Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2009, pages 11-13, 16
Special Report
“The World Is Watching”...a Blurry Picture in Iran
By Nina Hamedani
WHEN THE Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance issued a media blackout for foreign journalists in Iran, mainstream U.S. media outlets resorted to social networking sites in order to provide some coverage—any coverage—of the events unfolding after Iran’s June 12 presidential election.
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Viewers were bombarded with repeated and identical images shot by amateur videographers from inside Iran of mass crowds, chaos, fires, violence, raised hands, and clashes with riot police. The Iranian activists posted the scenes on such Web sites as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace in order to get their message out to the world. Real time information flooded the Internet on such a massive scale that U.S. anchors and reporters uploading them to their larger screens had to keep reminding their audience that they could verify neither the images nor their sources—even whether they had been posted from inside Iran.
But the historically tense relationship between Washington and Tehran left the U.S. out of the loop well before the post-election media blackout. The U.S. has no interests section, consulate, or embassy in Iran. As a result, American media and diplomats are absent from the situation on the ground, raising the question of how much they really understand about what is happening in Iran, and why.
A Pivotal Debate
The mainstream U.S. media like to portray the rivalry between challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi and incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as one between Good (Mousavi) vs. Evil (Ahmadinejad). Both candidates, however, drew large crowds to their campaign rallies leading up to their televised presidential debate. These broadcasts of the one-on-one debates among the four presidential candidates—including Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai—were aired between June 2 to 8 by the state’s official Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), representing the first time such debates had ever been televised in Iran.
During the pivotal June 3 debate between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi, both candidates were “fired-up” with emotion and exchanged personal attacks. The incumbent was audacious enough to hold up a file folder, insinuating that it contained intelligence information on Mousavi’s popular and politically savvy wife, Zahra Rahnavard. Many Iranians, particularly women, saw this as a violation of campaign protocol and an abuse of presidential power.
Mousavi charged that Ahmadinejad had brought shame to Iran with his bombastic rhetoric and calls for Holocaust reassessment. “Our nation’s dignity has been harmed. We’ve been degraded. There has been increasing tension,” Mousavi asserted.
Lamented Ahmadinejad: “I am not fighting against one candidate, I’m standing against a combination led by [former President Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani with the cooperation of Mousavi and [reformist former President Seyed Mohammad] Khatami.”
He went on to complain about corruption, as well as Rafsanjani’s financial and familial influence within the Islamic Republic. Indeed, Rafsanjani, the current chairman of the Expediency Council and of the Assembly of Experts—which possesses the sole power to elect, monitor and dismiss the Supreme Leader (see chart on facing page)—does possess considerable influence and is a respected former president. After serving two terms from 1989 to 1997, he ran for a third term in 2005, but lost to Ahmadinejad in a run-off election.
Some Iranians wrote off Ahmadinejad’s allegation as a paranoid gaffe, but on another level his comments insinuated that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not have control over the Islamic Republic and was losing influence to the Rafsanjani-Khatami-Mousavi triad. This perception was enhanced by the fact that, following the debate, Rafsanjani released an unusual public letter to Khamenei demanding that the latter “take effective action in eliminating the mutiny” (i.e., an uncontrollable Ahmadinejad). Demands are rarely issued to Iran’s Supreme Leader.
The debate reinforced Ahmadinejad’s image as a conservative, but refocused attention on his unsuccessful economic and foreign relations performance. Prior to the debate Mousavi had campaigned as a conservative moderate, on the slogan “Return to Stability, Return to Rationality.” A generally bland and not particularly energizing campaigner, he was popular among young voters and Iran’s urban middle class because of his campaign’s expert use of new media and the Internet to communicate with his base. Because of his alleged link with former President Khatami, however, Mousavi emerged from the debate as a “reformist,” and the only candidate who campaigned in the company of his wife. Mousavi’s rallies drew an increasing number of enthusiastic followers, many wearing his signature color green.
Mousavi and Khamenei
As a young man in the 1960s, Mousavi, an ethnic Azeri, joined the Freedom Movement of Iran, founded by the prominent and pro-democratic Iranian scholar Mehdi Bazargan. The future presidential candidate also became an active follower of Ali Shariati, one of Iran’s most influential 20th century revolutionary thinkers. As a member of leftist Islamic groups, Mousavi reportedly was jailed for organizing street protests challenging Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s corrupt practices and “White Revolution” (forced modernization policies).
Along with Mohammad Beheshti, an associate of the exiled Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Mousavi helped form the Islamic Republican Party in 1979 with the explicit purpose of overthrowing the monarchy and replacing it with an Islamic Republic. He served as the party secretary and chief editor of the party paper, Jomhouri-e Eslami. Soon after the Revolution was underway, Khomeini appointed Mousavi to the Iranian Council of the Islamic Revolution, a body formed to guide the new government.
In October 1981 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (now Supreme Leader) was elected as the Islamic Republic’s third president. When his nomination for prime minister was rejected by the left-tending Majlis, or parliament, Khamenei in a gesture of good faith nominated Mousavi, who was overwhelmingly approved. Mousavi served as prime minister for eight years. His wartime administration during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) tolerated no public demonstrations of popular dissent.
Nevertheless, staying true to his leftist roots, Mousavi endured fierce clashes with right-wing President Khamenei and then-Majlis Speaker Rafsanjani. At the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq war, Mousavi threatened to resign, despite popular support for having bolstered the economy and successfully dealt with the Americans during the Iran-Contra affair.
After Grand Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in August 1989, the Assembly of Experts (see chart) elected Khamenei Iran’s second Supreme Leader—this despite the fact that Khomeini had favored Grand Ayatollah Hossein Montazeri as his successor, because the Islamic Constitution calls for the position to be filled by a marja, or Grand Ayatollah. But Montazeri had begun to call for liberalization and freedom of political parties, and accused Khomeini’s prisons of being “far worse than those of the shah and his SAVAK [secret police].” When Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s letter was made public and broadcast by Western media, he fell out of favor with Khomeini, who replaced him as front-runner with Ayatollah Khamenei.
With Rafsanjani as president and Khamenei as Supreme Leader, Mousavi left the political arena until the late 1990s, when, following Mohammad Khatami’s landslide victory in 1997, he served a political adviser to the reformist president during Khatami’s two terms. This may account for Khatami’s March 16 withdrawal from the 2009 contest in favor of Mousavi, who had announced his bid on March 9.
Despite Mousavi’s platform to disband state TV and eradicate the morality police, and his wife’s pledges of equal rights for women, the question remained of whether a 1979 Islamic revolutionary can transform himself into a 2009 reformist. Many Iranians were wary that Mousavi’s emergence as an opposition candidate might really be due to unfinished business between him (and his allies) and Khamenei.
Accusations of Election Fraud
The mainstream U.S. media, making no attempt to conceal their bias against Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic, were quick to jump on the election fraud bandwagon. Not for the first time, their “factual” coverage is completely one-sided in favor of the challenger.
Nevertheless, the election results were unpredictable from any perspective. Pre-election polling was both inadequate and inconsistent, with wide disparities between urban and rural areas. Nor can polling biases be discounted, with many of the internally sponsored polls stating outright that their sponsors were pro-Mousavi.
The only accurate foreign poll was conducted by the BBC and ABC News, through the New America Foundation (NAF), about a week before the election. The NAF poll hypothesized an 89 percent voter turnout and a 2-to-1 advantage for Ahmadinejad nationwide. Its findings seem to have been confirmed when, on June 13, Ahmadinejad was declared the landslide winner of the election in which 24.5 million votes were cast by an historic 85 percent of eligible voters.
More concerned with claims of ballot tampering, American analysts failed for the most part to explain the many incentives to vote in Iran. In fact, the Islamic Republic was ushered in with a referendum vote in 1979, and voting has been a duty and responsibility of citizens ever since 1979, representing a distinct break from dynasties and inherited rule.
Other incentives include gifts provided by candidates, possible political pressure, the importance of a stamp on one’s voter record as a sign of loyalty to the Islamic Republic (in case one wants to start a business, for example). Certainly, as the incumbent, Ahmadinejad had access to state-level campaign financing, as well as other forms of persuasion.
However, due to the lightning speed with which the hand-written ballots would have had to be hand-counted in order to reach the announced result in a matter of hours, Mousavi, his supporters, and foreign politicians and media declared the election a “fraud,” and 646 complaints were sent to the Guardian Council.
Runner-up Mousavi accused Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli of interfering with the election to ensure an Ahmadinejad victory. The day after the election, a letter, supposedly written the night before by a low-level government employee, was leaked to international news outlets. It noted that Mousavi was winning but that the returns would be rigged in favor of Khamenei’s favorite, Ahmadinejad. Numerous journalists and analysts, including award-winning Robert Fisk, who covered these events from Tehran, have questioned the validity of this letter—noting, for example, that there is no way a low-level employee of any Iranian government agency would report directly to Khamenei.
Furthermore, it may surprise many Westerners to know, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not have a history of fixing popular votes—in part, perhaps, because the Guardian Council’s vetting of candidates ensures that any extremely unfavorable individuals do not become candidates. This does not eliminate upsets, however, as evidenced by Khatami’s overwhelming and unpredicted 1997 victory over Rafsanjani, supposedly Khamenei’s favorite. The 1997 and 2009 elections saw voter turnout at record post-revolution levels.
Also rarely mentioned in U.S. media coverage is the fact that this year’s election controversy represents the first real rift since 1979 among Iran’s highest-profile clerics. According to Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, who has emerged as a voice for the clerical opposition to Khamenei, “No one in their right mind can believe” the June 12 election results. Accusing the government of inadequately responding to the 646 logged complaints, Montazeri asserted, “A government not respecting people’s vote has no religious or political legitimacy,”and asked “the police and army personnel not to ”˜sell their religion,’ and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God.”
On June 13 Khamenei officially announced the election results in favor of Ahmadinejad, adding that, in order to uphold the requirement that the Supreme Leader be audel (just), the Guardian Council would investigate and judge whether any action was needed. Contrary to U.S. media reports, Khamenei made absolutely no promise of a recount or revote. The Guardian Council, via Press TV, announced on June 21 that irregularities in 50 of the 170 voting district might involve three million votes—a number too low to alter the outcome of the election.
Ultimately, the hotly contested result of Iran’s 10th presidential election will stand and, according to a June 22, Press TV report, Ahmadinejad will be officially sworn in for his second term and appoint cabinet members, between July 26 and Aug. 19.
Protest Psychology
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Iran’s post-election protests were presented to American viewers in a frenzied assemblage of short, grainy videos whose dates and locations could not be verified. Their limited content and absence of context only exacerbated the media’s ignorance of the nuances of Iranian society.
Take for example, the characterization of the protests as the first significant protests in the Islamic Republic’s 30-year history. Just prior to 1979, however, similar mass demonstrations caused the ouster of the shah and paved the way for Ayatollah Khomeini. Since then there have been numerous demonstrations—which require permission and permits—by women’s rights groups, students, and minorities within Iran. The 18th of Tir (July) 1999 student-led protests during Khatami’s reformist presidency were a response to the forced closing of liberal newspapers, and were the most widespread and violent demonstrations in Iran until now.
American news anchors and analysts rushed to credit Iranian youth with ushering in another revolution. The fact that young Iranians constituted the majority of protesters, however, can be attributed to simple demographics, since three-quarters of Iran’s population of approximately 70 million were born during or after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Moreover, the crowds did include older men and women, as a closer look at cell phone footage reveals. Furthermore, Iran’s younger generation is adept with Internet and SMS technologies, and thus able to quickly communicate the time and place of a new demonstration. This same technology was used to circulate videos of the resulting protests.
American media repeatedly showed the violence surrounding the protests, but provided little context. It was soon forgotten that the initial protests on June 13 were silent demonstrations in solidarity with Mousavi’s call for a recount. Mousavi did not appear among the crowds until June 15, when, from atop his SUV, he used a megaphone to urge on the hundreds of thousands gathered that day in Azadi (Freedom) Square. Supreme Leader Khamenei, addressing Friday Prayers on June 19, demanded an end to the ongoing street protests, warning that all opposition leaders would be held accountable. Violence only intensified, and Mousavi became more disconnected from the demonstrators, who began to focus on mourning their fallen compatriots and battling various Iranian security forces for their right to be heard at all.
Another area of mainstream media confusion was which groups were involved in the violent response to the protests. A few points of information: first, the Tehran police force itself has riot personnel, as well as regular officers; secondly, the Basij is a paramilitary “people’s militia” that began under Khomeini, currently answers to Khamenei, and which has been used to suppress protests, protect and enforce Islamic social codes. Thirdly, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—more aptly translated as the Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution—was founded after 1979 as an Iranian military branch with its own ground, air and special forces, navy, and intelligence. IRGC’s main responsibility is national security, but it has a history of aiding in the suppression of dissent. Finally, the Ansaar-e-Hezbollah (the supporters of the party of God), a conservative, militant Iranian group that vows to uphold revolutionary values, was formed in 1995 and later established a reputation during the 18th of Tir riots for conducting university raids, beating anti-government protestors and patroling the streets.
The U.S. media assumed that it was the youthful protesters who started street fires and exacerbated the violence. Missing was any awarenes of past tactics by plain clothes members of the Basij, infiltrating crowds to incite riots by instigating fights, or using fires as street barricades to unnerve protesters—and thereby justifying a government crackdown.
Ultimately, it never was a clear-cut case of good guys versus bad guys, because a substantial amount of information now coming out of Iran points to protesters protecting Basij and riot police from fellow protesters.
A major false assumption of the mainstream U.S. media was that, from the beginning, Iranian youth were fighting (and dying) for “democracy”—i.e., the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. In reality, the demonstrators’ motivations may have been as diverse as the number of protesters. Their placards read “Where Is My Vote?,” not “Down with the Islamic Republic.” This was a movement of young people who legitimately demanded their right to vote as guaranteed in Iran’s Constitution—and who will expect transparency in the next election.
Iran’s 2009 presidential election did mark a turning point, however—one in which Iranians’ political apathy or disenchantment evolved into anger and frustration, along with the idea that they could win. In a depressed economy with high inflation, record unemployment and little political impact, Iranians took to voting and public demonstrations (reportedly drawing one million to two million people) as their last stronghold of influence.
Smaller demonstrations continued to take place but, less than two weeks after the election, the areas of Tehran where major protests occurred were lined with Basij and Ansaar guards, who unleashed merciless violence. With the rising counts of deaths and reported arrests, and with no clear leader or collective goal in sight, the reality of this non-revolution is palpable to Iranians, who are left to wonder, “What next?”
Nina Hamedani is circulation director of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
