Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s Victory in the 2009 Iranian Elections : The Protests Explained.
Western media sources have been bashing the Iranian government’s treatment of protesters rioting against the outcome of the 2009 elections now for the past few days. It’s interesting to note how all of a sudden the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan have magically forgotten the usual norm of elections, results and people’s reaction to them in the Islamic Republic of Iran for the past decade. Iran, like many other countries, has a history plagued with manipulative electoral ways, rigging of almost every election and campaign in their history, the clear advantage in any election being with those candidates who are battling at the political front aided strongly by powerful religious influences and facilitators.
Is it really that big a surprise to see Ahmedinejad win the 2009 elections with almost 63% of the vote? How and why is it any different from his win against Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in 2005 where Ahmedinejad took nearly 62% of the vote? Does a 1% fluctuation really stir the west’s conscience so much that every media outlet in the world starts talking about Iran hosting sham elections? Why now? Why not in 2005, or even earlier?
What western media has ignored recently is Ahmedinejad’s former status in Iran as a supporter of populism who’s exhibited time and time again that he is a strong politician and even stronger campaigner. An example of this is when he destroyed Mousavi in the national debates that were aired on all major Iranian television channels, giving many the impression that he had strong leadership skills, and thereby allowed him to secure the support of a large segment of the Iranian population. How much of the 62% vote in both 2005 and 2009 this attributed to remains unclear, but by any stretch of the human imagination, it is quite unlikely for a good majority of the people to not vote in favour of a candidate who’s exhibited the effectiveness as a politician that Ahmedinejad has.
It’s quite silly for western media to be using the latest elections as the seed to sow more revivalist propaganda into the ranks of a country already plagued with zero transparency between the people and their government. The protests we see in Tehran today are not like any other the country has witnessed since the revolution. The misconception that the Iranian people are protesting against just the outcome of the elections should be done away with if the media wishes to preserve the perceived accuracy of its reports in the longer term.
The Iranian people are protesting against a lack of personal and religious freedom, basic human rights, democratic systems that they wish were in place but sadly aren’t, the fear of an ‘Iran Liberation Act’ being brought into play as a result of the political instability in their country, a policy the US President Bill Clinton, the Senate and Congress unanimously upheld in 1998 with the ‘Iraq Liberation Act’. President George Bush later stepped in to declare that the Act should not prohibit the President from using Military Force to exercise the regime change the Iraq Liberation Act supported, leading to the Act being cited as a basis of support in the Congressional “Authorization for use of Military Force Against Iraq” in October 2002.
If one takes a look at how things are unfolding in the current conflict-ridden atmosphere in Iran, it becomes quite easy to strike unusually familiar comparisons between Iran’s current state of affairs and Iraq’s between 1980 and 1998 :
Two of the accusations against Iraq in 1998, according to the ‘Iraq Liberation Act’, stated that Iraq had “committed various and significant violations of International Law” and “had ignored Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council”.
Now let’s take a look at how Iran fits that picture almost perfectly, and how it is only a matter of time before someone in the US Government decides to make even more public this already bare picture:
11th September, 2004 : Iran refuses IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspection of their Parchin Military site. – ( Iraq did the same before the ILA had to be drafted. )
1st March 2005 : Iran refuses to allow United Nations Nuclear Watchdog to make a visit to their Parchin Military site, popularly pitched in allegations to nuclear weapons testing, stating that though an underground nuclear-related facility exists, there is no nuclear weapons construction and/or testing being performed at the site. – ( Iraq did the same between 1991 and 1998. )
26th October 2005 : Mahmoud Ahmedinejad delivers a speech at the “World Without Zionism” conference in Asia, stating that Israel must be wiped off the world map.
10th March 2009 : Iran violates UN Resolutions banning arms transfer by supplying arms to Syria. Iran refuses inspection of its nuclear facilities by the IAEA for the third time, while the IAEA publishes a report citing Iran being in possession of 5,500 centrifuges, 4,000 of them designed for the enrichment of uranium, and releases studies of how Iran’s ‘Heavy Water Reactor’ at Arak is designed to meet the standards set out for nuclear reactors capable of producing Plutonium, clearly for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons.
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The Iranian people are afraid of their country diving into a fate similar to Iraq’s. They are protesting in an effort to oust a leadership that is drawing their country closer and closer to a possible military response from international governments, particularly the US and Britain. They seek to engage in diplomacy with the west that their current leadership does not believe in. They seek the transparency of political practices that are in compliance with UN Resolutions and democratic principles, and not a state that is in under constant scrutiny for not upholding the same.
These people are afraid of what is to come, and the last 12 years of war ridden history between the US and countries exhibiting such traits as Iran is currently, doesn’t really help them.
An excellent and well researched analysis by any margin! Well done.
Keep writing.
it is difficult to say that it is not the election that started this uprising. clearly it was the tipping point for iranian society’s ability to tolerate anymore denial of rights. i find your opinion to be outright cynical. it’s a shame to blame their reasons for protesting as a result of western world pressures. i do not believe any iranian would say that, and i’ve yet to hear that from the many voices on twitter and through blogs by people living in iran. i am also curious about this so-called “revivalist propaganda” that you claim the media sows, as i have seen very little of this.
i find your defense of ahmedinejad bothersome. i think in a way, you are saying that what the iranians are doing is silly since he’s such a great politician and corruption is so common. i am not sure if you are calling for complacency or what, but certainly you are calling for fear, since you claim the iranians are nothing more than afraid. please tell that to the iranians who have called their friends, saying goodbye, as they prepare to put their lives on the line to defend their basic rights. that is not fear.
it is wrong to discredit what is happening in iran as happening just because the media has made a big deal of it, we are paying attention because of what has happened and is happening. when it first hit the news, many complained that the coverage was not enough. in terms of percent of votes, i wonder if you have even followed the news showing that in some provinces ahmedinejad received well over a hundred percent! what you call for, in your opinion, is for us to not care about what is going on. i could imagine someone who thought along your lines saying something like this, “oh because it’s just so common in iran, you know. and those silly americans and their buddies, trying to use it to their advantage, because you know, that’s just what western worlds do, don’t mind the fact that the american president has never called for involvement, because if you play his conference backward, you’ll see that he’s sent out a secret message, to the EU, to plant special forces in the crowd to shoot up civilians and then blame it on the basiji. or, ha, at least that’s what the iranian ambassador to mexico said on CNN.”
oh and also, you make me laugh when your attempt to compare iran to iraq. i’m not even sure if it’s worth trying to explain that one to you. i would suggest you take a closer examination before you start putting out conspiracy theories.
Veronica,
I don’t think the author has spoken in the defence of Ahmedinejad at all in this post. The comparison he or she is trying to make with the Iraq scenario is a comparison, a critical, skeptical, cynical comparison, or whatever you want to call it, and in my opinion is based on facts, not rhetoric as you have just described it to be. I’d like to break your comment down into a series of rude fallacies:
Fallacy # 1:
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Your quote: “it is wrong to discredit what is happening in iran as happening just because the media has made a big deal of it,”
The author’s quote : “The misconception that the Iranian people are protesting against just the outcome of the elections should be done away with if the media wishes to preserve the perceived accuracy of its reports in the longer term”
– I think you need to read the article again (definitely past the first 4 or 5 lines this time). You will find that the author of the post shares your opinion.
Fallacy # 2:
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Your quote: “i think in a way, you are saying that what the iranians are doing is silly since he’s such a great politician and corruption is so common”
– It is totally wrong of you to say that. This article is clearly written in favour of the plight of the Iranian people, and their quest for more than just the most basic of human rights in an influence plagued government. The author has made no such comments anywhere, and if you read the article again you will find that what the author has merely tried to do is show that even if this was a fair election, what likelihood was there in the first place that Ahmedinejad wouldn’t win? Facts are sometimes hard to digest, but they are still facts. You need to have more of an argument than “I think in a way you are trying to say…”.
Fallacy # 3:
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Your quote: “it is wrong to discredit what is happening in iran as happening just because the media has made a big deal of it,…..what you call for, in your opinion, is for us to not care about what is going on.” .. “..please tell that to the iranians who have called their friends, saying goodbye, as they prepare to put their lives on the line to defend their basic rights. that is not fear.”
The author’s quote: “The Iranian people are protesting against a lack of personal and religious freedom, basic human rights, democratic systems that they wish were in place but sadly aren’t.”
– Once again, I encourage you to actually read this article in its entirety before slamming the author with accusations for which you have no evidence and are merely constructing an argument based on your own personal opinions, quite contrary to the author’s approach which is derived from research and factual information, and a STRIKING consensus of opinion, with YOU, who is battering his or her effort here.
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The folks who write for this website may be skeptical in many ways, but in no way are they oblivious to the harsh realities that exist in the world. I have been following their work in places other than this website; they have articles everywhere, nowpublic.com hosting many of the same and that have received great appreciation by both people who share their views and by those who DON’T. So please do join that club if you wish not to be considered an opinionated outcast.
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This has been a great case for debate though, and that’s what makes this website a good read