NBC will air Brian Williams' new interview with the Iranian President, Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The interview is significant for several reasons. First, whenever the American people are directly exposed to hearing from world leaders instead of being repeatedly spoon-fed with those leaders' caricatures and out-of-context sound bites, it's a good thing. Secondly, dialogue is arguably the most effective way of preventing a premature armed conflict. When there is dialogue and people listen to one another, it has a humanizing effect and may even lead to a few moments of recognition, making it harder for people to justify military action as a method of addressing our challenges. But most importantly, the interview is an exceptional opportunity to energize human rights activists in Iran and help cause change in Iran.
Brian Williams and NBC have, no doubt, arranged this interview with Ahmadinejad, in part, because of Iran's refusal to give up nuclear weapons. And since the American media has been a consistent failure when it comes to challenging the Bush administration's talking points and framing of debate, Williams is likely to continue to obsess about two issues throughout the interview: Iran's nuclear program and Ahmadinejad's rhetoric on Israel.
However, those have always been the wrong issues on which to pressure Iran. On the issue of its nuclear program, the fact is that as a Non-Proliferation Treaty member, Iran has the legal right to have a nuclear program. This includes its inalienable right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. The United States helped establish Iran's nuclear program thirty years ago and did not object when Iran became a NPT member. A lot of Western observers have asked, why does Iran -- an oil-rich country -- would need a nuclear program? First, NPT does not require Iran to answer that question. But the short answer is that although Iran is oil-rich, it has to import most of its refined oil because it does not have enough refineries. Persians have vast crude oil resources, but they have to export its own oil to neighboring countries to be refined and buy it back at a multiple rate at which they sold. Iran has had to ration gas for cars, a situation the United States has never had to deal with. Besides, it may come as news to those who worry about starting a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that Israel, which is not even a NPT member, started that arms race when they began obtaining their nuclear weapons decades ago, which now adds up to more than 300. "Hypocrisy" is the word.
But the question itself can be seen at best elitist and at worst western supremacist. Here is why: why is it that the same experts who ask why Iran needs a nuclear program despite having oil won't ask nuclear energy proponents in the United States, Canada and other Western countries with oil resources the same question? Obviously, because lack of oil is not the only reason one may be inclined to move toward cleaner and more efficient means of producing energy. Al Gore, in his recent speech on the environment, quoted an OPEC member who had eloquently said, "stone age didn't end because of the shortage of stones." But the reason many western observers would ask Iran that question is because they consider Iran not enlightened enough to care for the environment. Not sure how they can make that point since few drive SUVs in Iran and just about every new car in Tehran gets better mileage than anything GM or Ford makes.
And Williams is also likely to focus on Ahmadinejad's rhetoric on Israel. The Western media's obsession with this issue is puzzling and pathetic. The Iranian government has been chanting "death to Israel" for thirty years since the 1979 revolution. As someone who went to public and private schools in Iran for ten years, I remember the way school administrations would line up students in the school yard to listen to announcements, get their clothes and hair styles checked for uniformity, and on some religious holidays, chant "death to Israel" before heading for the first class. But despite the slogans, Iran has not attacked another country in over a hundred years. The notion that Ahmadinejad's words on Israel are either new or should be taken as anything more than empty rhetoric for domestic consumption is ridiculous. And the worst part about it is, despite the apparent panic, Israel better than any other country knows that these chants are not foreign policy declarations. Besides Ahmadinejad isn't even the one who makes decisions on foreign policy; it is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who is also the head of the Revolutionary Guards, as well as the Guardian Council that decides who can or can't run for president. The fact is that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is now in the middle of a major corruption scandal and is a lamer duck than Bush. And as he has learned from Bush and Ahmadinejad, the best way of surviving turbulent political environment at home and distract the public from own failures is to play the fear card.
The fact is that the issues the Western media have focused on have not emerged as the result of deliberate thought processes, but as the result of the media's shameless lack of independence from the talking points of the Bush administration. They did before we went into Iraq, and they are doing it again.
But there can be a positive outcome from any such interview with Ahmadinejad, and that is by keeping the focus on human rights violations in Iran. The fact is that Iran is the signatory of the declaration of human rights. And yet, people have watched as Ahmadinejad has curtailed their most basic freedoms. Women face ever increasing pressure in the streets to abide by strict dress codes, activists are regularly arrested and jailed without trial in the name of national security, homosexuals are hanged, satellites TVs are banned, internet is censored, elections are staged, and Kurds and Baha'is are treated as sub-humans.
Brian Williams should keep the focus of his interview on these issues for several reasons. First, because the state runs the media in Iran, interviews with western reporters are extremely rare in the sense that they are the only times when a reporter can ask the president anything he or she wants and have that report broadcast. All such interviews are immediately made available to Iranians inside Iran through YouTube and Persian Satellite TV channels (which millions of Iranians illegally own). When the nuclear issue is made the main topic of discussion over every other issue, it doesn't bring out people's love for the United States, but their nationalism. People will see the interview as another way in which the United States is trying to bully Iran to deprive it of a legal right and also show the U.S.'s continued willingness to obsess about Iran's nuclear program at the expense of Persians' human rights. It will also help Ahmadinejad rally the people around himself. But if Williams were to press Ahmadinejad on human rights issues, it would have a significant effect in terms of energizing freedom activists and scoring major points for the United States in terms of strengthening pro-American sentiments among Iranians.
The second, but equally important aspect of the interview can be the political impact it can have on Iran's own affairs. While Ayatollah Khamenei continues to be in charge of Iranian foreign policy, a fracture has appeared between Ahmadinejad's administration and Khamenei and The Guard as the result of Ahmadinejad's appetite for power. This led Khamenei to give his blessing to a prominent former foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, to write an editorial for the French paper, Libération, in which he reiterated that the Supreme Leader is the ultimate decision-maker in Iran. Khamenei would not have done this if he didn't feel insecure.
Iranian factions understand how to use the western media and it's time the western media caught up. Williams has an extraordinary opportunity to contribute to exploiting the fracture within the Iranian government by pressing Ahmadinejad on those differences between him and Khamenei. He should even ask Ahmadinejad one question very bluntly: "President Ahmadinejad, who makes the ultimate foreign policy decisions in Iran?" Regardless of how Ahmadinejad answers this question, the United States as well as the people of Iran will benefit. If he responds, "I am the ultimate decision-maker," this will likely cause significant friction between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei and may actually lead to competition for power, which is one of the ideas at the core of the definition of democracy. This will weaken the regime and strengthen the people who are pushing for change. And if he says, "Ayatollah Khamenei makes the decisions," then the American people will know once and for all that Ahmadinejad's rhetoric is nothing more than empty words with no weight behind them.
Western journalists have an exceptional opportunity to not only do decent and independent journalism, but also help improve America's image, help nonviolent activists in Iran establish a democracy for themselves and help the cause of human rights.
Keep these thoughts in mind when you watch Brian Williams' interview tonight and let us know your thoughts on the interview.