President Obama came out yesterday to trumpet the elections in Iran as an expression of the people's voice. Hillary Clinton is on the same page.
"We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran," Obama said at the White House, as Iranians packed polling stations to choose between keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms. Ahmadinejad's main rival is reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who served as prime minister in the 1980s and has become the surprise hero of a powerful youth-driven movement in the fiery, monthlong campaign.
"We think there's the possibility of change," Obama told reporters, answering an impromptu question about the significance of the elections.
"Ultimately the election is for the Iranians to decide," he said. "But ... you're seeing people looking at new possibilities. And whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there's been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways."
The State Department was also speaking optimistically about Iran's election.
"It's a very positive sign that the people of Iran want their voices and their votes to be heard and counted," said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Like many inside and outside Iran we are going to wait and see what the results are."
Don't they know how elections are run in Iran? It's not a democracy where people who want public office decide to run, debate the issues, and then the people decide. Nope,
the Guardian Council under the control of Ayatollah Khamanei went through the list of those vying for the job of president and only allowed those candidates acceptable to their revolutionary principles to run for the job.
Thus, for the past two elections to the Majlis (the Iranian parliament) the Revolutionary Guards -- who are controlled directly by Mr. Khamanei -- have carefully vetted all the candidates to ensure only those with the right revolutionary credentials are allowed to stand.
Now the regime, in the form of the Guardian Council, which is charged with upholding the tenets of Khomeini's revolution, has employed the same tactic ahead of the presidential election: Of the original 475 applicants only four candidates have survived the cull. All of them have revolutionary credentials beyond reproach.
It's not a democracy when the Supreme Leader gets to pick the candidates and picks 4 out of 475. Not quite the vigorous debate with the people making the ultimate decision that the Obama administration wants to pretend took place. Con Coughlin author of
Khomeini's Ghost: The Iranian Revolution and the Rise of Militant Islam calls this a Potemkim election. Well, such a pretense only succeeds if others are unwilling to shout out, to mix metaphors, that the emperor has no clothes. Apparently, the Obama administration is willing to be deceived all for the purpose of pretending that Obama's outreach to the Islamic world and Iran has had some impact on the elections being held in Iran and the desire for a vigorous debate about the future of the country. There may well be such an intense desire, but this election isn't an example of such a debate taking place.
9 comments:
But it has to keep some of the mullahs awake at night considering the coalescing of support that Mousavi generated when there really wasn't an ounce of difference between him and Ahmadinejad. Or that the Revolutionary Guards announced that they would not respect the results so why bother.
What a travesty of democracy that country has!
Also, what kind of democracy is it when the Supreme Court gets to pick from the candidates and picks 1 out of 2? And they pick the one with fewer votes?
Just curious. You can't see the mote in your own eye, etc.
Electoral College Bill? Or have you forgotten that the thousands of recounts in Florida showed that Pres Bush one by either a handful of votes or two handfuls. Sorry to be so blunt but are you really that dense or simply a troll with no interest in ever framing an argument in anything other than misleading and often borrowed terms.
What kind of democracy is it where the one with fewer popular votes wins? A constitutional democracy, of course, in which the one with the most electoral votes wins and the total popular vote is entirely irrelevant. Only ignorance or dishonesty can possibly justify mentioning the popular vote.
Hahahaha... BB is a proud graduate of the Barack Obama School of Outrageous Moral Equivalancies.
Back to the original post the problem with Pres Obama is that I suspect when he looks out over foreign affairs he sees men and women, the better sort, engaged in endless and peaceful palaver that sometimes actually works. But he ignores how many died to force one or both sides to the table in the first place.
East Germany collpased with barely a shot fired but then the state had lost its moral authority years before and when the Soviets said that the were on their own that was the end. The willingness of certain East German officials to shoot there own citizens was betrayed by the unreliability of the police, the army and the Russians.
In Iran you have a system, even if Mousavi won, where the leadership has no problem shooting its own citizens and has the means to do so in the Morality Police and the Revolutionary Guards.
But I would be willing to say that tomorrow in church Pres Obama will be desperately praying that Jimmy Carter pronounces the election honest and provide that fig leaf for another round of inaction.
And before Bill or TV start in I will admit that after almost 30 years many administrations have promised much in regards to Iran and solved little. But Pres Obama is reponsible now and since he's obviously smarter and more moral than the last president this minor problem should be easy to solve.
"Or have you forgotten that the thousands of recounts in Florida showed that Pres Bush one by either a handful of votes or two handfuls."
As I recall, a TV network called Florida for Gore before the pols closed in the Florida Panhandle.
A review of past voting patterns showed the Republicans vote was thousands less than normal.
My point was that if Gore had prevailed in the Supreme Court a recount would still have shown Bush won. And even if SCOTUS had agreed to the cherry picked methadology favored by the Democrats, only recounting counties or precincts, traditionally Democratic, Gore still would have lost the popular vote and those electoral votes.
But would Bill be honest and admit that he probably would have no problem with this system if for some reason John Kerry had won Ohio and thus the presidency in the Electoral College but not the popular vote.
I'm slightly curious to see what Bill B is going to say now considering the comparison he made between the voting system in the US vs that of Iran? Or is dredging up his comment getting off the point which seems to happen every time Bill B writes something that is held up for ridicule.
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