Iranian academic Ali Alizadeh points out an important fact missed by many who see nothing but sinister American manipulation behind the post-election protests in Iran: that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s economic policies — touted as a possible reason that he expanded his vote total by 10 million over the last election, a bounty ostensibly harvested from the grateful rural poor — are actually much more in line with his old nemesis, George W. Bush. As Alizadeh notes (via the Angry Arab):
It needs to be emphasized that Ahmadinejad’s economic policies are to the right of the IMF: cutting subsidies in a radical way, more privatization than any other post-79 government (by selling the country to the Revolutionary Guards) and an inflation and unemployment rate which have brought the low-income sections of the society to their knees.
The trope of a singular American hand guiding a million-headed puppet in the streets of Iran seems a bit odd anyway. There is of course little doubt that the imperial security apparat will try to make hay from the turmoil; but the American militarists have already made it clear that they prefer a victory for the incumbent Ahmadinejad; after all, without a readily demonizable figure as the public face of Iran, their unquenchable lust for conquering Persia becomes that much harder to consummate. As Steven Zunes notes, the grim-visaged rightwing avenger Daniel Pipes spelled it out in a recent jowl-flapping at the Heritage Foundation, proclaiming that “he would vote for Ahmadinejad if he could, because he prefers ‘an enemy who is forthright, blatant, obvious.'” (Well, don’t we all? And as with so many other enemies of peace, liberty — and sanity — Pipes himself fits the bill quite admirably. One always knows exactly where that po-faced squeaker of pips is coming from.)
And as we noted here late last month, the American security apparat seemed to be intervening on Ahmadinejad’s behalf, with a stepped-up terrorist campaign by the militant Sunni extremist group, Jundullah — just one of the terrorist organizations inside Iran now on the American payroll:
…the attack on the Zahedan mosque serves a confluence of interests. For it comes not only at a strategic location but also at a strategic time: just two weeks before the Iranian presidential election, with the hardline incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, facing a strong challenge from two reformist candidates.
Of course, the very last thing that the militarists in Washington and Israel want to see is the election of a moderate in Iran. They want — and need — Ahmadinejad, or someone just like him, so they can keep stoking the fires for war. A moderate president, more open to genuine negotiations, and much cooler in rhetoric than the loose-lipped Ahmadinejad, would be yet another blow to their long-term plans. Because the ultimate aim — the only aim, really — of the militarists’ policy toward Iran is regime change. They don’t care about “national security” or the “threat” from Iran’s non-existent nuclear arsenal; they know that there is no threat whatsoever that Iran will attack Israel — or even more ludicrously, the United States — even if Tehran did have nukes. They don’t care about the suffering of the Iranian people under a draconian, repressive and corrupt regime. They are not worried about Iran’s “sponsorship of terrorism,” for, as we’ve seen, the militarists thrive on — when they are not actively fomenting — the fear and anguish caused by terrorism. This fear is the grease that drives the ever-expanding war machine and ‘justifies’ its own ever-increasing draconian powers and corruption.
No, in the end, the sole aim of the militarist policy is to overthrow Iran’s current political system and replace it with a regime that will bow to the hegemony of the United States and its regional deputy, Israel. There is no essential difference in aim or method between today’s policy and that of 1953. (Except that the regional deputy in those days was Britain, not Israel.) What they want is compliance, access to resources and another strategic stronghold in the heart of the oil lands — precisely what they wanted, and got, with the installation of the Shah and his corruption-ridden police state more than a half-century ago…. To lose a fear-raising (and fundraising!) asset like Ahmadinejad now would be a bitter disappointment.
And what better way for an incumbent president to stand tall before the voters than to rally the nation around him in the face of a horrible terrorist attack? A mosque full of Shiite worshippers, blown to pieces, with photos showing the blood of the innocent martyrs splattered on the ruined walls? This serves the interests of all the major players in the great geopolitical game: the Iranian hardliners, the American and Israeli militarists, the Jundullah extremists.
Moussavi — a long-time paladin of Iran’s ruling establishment, a conservative who was once a hardline prime minister himself, closely aligned with the Ayatollah Khomeini (America’s own “Great Satan” of yore) — is hardly the pliable stooge sought by the Potomac plotters. Of course, as we noted earlier this week, this fact doesn’t necessarily make him a Jeffersonian hero of human liberty, either — an Aung San Suu Kyi of Iran. The corporate media’s portrayal of the Iranian uprising is indeed a lazy slotting of chaotic reality into neatly defined, “color revolution” stereotypes; but their misjudgment needn’t be compounded a comparable stereotyping the other way. (The corporate media’s false depiction of Moussavi as a “liberal” has ironically been seized upon by some American dissidents as proof that he is a color-revolution cut-out for Western interests, even, as some have described him, an “Iranian Ahmad Chalabi.” If he were a returned exile who had spent years in the pay of the CIA, that might be true. But that is not the case. Again, it is no endorsement of Moussavi to point out these facts.) As Alizadeh notes, the crowds appearing at the protest rallies are
made of religious women covered in chador walking hand in hand with westernized young women who are usually prosecuted for their appearance; veterans of war in wheelchairs next to young boys for whom the Iran-Iraq war is only an anecdote; and working class who have sacrificed their daily salary to participate in the rally next to the middle classes. This story is not limited to Tehran. Shiraz (two confirmed dead), Isfahan (one confirmed dead), Tabriz, Oroomiye are also part of this movement and other cities are joining with a predictable delay (as it was the case in 79 revolution).
As I noted the other day, no one knows how the current turmoil will turn out — or how the various power-players, including the many elite factions inside Iran and the many vultures circling outside, will attempt to mold the chaotic reality to their own advantage. But it seems to me that the circumstances in Iran cannot be forced into any simplistic template. For while it is true that the American imperium does indeed seek to exert its influence everywhere and always, it does not and cannot engender and control every event on earth. We risk partaking of the courtiers’ own hubris — and their mythology of American exceptionalism — if we make that automatic assumption.