VIENNA — The U.S. and Canada challenged Iran’s claims that hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election, but much of the rest of the world remained silent Saturday despite claims of fraud and scenes of clashes on the streets of Tehran.
For the Middle East and West alike, the stakes were high. Iran is a key economic player in the region, a perceived threat to Israel’s national security — and a major worry for the U.S. and allies who fear Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon.
Supporters of pro-reform candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi alleged that the outcome was rigged after Ahmadinejad’s government declared him the victor in a landslide. The U.S. refused to accept Ahmadinejad’s claim of a landslide, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she hoped the outcome reflected the “genuine will and desire” of Iranian voters.
“We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran, but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide,” Clinton told reporters in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said his country, too, was “deeply concerned” by reports of irregularities.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said concerns about ballot counting that candidates have expressed are an issue for Iranian authorities to address.
“Our priority is that Iran engages with the concerns of the world community, above all on the issue of nuclear proliferation,” he said.
But most countries appeared to be taking a wait-and-see approach, including the European Union and China, Germany, Italy and Japan — nations with strong economic ties to Iran.
France said it was closely following the situation.
About 200 Iranians protested outside the Iranian Embassy in London. Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, denounced the outcome as “a Tehran Tiananmen” — a reference to China’s brutal 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists — and urged the international community not to recognize the result.
President Barack Obama has offered dialogue with Iran after a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze between the two nations. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and geared solely toward generating electricity; U.S. officials contend it’s trying to enrich uranium to weapons grade.
Privately, many diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency — the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog — said they expected little change regardless of who wound up in charge of Iran’s government.
That’s because Iran’s main policies and any major decisions, such as possible talks with Washington or nuclear policies, rest with the ruling clerics headed by Iran’s unelected supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
More Ahmadinejad spells less change, said former President Jimmy Carter.
“I don’t think it will have any real effect because the same person will be there as has been there,” Carter said after meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “I think this election has brought out a lot of opposition to his policies in Iran, and I’m sure he’ll listen to those opinions and hopefully moderate his position.”
