[Peace-discuss] Phil Wilayto: "Some Observations on the Iranian Presidential Election and Its Aftermath"

[Robert Naiman]

yeah, it's interesting how many of the arguments being made that the
Iranian election was obviously stolen fall apart immediately when you
apply them to the U.S.


On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 12:59 AM, Stuart Levy<slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> Phil Wilayto, who spoke here about Iran a few months ago,
> said some illuminating things at the time -- including that, as Iran's is
> a very class-stratified system, you couldn't understand a comment
> by an Iranian about their society without considering the status of the speaker.
>
> [Of course that applies no less to the US.  It's just tempting for us
> as outsiders to fall into thinking that there is one Iranian reality
> which any Iranian, big fish or small, would see in the same way.]
>
> I've had this in mind a lot over the last few days.  As when hearing
> the flat statement on NPR yesterday, by an Iranian in the US, that
> no one could believe that the Iranian people could possibly have
> voted for Ahmadinejad after seeing how badly the country had been run
> over the last few years.  (We could've said the same about Bush in 2004.
> That election may well have been stolen, but despite what we
> might have hoped of our fellow Americans, it was no landslide.)
>
>
> Anyway, Wilayto has an interesting piece on Truthout.org today.
> Excerpts below, but please see the full article too.
>
>    http://www.truthout.org/061909R
>
>    Some Observations on the Iranian Presidential Election and Its Aftermath
>
>
> [...]
>
> The dominant view among Western commentators, as well as some progressive
> members of the Iranian diaspora, is that Mousavi is a "reformer" who
> favors loosening restrictions on civil liberties within Iran, while being
> more open to a less hostile relationship with the West.  Ahmadinejad,
> on the other hand, is described as a "hardliner" who demagogically
> appeals to the poor, while making deliberately provocative statements
> about the United States and Israel in order to bolster his standing in
> the Islamic world.
>
> In my opinion, both of the above characterizations are superficial. The
> fundamental contradiction between the two leading candidates has to
> do with their respective bases of support and, more importantly, their
> different approaches to the economy.
>
> Ahmadinejad, himself born into rural poverty, clearly has the support
> of the poorer classes, especially in the countryside where nearly half
> the population lives. Why? In part because he pays attention to them,
> makes sure they receive some benefits from the government and treats
> them and their religious views and traditions with respect.  Mousavi,
> on the other hand, the son of an urban merchant, clearly appeals more
> to the urban middle classes, especially the college-educated youth.  This
> being so, why would anyone be surprised that Ahmadinejad carried the vote
> by a clear majority?  Are there now more yuppies in Iran than poor people?
>
> Why is there so little discussion of the issue of class in this election?
> Is it because so many professional and semi-professional commentators
> on Iran are themselves from the same class as Mousavi's supporters, and
> so instinctively identify with them?  Myself, I'm a worker, and a former
> union organizer.  When I watched the videos and viewed the photos of the
> pro-Mousavi rallies in Tehran and other cities, I didn't feel elated -
> I felt a chill. To me, this didn't look like a liberal reform movement,
> it felt like a movement whose real target is a government that exercises
> a "preferential option for the poor," to use the words of Christian
> liberation theology.
>
> How about the economy?
>
> A big issue in Iran - virtually never discussed in the US media - is how
> to interpret Article 44 of the country's constitution. That article states
> that the economy must consist of three sectors: state-owned, cooperative
> and private, and that "all large-scale and mother industries" are to be
> entirely owned by the state. This includes the oil and gas industries,
> which provide the government with the majority of its revenue. This
> is what enables the government, in partnership with the large charity
> foundations, to fund the vast social safety net that allows the country's
> poor to live much better lives than they did under the US-installed Shah.
>
> In 2004, Article 44 was amended to allow for some privatization. Just
> how much and how swiftly that process should proceed is a fundamental
> dividing line in Iranian politics. Mousavi has promised to speed up the
> privatization process.  And when he first announced he would run for
> the presidency, he called for moving away from an "alms-based" economy
> (PressTV, 4/13/09), an obvious reference to Ahmadinejad's policies of
> providing services and benefits to the poor.
>
> In addition to their different class bases and approaches to the economy,
> Ahmadinejad presents an uncompromising front against the West,
> and especially against the US government. This is a source of great
> national pride and has produced some positive results. For example,
> President Obama has now actually admitted, at least in part, that it was
> the US that in 1953 overthrew the democratically elected government of
> Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh.
>
> [...]
>
> Further, there's the nature of Mousavi's election campaign. Obama called
> it a "robust" debate, which it certainly was, and a good refutation of
> the lie that Iran has no democracy. But it is also a political movement,
> one capable of drawing large crowds out into the streets, ready to engage
> in street battles with the president's supporters and now the police.
>
> Is it possible that the US government, its military and its 16
> intelligence agencies are piously standing on the sidelines of this
> developing conflict, respecting Iran's right to work out its internal
> differences on its own? Could we expect that approach from the same
> government that still maintains its own 30-year sanctions against Iran,
> is responsible for three sets of UN-imposed sanctions, annually spends
> $70 to 90 million to fund "dissident" organizations within Iran and,
> according to the respected investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, actually
> has US military personnel on the ground within Iran, supporting terrorist
> organizations like the Jundallah and trying to foment armed rebellions
> against the government?
>
> The point has been made that US neocons were hoping for an Ahmadinejad
> victory, on the theory that he makes a convenient target for
> Iran-bashers. But the neocons are no longer in power in Washington. They
> got voted out of office and are back to writing position papers for
> right-wing think tanks. We now have a "pragmatic" administration, one
> that would like to first dialog with the countries it seeks to control.
>
> I think what is important to realize is that Washington wasn't just hoping
> for a "reform" candidate to win the election - it's been hoping for an
> anti-government movement that looks to the West for its political and
> economic inspiration. Mousavi backer and former President Akbar Hashemi
> Rafsanjani is a free-market advocate and businessman whom Forbes magazine
> includes in its list of the world's richest people. Does Rafsanjani
> identify with or seek to speak for the poor? Does Mousavi?
>
> What kind of Iran are the Mousavi forces really hoping to create? And why
> is Washington - whose preference for "democracy" is trumped every time by
> its insatiable appetite for raw materials, cheap labor, new markets and
> endless profits - so sympathetic to the "reform" movements in Iran and
> in every other country whose people have nationalized its own resources?
>
> [...]
>
> The days ahead promise to be challenging ones for all those who oppose
> war, sanctions and interference in the internal affairs of the Islamic
> Republic of Iran. As we pursue that work, it would be good not to get
> caught up in what is sure to be a tsunami of criticism of a government
> trying to resolve a crisis that in all likelihood is not entirely homegrown.
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-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org