Did Bush affect the outcome in Iran?
On Thursday, the Washington Post reported Bush taking a hard line on Iran's presidential election:
"Today, Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world," Bush said. "Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy. The June 17th presidential elections are sadly consistent with this oppressive record."
Addressing the Iranian people, Bush added: "As you stand for your own liberty, the people of America stand with you."
At least tacitly, the Whitehouse endorsed the idea that Iranian liberals should sit on their hands during the presidential election to express their dissatisfaction with the regime. As it turned out, the first round of the Iraqi presendential election ended on Friday with reported 63% turnout. The results (from Wikipedia) are as follows:
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani 21.01%
Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad 19.48%
Mehdi Karroubi 17.28%
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf 13.90%
Mostafa Moeen 13.83%
Ali Larijani 5.94%
Mohsen Mehralizadeh 4.40%
Blank or invalid votes 4.17%
Ahmadinezhad, the anti-liberalization (appointed) mayor of Tehran, is universally considered the conservative hardliner in the field (though also a populist who called for greater aid to the poor as an expression of piety). Juan Cole describes him as a "very bad guy" and links to this interesting interview with him. At the very least, he was the most overtly Khomeinist, anti-American candidate in an election in which, according to articles in TNR, the Economist and the Christian Science Monitor, the candidates outbid each other to appear young, forward-thinking, independent and reformist, and to thereby surmount the generally reported apathy for the vote among Iranian youth. By contrast, according to the WaPo's Karl Vick, Ahmadinezhad had a niche: "His campaign posters were printed in black and white. A half-hour television special dwelled on the modesty of his home, a traditional Iranian house furnished with only a chair at the desk he shared with his father. "Where's the swimming pool?" the narrator asked. Several voters had described him as refreshingly authentic.
Today, he told a meeting of Parliamentians that he saw no reason to negociate Iran's nuclear ambitions with the West.
Western commentators seem to think Rafsanjani -- who was a profoundly unreformist Iranian president from 1987 to 1995 but has restlyed himself as a "pragmatic conservative" with insider heft and who was always in the running for one of the two top spots -- will win next week's runoff vote easily (although Windsteed at Tehran-based Iran Votes 2005 is pessimistic). But a look at the polls right before the election reveals that Ahmadinezhad essentially came out of nowhere.
A June 12th poll by IRNA found Ahmadinezhad with only 7.7% of support, compared to 27.1% for Rafsanjani, the reformer Moeen with 18.9%, the conservative Qalibaf with 16.5% and moderate reformist cleric Karroubi at 11.3%.
An IASP poll (translated at Kos) released a day later found Ahmadinezhad at only 9.9%, trailing Rafsanjani at 21.7%, Ghalibaf at 14.7% and Moeen at 11.5%.
As late as Thursday, the BBC reported that "Expert projections suggest most votes will be shared between Mr Rafsanjani, former hardline police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and reformist Mostafa Moin." The same day, the Christian Science Monitor profiled Ghalibaf (Qalibaf), Moeen (Moin) and Rafsanjani as the frontrunners (almost the whole mainstream Western media, both centrist and conservative, seem to have had an almost ludicrously strong, and possibly blindering, pro-Moeen bias).
What happened? Several quarters (including the Moeen and Karroubi campaigns and National Review) have alleged fraud by the mullahs (spectacular fraud according to NR) but so far most of the Western media, and the White House, has been slow to endorse the idea that the mullahs completely rigged the election -- and it appears the reformists will have to be mollified by the partial recount that the Guardians Council ok'ed. The Boston Globe also reports that the boycott called by Iranian reformist youth to protest the Supreme Council's vetting and disqualification of various candidates depressed turnout in the capital, Tehran, below the national average, thereby allowing Ahmadinejad to win his home turf on the strength of the conservative vote there.
The other leading candidate factor is ginned-up anti-Americanism. That's how the regime is playing it of course: Interior Minister Kamal Karazi called the election results a "big no" to the United States. But the A.P has also endorsed this angle:
"I say to Bush: 'Thank you,'" quipped Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi. "He motivated people to vote in retaliation."
Bush's comments - blasting the ruling clerics for blocking "basic requirements of democracy" - became a lively sideshow in Iran's closest election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and highlighted again the United States' often crossed-wire efforts to isolate Iran.
..."Unknowingly, [Bush] pushed Iranians to vote so that they can prove their loyalty to the regime, even if they are in disagreement with it," said Hamed al-Abdullah, a political science professor at Kuwait University.
(For a view closer to home, the proprietor of Iranian political blog The Adventures of Mr. Behi recently debated the issue with four of his commentators though none of the other Iranian reform blogs seem to have weighed in on the topic.)
The two possibilities -- vote fraud and a whipping up of anti-American fervour combined with a depressed reformist vote -- aren't mutually exclusive. If Bush's remarks produced even slightly higher conservative turnout or provoked even slightly more screw-the-West sentiment among Iranian voters, it would become that much easier for the regime to fudge the results in favour of the hardliners and to quash complaints of fraud (which they've done, with relish). On the flip side, if Bush and the hawks helped increase enthusiasm for the the ill-conceived reformist boycott of the presidential poll (these boycotts basically never work, and they certainly didn't work for Iraq's Sunni population six months ago), then they just delivered a blow to the very candidates they, and the rest of the West, needed to serve as a counter-balance to the mullahs, particularly in future nuke talks.
At the very least, by waving the big stick, the Bushies set themselves up for a big snub, and possibly did much worse damage than that (we'll know on Friday). Today's wishy-washy post election comments aside, the White House might want to consider being a little more cautious -- or maybe shutting the hell up about what Iranians ought to do and whether they ought to vote -- until after Friday's runoff.
"Today, Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world," Bush said. "Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy. The June 17th presidential elections are sadly consistent with this oppressive record."
Addressing the Iranian people, Bush added: "As you stand for your own liberty, the people of America stand with you."
At least tacitly, the Whitehouse endorsed the idea that Iranian liberals should sit on their hands during the presidential election to express their dissatisfaction with the regime. As it turned out, the first round of the Iraqi presendential election ended on Friday with reported 63% turnout. The results (from Wikipedia) are as follows:
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani 21.01%
Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad 19.48%
Mehdi Karroubi 17.28%
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf 13.90%
Mostafa Moeen 13.83%
Ali Larijani 5.94%
Mohsen Mehralizadeh 4.40%
Blank or invalid votes 4.17%
Ahmadinezhad, the anti-liberalization (appointed) mayor of Tehran, is universally considered the conservative hardliner in the field (though also a populist who called for greater aid to the poor as an expression of piety). Juan Cole describes him as a "very bad guy" and links to this interesting interview with him. At the very least, he was the most overtly Khomeinist, anti-American candidate in an election in which, according to articles in TNR, the Economist and the Christian Science Monitor, the candidates outbid each other to appear young, forward-thinking, independent and reformist, and to thereby surmount the generally reported apathy for the vote among Iranian youth. By contrast, according to the WaPo's Karl Vick, Ahmadinezhad had a niche: "His campaign posters were printed in black and white. A half-hour television special dwelled on the modesty of his home, a traditional Iranian house furnished with only a chair at the desk he shared with his father. "Where's the swimming pool?" the narrator asked. Several voters had described him as refreshingly authentic.
Today, he told a meeting of Parliamentians that he saw no reason to negociate Iran's nuclear ambitions with the West.
Western commentators seem to think Rafsanjani -- who was a profoundly unreformist Iranian president from 1987 to 1995 but has restlyed himself as a "pragmatic conservative" with insider heft and who was always in the running for one of the two top spots -- will win next week's runoff vote easily (although Windsteed at Tehran-based Iran Votes 2005 is pessimistic). But a look at the polls right before the election reveals that Ahmadinezhad essentially came out of nowhere.
A June 12th poll by IRNA found Ahmadinezhad with only 7.7% of support, compared to 27.1% for Rafsanjani, the reformer Moeen with 18.9%, the conservative Qalibaf with 16.5% and moderate reformist cleric Karroubi at 11.3%.
An IASP poll (translated at Kos) released a day later found Ahmadinezhad at only 9.9%, trailing Rafsanjani at 21.7%, Ghalibaf at 14.7% and Moeen at 11.5%.
As late as Thursday, the BBC reported that "Expert projections suggest most votes will be shared between Mr Rafsanjani, former hardline police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and reformist Mostafa Moin." The same day, the Christian Science Monitor profiled Ghalibaf (Qalibaf), Moeen (Moin) and Rafsanjani as the frontrunners (almost the whole mainstream Western media, both centrist and conservative, seem to have had an almost ludicrously strong, and possibly blindering, pro-Moeen bias).
What happened? Several quarters (including the Moeen and Karroubi campaigns and National Review) have alleged fraud by the mullahs (spectacular fraud according to NR) but so far most of the Western media, and the White House, has been slow to endorse the idea that the mullahs completely rigged the election -- and it appears the reformists will have to be mollified by the partial recount that the Guardians Council ok'ed. The Boston Globe also reports that the boycott called by Iranian reformist youth to protest the Supreme Council's vetting and disqualification of various candidates depressed turnout in the capital, Tehran, below the national average, thereby allowing Ahmadinejad to win his home turf on the strength of the conservative vote there.
The other leading candidate factor is ginned-up anti-Americanism. That's how the regime is playing it of course: Interior Minister Kamal Karazi called the election results a "big no" to the United States. But the A.P has also endorsed this angle:
"I say to Bush: 'Thank you,'" quipped Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi. "He motivated people to vote in retaliation."
Bush's comments - blasting the ruling clerics for blocking "basic requirements of democracy" - became a lively sideshow in Iran's closest election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and highlighted again the United States' often crossed-wire efforts to isolate Iran.
..."Unknowingly, [Bush] pushed Iranians to vote so that they can prove their loyalty to the regime, even if they are in disagreement with it," said Hamed al-Abdullah, a political science professor at Kuwait University.
(For a view closer to home, the proprietor of Iranian political blog The Adventures of Mr. Behi recently debated the issue with four of his commentators though none of the other Iranian reform blogs seem to have weighed in on the topic.)
The two possibilities -- vote fraud and a whipping up of anti-American fervour combined with a depressed reformist vote -- aren't mutually exclusive. If Bush's remarks produced even slightly higher conservative turnout or provoked even slightly more screw-the-West sentiment among Iranian voters, it would become that much easier for the regime to fudge the results in favour of the hardliners and to quash complaints of fraud (which they've done, with relish). On the flip side, if Bush and the hawks helped increase enthusiasm for the the ill-conceived reformist boycott of the presidential poll (these boycotts basically never work, and they certainly didn't work for Iraq's Sunni population six months ago), then they just delivered a blow to the very candidates they, and the rest of the West, needed to serve as a counter-balance to the mullahs, particularly in future nuke talks.
At the very least, by waving the big stick, the Bushies set themselves up for a big snub, and possibly did much worse damage than that (we'll know on Friday). Today's wishy-washy post election comments aside, the White House might want to consider being a little more cautious -- or maybe shutting the hell up about what Iranians ought to do and whether they ought to vote -- until after Friday's runoff.
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