The stormy Iranian elections are one more sign of how the world has been shaken up in the age of Barack Obama. The ruling mullahs are nervous about a threat to the regime; the opposition is in the streets protesting what they claim is a rigged election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is claiming a new mandate, but what the world sees is the regime’s vulnerability.
On Monday, at the end of an Oval Office meeting with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, Obama said it’s up to Iran to determine its own leader, but that it would be wrong for America to stay silent.
The remarks were his first on the disputed outcome of Iran’s election, but don’t go far enough to address this ferment in Iran, a process that he has subtly encouraged. I’d argue that he should continue with the line he took in his Cairo speech two weeks ago — speaking directly to Muslim publics even as he proposes dialogue with the repressive regimes that govern Iran and many other nations.
Obama would make a mistake if he seemed to meddle in Iranian politics. That would give the mullahs the foreign enemy they need to discredit the reformers. The decisive pressure will come not from Washington, but from the international spotlight focused on the extraordinary drama.
The wild card is whether the young protesters will stay in the streets, forcing the mullahs to take strong, and potentially destabilizing, action against them. One knowledgeable former CIA officer says that Iranian protests appear to be “loosely organized,” with no outside help.
U.S. intelligence officials say it’s quite possible Ahmadinejad actually did win Friday’s election — though with a lower total than the 63 percent the regime is claiming. But he cautioned: “Our ability to peer into the Iranian election machinery is very limited.”
Obama’s opening to Iran seems to have encouraged the supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister who finished second — and whose supporters have been rioting the past few days. “A growing portion of the Iranian public sees an opening with the U.S. as positive, and Obama has encouraged that,” the intelligence official explained.
The well-spoken Mousavi and his charismatic wife were a tonic for Iranians who have been embarrassed by Ahmadinejad’s crude tirades. “They are tired of being laughed at and spurned,” said the intelligence official, who closely monitors information from Iran and other Muslim countries.
U.S. intelligence officials consulted with the White House as speechwriters were preparing the Cairo address — seeking to calibrate the message in a way that would be most effective in countering Muslim extremists. These officials believe that Obama, with his coolly rational approach, is suggesting a new pathway for young people who might otherwise be tempted by jihadist rhetoric.
“What the president has done thus far is create a strategic framework for understanding the U.S. in a different way,” said a second intelligence official. Obama is “chipping away” at the radical narrative and “increasing the number of alternatives to that radical view,” he explained. “He’s making more attractive the idea that change can occur outside the radicalization process.”
Reason versus unreason; outreach versus closed minds; connection with the modern world versus isolation and backwardness; freedom versus repression. This is the shape of the debate in Iran and much of the rest of the Muslim world as the age of Obama moves forward. For once, it’s an argument that puts America firmly on the side of the people.
