Iranian Presidential Candidates Preaching Change, Too
Years of Ahmadinejad rule has opposition Iranian candidates looking to get closer to the West.
The opposition candidates are also worried about the future, even if they are not elected. Rezai said Ahemadinejad’s reelection could “throw the country into the abyss.” This could be interpreted as meaning that the regime itself could be endangered.
Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy is not the only cause of concern. His economic policies have caused huge damage, increasing Iran’s need to open up to the West. Iran needs investment and expertise, more so now than before. Mehdi Karoubi, the former speaker of the Majles, said: “The 200,000 letters which Ahmadinejad receives on provincial trips are not love letters. They show the sheer number of problems which people have.”
The reformists have backed such statements, with Mousavi asking a number of questions regarding the oil income. As Iran’s prime minister from 1981-1989, Mousavi ran the country with $7 billion in yearly income. But Iran took in $60 billion last year, and Mousavi, along with his supporters, wants to know where the money went.
The reformists are also enraged by Ahmadinejad’s populist overtures — such as holding potato giveaways in order to garner votes. “Death to the government of potatoes!” has become a standard chant among anti-Ahmadinejad reformists.
So far, Ahmadinejad has focused on Iran’s achievements with its nuclear program and within its defense industry, which was able to successfully place a satellite in orbit. He has also focused his ire on the Khatami administration for suspending uranium enrichment in 2005, an agreement and rapprochement which Ahamadinejad found humiliating.
In a recent interview, Ahmadinejad additionally defended his Holocaust remarks: “The west uses the Holocaust as a tool to oppress others. We targeted the Holocaust and they can’t believe that we did this, because we targeted their weak spot. They can now see that Iran carries the same weight as the U.S. in international dealings.” To Ahmadinejad, breaking bonds and accords with the West is the best way to secure Iran’s future.
Although Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei determines the general direction of Iranian foreign policy, the U.S. would be forgiven for interpreting an Ahmadinejad loss as a sign that Khamenei is after a change in direction of Iran’s policies. If Ahmadinejad wins, we should expect the status quo or worse. Ahmadinejad could interpret a victory as a sign of stronger backing from Khamenei. Worse still, as Iranian law dictates that Ahmadinejad cannot stand for three consecutive elections, he will have little incentive to act in a less radical manner.
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Meir Javedanfar is the co-author with Yossi Melman of The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran. He runs Middle East Economic and Political Analysis (MEEPAS).
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7 Comments
1. Harry:Wait a second let me check my spelling. Did I not spell pajamasmedia.com? It looks like I spelled dailykos.com. Meir begins to make sense only at the last paragraph where he states Khamenei controls foreign policy (and domestic policy too). All else is hope and change rhetoric. As long as Khamenei is puppetmaster all will dance to his tune. We have seen time and time again reformists are still Mullahcrats. Maybe Meir is in holy rapture beguiled by Obama’s sweet talk and he’s projecting his ecstasy onto these Iranian candidates. Wake up Meir it’s all a dream. No matter which candidate wins Iran won’t suddenly be pro West. They’ll continue with their nuclear ambitions and their Middle East hegemonic plans.
Jun 6, 2009 - 7:15 am 2. Войска ПВО:So, let me get this straight, instead of the real deal, you’re hoping for change to “Ahmadinejad-lite”?
You and Obama are Pathetic.
Jun 6, 2009 - 7:57 am 3. David Thomson:Voting in Iran is presently a waste of time. The mullahs run the show regardless of who wins. These reactionary males intensely hate the West and are likely willing to commit suicide to honor Allah. They would have little hesitation to destroy Israel and other Western countries—even if it results in the very destruction of Iran. The pro-American Iranians are essentially powerless. We should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities as soon as possible.
Jun 6, 2009 - 10:33 am 4. trd788:Sometimes I think we are not given the full story about Iran through the media. Bombing the facilities will surely make those “pro-american” Iranians flock even more to our side.
pure shea butter
Jun 6, 2009 - 9:22 pm 5. Morton Doodslag:Old Islamic fascist — meet the new Islamic fascists… But you’d barely notice reading Javedenfar’s apologetics. He even tries to infuse the murdering former head of the IRGC with “hope and change” plausibility. It’s all designed to convince clueless Westerners that Islamic Iran can be pursuaded away from her Islamic (Nazi) trajectory if we’d only vow to stop threatening them and make friends with the “reformers”.
Javedanfar’s “analysis” is obviously faulty, yet his brand of diversionary bunkum has served fascist Iran well in the last three decades. We’ve been betrayed, sold down the river– for such agents don’t offer us valuable insight. They serve mainly work to deflect, disinform, confuse, obfuscate, and most important, forestall effective responses by the West against the sewer of Islamic Iran until it’s too late. The best efforts of this legion of horrible Iranian “analysts” in academia, in the media, and worst of all, in the State Department have now ushered in the nuclear epoch of Islamic terror. We will soon rue the day we ever listened to such duplicitous snakes.
Jun 7, 2009 - 7:46 am 6. ella:@ woyska PVO
Mr. Javedanfar was writing in 2006 “Barring his outbursts denying the extent of the Holocaust and threatening Israel with annihilation, Mr. Ahmadinejad is saying and doing what a majority of Iranians want to hear. The key to his success is that he has learned who the average Iranian is and what he or she wants. The West has not.”
Jun 8, 2009 - 3:50 pm 7. Judith:It seems that he did not learn.
Now Mr. Javedanfar is trying to convince everybody that Rezae would be someone similar to Putin, Mousavi is similar to Sarkozy and Ahmadinejad in reality is an Iranian Bush. He is also implicitly saying that apart from Ahmadinejad none of the candidates will be helping Hezbullah and Hamas with money and munition, none of them will push for more work on nuclear weapons and definitely none of them will send weapons to Taliban in exchange for heroin heading for Europe. Woysko, he is Iranian, he is doing his propaganda bit so you are wrong – he is not pathetic. The pathetic one is the guy presently in the White House and the ones who think so-called “reformists” are reformists in the western style. But then they thought that Hezbullah is really like a western political party, PRC is now in fact a capitalist country and Putin is a great guy.
FT reports that Khameni came out in support of Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy. See, http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/90919.html
Jun 9, 2009 - 3:02 pm