Unpleasant Realities
Perhaps it is because I have not been bathed in the soft glow of green enlightenment, but I fail to see what was wrong with this report written on Monday:
Mr. Ahmadinejad is the shrewd and ruthless front man for a clerical, military and political elite that is more unified and emboldened than at any time since the 1979 revolution. As president, Mr. Ahmadinejad is subordinate to the country’s true authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who commands final say over all matters of state and faith. With this election, Mr. Khamenei and his protégé appear to have neutralized for now the reform forces that they saw as a threat to their power, political analysts said.
Ahmadinejad is certainly the ruthless front man (his shrewdness might well be called into question at this point), and he is subordinate to Khamenei, who does have the final say. Together, they do appear to have neutralized the reform forces, because those forces have been reduced to protesting in the streets to little effect. It is improbable that these forces are going to acquire power, and they do not have the means to take it from the authorities, and so they have been for all intents and purposes stymied and neutralized. Remember, this is a news report. It is not an editorial opining on whether or not this is a good outcome. But it is the outcome, or at least it was quite reasonable to make such a statement about what appeared to be the case three days ago. Three days later, this description seems reasonably accurate. Unless something dramatic changes in the next week or two, these protests are going to exhaust themselves, peter out and dissipate, which is all that the regime needs to keep going. No one has to like this, but that doesn’t make it any less real.
Like Bill Keller, you’re missing the real story here. Anyone who actually thinks Ahmadinejad’s and Khamenei’s positions are stronger now than before the election is in serious need of a reality check.
I generally enjoy reading your perspective, but I think you’re being obtusely contrarian in several of your posts on Iran (the question of whether the vote was tampered with, and now this post). To be clear, I have also been doing a fair amount of eye-rolling at Sullivan, who will drink whatever “Here Comes Liberal Democracy!” Kool-Aid that is put in front of him, be it the Iraq invasion or these protests. I thought the degree of his contempt for the Keller quote was excessive, but it was also a silly thing for Keller to write on Monday. I am assuming Sullivan’s issue is with the last sentence, which is where I would take issue as well. The claim that Khamenei/Ahmadinejad “appear to have neutralized for now the reform forces that they saw as a threat to their power” would have been a reasonable position last Friday, or even Saturday, but not by Monday. I suppose that some “political analysts” somewhere have said what Keller attributes here, but I would posit that these are not very good analysts (and I’ve been reading my fair share of Iranian analysis). While I am not especially hopeful that the protesters will manage to force a second election, there is a real possiblity it will happen. The struggle within the regime between Rafsanjani and Khamenei is not yet clearly resolved, and even if state leadership does decide to turn to overwhelming force against the protests, it will still hinge on whether the government forces on the ground are willing to implement these directives (again, I would say probably, but not certainly). Moreover, Keller’s implication that Khamenei/Ahmadinejad’s position is strengthened is just wrong, even if Ahmadinejad emerges from this conflict still president. As someone who has done considerable work on colonial history, I can state with certainty that hegemonic control, with residents buying into the legitimacy of state structures, is infinitely preferable for regime stability than is naked domination by state power.