during or just after
the revolution, and have fostered hopes of government change since
then, vote Republican. However, almost 30 years later,
Iranian-Americans seem to be shifting towards a candidate who will
take a less hawkish position on U.S. policy toward Iran.

While they have little sympathy for, and indeed are deeply suspicious
of the hardliner government of President Ahmadinejad, polls show that
they are nonetheless strongly opposed to any kind of military action
against Iran. Most say the last thing they favour is a U.S. invasion
or bombing of Iran, and to see the country follow a fate similar to
Afghanistan or Iraq, and endure the destruction that ensued its
neighbors and bear millions of homeless and refugees.

Dr. Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Programme at
Stanford University, co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the
Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, and an influential figure among
Iranian-Americans in San Francisco's Bay Area, where Obama just won an
endorsement from an Iranian American Democrats, finds the difference
in popularity of Clinton and Obama to be minimal.

"They both said that they are willing to negotiate. Obama has been
more forceful and categorical and here, based on the empirical
evidence that we have, the diaspora overwhelmingly wants principal
dialogue, and both of these people seem to confirm that desire."

He believes Clinton's harsher rhetoric stems from the fact that she
represents New York, a state with a relatively large Jewish population
that is inclined toward Israel and prefers a tougher stance on Iran.

 Although it was during her husband's presidency that Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright apologised to Iranians for the U.S.
involvement in the 1953 coup, which overthrew one of Iran's most
popular and democratic governments, Senator Clinton's harsh rhetoric
against Iran scares many Iranian-Americans who have family and deep
cultural roots back home.

Last February, Clinton spoke at a Manhattan dinner held by the largest
pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S., the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of
Israel's greatest threats. She mimicked President Bush when telling a
crowd of Israel supporters that "U.S. policy must be clear and
unequivocal: we cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to
build or acquire nuclear weapons. In dealing with this threat ... no
option can be taken off the table."

Even if Senator Clinton has no serious intention of striking Iran, her
rhetoric during the last year has made her unpopular among the new
generation of Iranian-Americans.

Additionally, unlike Obama, she voted in favour of the Iran Counter
Proliferation Act, calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a
"terrorist organisation". She has defended her position, stating,
"This resolution in no way authorises or sanctions military action
against Iran and instead seeks to end the Bush administration's
diplomatic inaction in the region."

The editor of one of the most popular websites among the
Iranian-American community, Jahanshah Javid, said that, "among those
who have blogged on Iranian.com in recent weeks, (they) have mostly
supported democratic candidates, especially because of their positions
on foreign policy which appears to be less militaristic."

However, he was also feeling the winds of change are blowing toward
Obama, "because he has clearly stated that he favours negotiations
with Iran."

*Omid Memarian is a peace fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism
at the University of California, Berkeley. He has won several awards,
including Human Rights Watch's highest honour in 2005, the Human
Rights Defender Award.