Most of this recent column by Victor Davis Hanson didn’t interest me very much, but there was one line that was so strained and desperate that it caught my attention. Hanson:

Then there is Iran, which, many argued, was supposed to be have been empowered after we removed its nemesis Saddam Hussein. And, indeed, it sure looked that way when Iranian agents were stirring up violence in Iraq.

Yet this year, a million Iranians went out in the streets to demand free and fair elections of the sort they hear constantly about across their border. In other words, perhaps the democratic experiment in Iraq — where Shiite Muslims enjoy freedom — will prove destabilizing in the long term to the Iranian theocracy.

Deposing Hussein did increase Iranian influence and power in the region. That is simply what has happened. Groups that have long received official Iranian state backing, such as ISCI, have become major players in Iraqi government, and the sectarian cast of Iraqi politics since the 2005 elections has worked to the advantage of the Shi’ite parties that are either closely aligned or friendly with Tehran. It would be refreshing if Iraq war supporters could at least attempt to make an argument that greatly expanded Iranian influence was an acceptable price to pay for whatever goods they think the invasion brought about, but they simply cannot allow that their war was strategically disastrous for U.S. interests according to their definition of those interests. These are the same people who are terrified when Iran tests a medium-range missile that can go no farther than their earlier medium-range missiles, but Iraq war supporters won’t own up to making the Iranian regime they detest far more powerful in the region.

Why would anyone conclude that Iraq’s political experiment, which has so far yielded mass sectarian bloodletting, political deadlock and an ongoing foreign military presence that is only gradually coming to an end, would recommend itself to Iranian voters? What drove so many Iranians to protest against their government was the realization that even the limited, highly-controlled electoral process their government permitted them to have could be abandoned as soon as it became inconvenient for leading members of the regime. The protesters believed that they had previously enjoyed free and fair elections, or something closely resembling them, and they were outraged by the corruption of a system that they had trusted to some degree in the past. Had Ahmadinejad and his allies not been so heavy-handed and blatant in their fraud, Iran’s quasi-democratic elections would have resulted in another “reform” president acceptable to the regime’s permanent leadership, there would have been no large-scale protests, and the regime would not be even slightly destabilized right now. The influence of Iraqi elections on Iran continues to be as minimal as ever, and in fact it is partly through those elections empowering the Shi’ite majority that Iran is able to wield as much influence in Iraqi politics as it does. The fantasy of a democratic domino effect remains just that.