Getting Iran (Loudly) Wrong: Posturing for Mr Ahmadinejad and Mr Hitchens

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A couple of fine examples of how to wedge events in Iran into personal and political prejudices and agendas. In Asia Times Online, Mahan Abedin charts "The Rise and Rise of Ahmadinejad" with the claim:

[He is] the most formidable leader of a faction that has incrementally broadened and deepened the scope of its reach and influence within the regime to the point where it is now completely dominant. Factional politics in the Islamic Republic - as we know it - has collapsed....All the other factions, particularly the once-powerful Islamic left, are in complete disarray. Their leaders have been exposed as losers and their supporters have been left demoralized by the entire state machinery's acquiescence in the final victory of the Islamic right.

To call this analysis "quirky", in light of Ahmadinejad's political floundering in the last three weeks would be generous. A less charitable reading would be that Abedin wants to wipe out any alternative to the President: "The biggest loser of all is former prime minister Mousavi....Another great loser is former president and arch-oligarch Rafsanjani....Many other core establishment figures, including losing presidential contender Mehdi Karroubi and former Majlis (parliament) speaker Nategh Nouri, are expected to be edged out."

Which means that, presto magico!, Ahmadinejad stands atop "a new consensus" in Iran: "While the contours of a broader political alliance have still to be worked out, there are indications that at the grassroots level at least a substantial number of Islamic left personalities and activists are willing to fall behind Ahmadinejad and accept the public hegemony of the Islamic right."

Meanwhile, swerving violently from the other direction, Christopher Hitchens in Salon finally finds the moment to vindicate his 7-year "liberation of Iraq" shout-out by linking it to the "liberation of Iran". Unfortunately, that moment is based on the wildly inaccurate New York Times story of 5 July that "the most important clerical group" in Iran had come out against the regime:

So it is very hard to overstate the significance of the statement made last Saturday by the Association of Teachers and Researchers of Qum, a much-respected source of religious rulings, which has in effect come right out with it and said that the recent farcical and prearranged plebiscite in the country was just that: a sham event. (In this, the clerics of Qum are a lot more clear-eyed than many American "experts" on Iranian public opinion, who were busy until recently writing about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the rough-hewn man of the people.)

This shaky pretext self-justifies Hitchens in the ignorance of every internal dynamic in Iran, apart from Ayatollah Khomeini's "good" grandon Sayeed, in favour of an Iraqi platform:

Did the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the subsequent holding of competitive elections in which many rival Iraqi Shiite parties took part, have any germinal influence on the astonishing events in Iran? Certainly when I interviewed Sayeed Khomeini in Qum some years ago, where he spoke openly about "the liberation of Iraq," he seemed to hope and believe that the example would spread. One swallow does not make a summer. But consider this: Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran's regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a "let's pretend" election and even then tries to fix the outcome. Iranians by no means like to take their tune from Arabs—perhaps least of all from Iraqis—but watching something like the real thing next door may well have increased the appetite for the genuine article in Iran itself.

The silver lining in this cloud of promoting, posturing and preening analysis is that it's much easier to expose by going to the real "experts" in this story, the folks getting information out of Iran by any means necessary. So, farewell, "Rise and Rise of Ahmadinejad". Bye bye, Christopher. Hello, new media.

Comments

[hass]

There's still no actual evidence of election fraud in Iran -- see IranAffairs.com for the breakdown of the claims and counterclaims. Think for a moment: Mousavi was specifically vetted and cleared to run for office because he is a former Prime Minister and regime insider -- and yet his election was supposedly such a threat that the regime had to resort to massive election fraud to prevent his victory? Nonsense.

[Scott Lucas]

Hass,

You've posted this line of argument before. The issue is "transparency", which takes it beyond the specifics of the vote and "recount" and to the legitimacy of the system. That is probably why Kashani at Friday prayers offered the concession of a Parliamentary review of the electoral process.

S.

[l.f.]

Hass,

Your last statement is a straw-man argument and mischaracterizes the circumstances surrounding the election. No one is saying that the regime wanted to "prevent" Mousavi's victory, the claim is that the desired outcome was determined beforehand and both Ahmadinejad and Mousavi were asked to play along. No one tried to "defeat" Mousavi because it was assumed that Mousavi, being a regime insider, could be pressured to go along with this for the good of the republic.

It is also a straw-man argument to repeat "there's still no actual evidence," and the link you provide does not support this vague, categorical claim. There are certainly many valid questions which have not been answered, and some of those asking the questions (legally!) are violently silenced (of this there is plenty of evidence). The issue of "evidence" is entirely beside the point.

l.f.

[Dr. Charles E. Gannon]

No evidence? Hmmm....seems to me the whole issue boils down to lack of access to the sources/repositories of data that would, in fact, constitute the evidence. As Scott says, it's about "transparency." Discussions of evidence are moot so long as the state apparatus is actively and effectively denying access to it.
First the horse, THEN the cart...

[hass]

I see, so evidence is besides the point.
LOL!!!
ANd you're conspiracy theory about Mousavi is ranting which makes no sense.