Iran: Desperately Seeking Sensible US Comment about 22 Bahman

Of course, snap reaction from the US of this week's events in Iran was unlikely to catch the depth of the developments and the prospects for the future. The disturbing while gleeful response of Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett was to be expected. (And, yes, I use "disturbing" without reservation: have a look at their "analysis" to see how they try to wipe away the post-election detentions, trials, and abuses.) Unsurprisingly, some Bush-era advocates of US power, having embraced the Green movement for "regime change", backtracked when the Government did not fall on Thursday --- Charles Krauthammer pronounced, "The regime has succeeded today, and unless there is some later demonstration of the power of the opposition, it could be a turning point in this process and the one that the regime will celebrate."

However, what is most disturbing is how an analyst like Marc Lynch, normally quite good about Middle Eastern affairs, could issue this declaration after a superficial review of 22 Bahman and the Green movement, "I fully believe that the Iranian regime is more unpopular and less legitimate than ever before -- but just don't see it as especially vulnerable at the moment." It is disturbing not because Lynch is duplicitous; to the contrary, he carries enough weight of expertise and of honesty in his approach for his analysis to race around the Washington network of political columnists as the final wisdom on the subject.


(A similar point could be made about Juan Cole, another influential interpreter of the Middle East and Iran, with his reductionist conclusion: "Ahmadinejad has his Alliance of Builders in Tehran, and is backed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij paramilitary, and other security forces. Musavi has the little flashmobs who couldn't, at least on Thursday.")

I understand and sympathise with Lynch's motives --- "We'd all do better if we could focus public discourse less on hopes for regime change and war, and more on the less sexy but more helpful question of how to make a negotiations strategy work" --- but he has fallen prey to the trap of "raised expectations", even as he identifies it in his article. To declare the regime and Government secure, when those who have been watching the situation for months have held to "marathon, not a sprint", is a short-cut based more on analytic expediency than on careful study.

And Lynch's portrayal of the choices is a straw-man to match his reading of events. Pronouncing "regime change" (which is more an option created by those outside Iran, rather than those protesting inside the country) and "war" (which is a remote possibility in the near-future) as the only alternatives to sitting down with the Ahmadinejad Government is just as much a deception as the manoeuvres of the Leveretts or the Bush-era advocates of "down with the mullahs".

(Indeed, Lynch's conclusion puts him alongside the Leveretts, even if his analysis is put much more honestly and thoughtfully than their bang-the-drum advocacy.)

Instead of declaring the opposition dead or peripheral, perhaps one should do it the justice of considering that the best alternative to negotiations with Tehran is simply no grand declarations and "no negotiations". The battle over political authority is one which should be left to Iranians. Conferring legitimacy on a Government that many of them see as illegitimate is an unnecessary intervention; it is adding insult to injury to distort and minimise the "Green movement" in support of that strategy.