NYCnativeMedia: Iran Takes a Step Forward, America Takes a Step Back

Student and youth demonstrators refusing to accept the rigged election results

Iranian Soccer fans raise banners
Iranian Soccer players wear green armbands in solidarity

The Iranian election dominated this week’s news, with large numbers of student and youth demonstrators refusing to accept the rigged election results. While the outcome of the current Iranian crisis will have a limited impact outside Iran in the short term, it may have a far larger one in the long run. While the protests began as something more akin to the Venezuelan protests over Chavez’s media hijacking last year, they have already passed the point of Tienanmen Square. And while we are not quite at the Tehran version of the Berlin Wall, whether or not they get there will depend on the actions of the Iranian regime.

Ahmadinejad was thought to be the regime’s best bet for avoiding that kind of fate, offering a great deal of hostility toward the west, combined with pop culture appeal at home and some small liberalizations backed by a revolutionary guard background and militia ties. But now the Ahmadinejad train has gone very badly off the rails.

At some point during the election, the regime made the decision to rig the results. Had they done so early enough, the change would not have been so jarring. Instead it appears to have been a panicked reaction in response to the realization that Ahmadinejad was going to lose.

And whether that decision was made at the level of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or not, the ball finally rolled back to him.

The regime now has a limited number of choices to make.

1. It can pursue a comprehensive crackdown on all protesters, resulting in either the successful suppression of the protests, or leading to the fall of the regime entirely. The old lessons of the Shah are not entirely lost on the men who helped overthrow him.

A full scale crackdown at this juncture, even if it temporarily succeeds, would likely do so at a heavy death toll. The People’s Republic of China survived a similar crackdown by pushing enough economic and social liberalization so that the next generation would up not caring. Iran does not quite have the same option, particularly when it comes to social liberalization.

2. Khamenei can conduct an investigation, bring forward a few scapegoats and announce Mousavi as the true winner by a small margin, or propose a compromise option of some sort along the Zimbabwe model.

This of course would involve a serious personal loss of prestige, as well as a clear demonstration of weakness by the regime. It would avoid a short term explosion, but the long term consequences would wind up demonstrating the power of the protesters to compel the government to surrender to their will. And would in turn be quite destructive as well.

3. Play a waiting game, allow the protesters to discharge their energy, keep Ahmadinejad where he is, make some daily life concessions that would make people’s lives easier.

Overall it would appear that the regime went with this third option.

After the failure of the initial limited crackdown, Khamenei chose to embrace a slightly more conciliatory tone. The violence was toned down and a limited recount of some sort was promised.

The problem with this approach is that it only emboldened the protesters who have begun to learn their true power. The protests have only become more comprehensive. Secret police have been outed on blogs. And more high ranking regime critics have stepped forward.

In response Khamenei is now threatening bloodshed if the protests don’t stop. This strongly suggests that despite being the inheritor of the revolution, he is actually making the same exact mistakes as the Shah’s government did.

If Iran was the crisis that Biden warned us about, Obama has already failed miserably. If the Iranian regime falls, Obama will be remembered mainly for standing on the sidelines and doing nothing. The man who traveled all across the world giving speeches, had nothing to say when the people of Iran risked their lives fighting for freedom.