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Iran has not scored any global PR victories in recent weeks as opposition protests have been brutally quashed, activists arrested en mass and media and SMS networks closed down. Yesterday, Tehran announced that the clampdown would be extended to satellite TV and internet networks (even though satellite TV is already banned but many Iranians have access anyway). Although these measures against the media appear draconian through Western eyes, they nevertheless highlight the mindset of a regime locked into the past and which views recent events through the prism the British/CIA-sponsored coup of 1953 that toppled the popularly elected Mosaddaq government.
A key element in the toppling of Mosaddaq, following his sin of nationalizing Iran’s oil industry, was the CIA’s support for a black media campaign to oust the elected leader. Iranian journalists and editors were paid directly by the CIA to publish disinformation to discredit the leader – everything from portraying him as a closet communist to being in cahoots with Israel. Many of the news articles were written in the US, translated, and passed on to Iranian editors on the CIA payroll to publish. Viewed within this context, the regime’s reaction and paranoia to the protests becomes slightly more understandable, though far from defensible. It also highlights the level of mistrust that needs to be overcome if any meaningful dialogue is to take place between Tehran and Washington (a good start would be for Obama to scrap the $400 million that Bush allocated to destabilize Iran).
However, unlike the foreign-engineered coup of the 1950s, the protests following the recent election results were domestically driven and were not aimed at toppling the regime, but rather an outpouring of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Iranians, much like people all over the world, are seeking greater personal and political freedoms and an environment in which they can raise their families in peace and security. They are also seeking an end to the regime’s confrontational approach with the US which defined the Bush-Ahmadinejad era, particularly in light of Obama’s Cairo speech and America’s desire to pursue dialogue to resolve the nuclear issue. However, unlike the popularly elected Mosaddaq government of the 1950s, they find themselves saddled with an ideologically bankrupt regime that defines itself solely through its opposition to the US and Israel. To their dismay, Iranians found that although Bush has faded into history, Ahmadinejad is still very much a part of the present.
And so too is the threat of military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Ahmadinejad may have held on to the presidency but it has come at a huge cost to the regime, which has lost much legitimacy among large swathes of the population. The election fallout has also exposed the deep divisions within the ruling elites, making foreign interference more, not less likely. Perhaps more crucially, the regime crackdown has severely tarnished Iran’s international image. Relations with the EU, a long time advocate of a peaceful resolution to the nuclear issue, have frayed and those advocating a military solution have been strengthened. Israeli officials argue that Iran’s suspected rigged election and the brutal suppression of the demonstrations that followed indicate the pointlessness of engaging in dialogue with Tehran and that stiffer sanctions and the threat of military action are far more likely to bring about the desired results.
This makes US vice president Joe Biden’s comments during an interview with ABC this morning all the more ominous. During the interview Biden appeared to give the green light for an Israeli military strike against Iran. “If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do so,” he said. Let’s hope the US vice president was just ratcheting up the pressure to push Iran into engaging in constructive dialogue. And let’s also hope that Biden let Israel know privately that a military attack is not a viable option.
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