Iran's Stolen Election Has Sparked an Uprising -- What Should the U.S. Do?

As the fraudulent outcomes in the presidential races of 2000 in the United States and 2006 in Mexico demonstrate, elections can be stolen without the public rising up to successfully challenge the results. There have been cases, however, where such attempted thefts have been overturned through massive nonviolent resistance, as in the Philippines in 1985, Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and Ukraine in 2005. It is unclear as of this writing how the people of Iran will react to what increasingly appears to be the theft of their presidential election. So far, protests have been scattered, lacking in discipline and therefore easily suppressed. A general strike is planned, however, and a more cohesive and strategic resistance movement may emerge.

Despite the increased repression of recent years, Iran has witnessed a growing civil society movement and increasing calls for greater freedom. Indeed, those in the Iranian regime correctly recognize that the biggest threat to their grip on power comes not from the United States or Israel, but from their own people. Civilian-based insurrections have played a critical role over the past century in challenging Iranian rulers, such as during the Constitutional Revolution of 1907 and the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. Iran's clerical leaders, faced with growing dissent -- particularly among youth, women, the middle class, and urban dwellers -- realize that they may be next.

Already, the clerical leadership has been warning that it is willing to do whatever is necessary to nip a "velvet revolution" -- in reference to the two-week popular uprising that ousted Czechoslovakia's Communist regime in November 1989 -- in the bud.

This may explain the clumsy effort by Iranian authorities to steal last Friday's election. It had been widely assumed that the country's powerful clerical leadership saw incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as something of a loose cannon. Meanwhile, his principal rival Mir Hossein Mousavi -- despite his disagreements with Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the years -- was very much part of the establishment. Indeed, Mousavi would not have even been allowed to run for president otherwise, since the Council of Guardians routinely forbids anyone who is seen to not sufficiently support the country's theocratic system to participate.

Yet, Mousavi attracted such a large and enthusiastic following in the course of the campaign that the ruling clerics may have feared the momentum of his incipient victory could result not just in limited reforms, like those attempted under former president Mohammed Khatami, but revolutionary change. The size and intensity of Mousevi's final rally last week, in which he referred to Ahmadinejad as a "dictator" -- which, by extension, implied an indictment of the system as a whole -- may have tilted the clerics into believing they could not take the risk of allowing the anticipated results to be verified. Despite his candidacy displaying a personality and style closer to Michael Dukakis than Barack Obama, Mousavi came to represent the change so many Iranians, especially young people, desperately desired and appeared determined to make happen.

So far, there are little indications that the diverse opposition in Iran has the organizational and strategic wherewithal to mount a massive nonviolent action campaign that could overturn the stolen election and bring greater democracy to that country. This stolen election may hasten that day, however. Iran today is not unlike Eastern Europe in the 1970s. The people may not be ready to overthrow the system, but the ideological hegemony which had previously maintained that system and stifled freedom of thought has largely vanished. Even among Iranians dedicated to the principles of the Islamic Republic, many now see their country essentially as a police state, recognizing that Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics are little more than corrupt self-interested politicians who have manipulated their people's religious faith for the sake of their own power.

Most Iranians were born after the bitter struggle against the tyrannical Shah and only a minority remember the bloody war with Iraq which followed, legacies on which the country's leaders have tried to legitimize their rule. It no longer seems to be working. In thousands of little ways -- from satellite dishes hidden behind rooftop cisterns, to clandestine mixed social gatherings of unchaperoned young people, to women incrementally expanding the limits of what is considered acceptable apparel -- small acts of resistance are undermining the authority of the regime. And such resistance is not coming just from affluent educated neighborhoods in North Tehran, but across classes and ethnicities and regions.

The Role of the United States

This begs the question: what can the United States do to speed the process for greater freedom in Iran?

The answer may be to stay out of the way as much as possible.

Despite claims by former President George W. Bush that the United States has always supported "liberty" and "democracy" in Iran, the history of U.S.-Iranian relations during both Republican and Democratic administrations has demonstrated very little support for a democratic Iran. In the early 1950s, the last time Iran had a democratic constitutional government, the United States joined Great Britain and other countries in imposing strict economic sanctions against Iran in response to the nationalization of the country's oil resources, which until then had been under foreign control. Taking advantage of the resulting economic collapse and political turmoil that followed, the CIA helped engineer a coup against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from exile to rule with an iron fist.

Over the next 25 years, the United States armed and trained the Shah's dreaded SAVAK (Organization for National Security and Intelligence) secret police, which emerged as one of the most repressive internal security organizations of the era. Despite claims to the contrary by right-wing critics of the Carter administration, the United States strongly supported the Shah until his final days in power, providing valuable assistance to the regime even as it was massacring protestors in the streets. It comes as no surprise, in light of this history, that the revolution which finally ousted the monarchy in February 1979 was stridently anti-American. Furthermore, since the Shah's U.S.-trained and supplied repressive apparatus had largely succeeded in wiping out the democratic and secular opposition to the regime, it was religious opponents -- who survived as a result of the greater cohesion made possible through the mosques -- who spearheaded the revolutionary movement. Thus, the radical Islamist orientation of the revolution and the severe repression which has hallmarked clerical rule was a direct consequence of the Shah's U.S.-backed efforts to maintain control through repression.

Despite the severing of diplomatic relations in response to the hostage crisis, the United States clandestinely armed and provided other security assistance to the Islamic government during much of the 1980s, both to support the mujahidin fighters against the Communist regime and its Soviet backers in neighboring Afghanistan as well as to suppress leftist dissidents within Iran.

As a result of this history, most members of the democratic opposition in Iran do not take very seriously Washington's claims that it supports freedom for the Iranian people.

Ironically, recent years have witnessed repeated calls by American neoconservatives who, despite having shown little concern for human rights in much of the world (including Iran when it was under the allied regime of the Shah) insist that the United States must lead the way in bringing democracy to that country. Despite being a thinly-veiled excuse for setting up another puppet regime to ensure easier access to the country's oil and natural gas resources, these supposed defenders of Iranian freedom have attacked the Obama administration for its apparently reluctance to pursue military options as well as for its interest in negotiating some kind of rapprochement with Iran regarding areas of mutual concern, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and nuclear non-proliferation.

Some American neoconservative leaders argue that sustained air and missile strikes against Iranian government, nuclear, and military facilities would cripple the regime to a point that it would empower opponents to rise up against the government. In reality, Iranian opposition leaders emphasize that war and threat of war by the U.S. government would certainly unify the population around the regime and would be used to justify further repression.

The widely reported clandestine U.S. support for Kurdish, Baluchi, and other Iranian national minorities launched under the Bush administration runs the risk of igniting violent ethnic conflict and increased political repression in parts of the country, but these efforts are not likely to pose much of a threat to the survival of the regime either. In any case, it appears that the Obama administration has ended these programs.

In addition, the United States cannot realistically hope for a coup, given that pro-U.S. elements in the military were thoroughly purged soon after the revolution. The leadership of Iran's military and security forces, while not necessarily unified in support of the more hardline elements in government, cannot be realistically expected to collaborate with any U.S. efforts for regime change in their oil-rich country.

Strategic Nonviolent Action

What recent history has repeatedly shown is that the most effective means for democratic change comes from broadly based nonviolent movements, such as those that have toppled dictatorships in such diverse countries as the Philippines, Chile, Madagascar, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Indonesia, Serbia, Mali, Nepal, the Maldives, and elsewhere. Even the relatively conservative Washington-based Freedom House has produced a study that, after examining the 67 transitions from authoritarian regimes to varying degrees of democratic governments over the past few decades, concluded that the changes were catalyzed not through foreign invasion, and only rarely through armed revolt or voluntary elite-driven reforms, but overwhelmingly by democratic civil society organizations utilizing nonviolent action and other forms of civil resistance, such as strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and mass protests.

In apparent recognition of this trend, Congress in recent years has approved millions of dollars in funding to support various Iranian opposition groups to promote "regime change." However, most of these groups are led by exiles who have virtually no following within Iran or any experience with the kinds of grassroots mobilization necessary to build a popular movement that could threaten the regime's survival. By contrast, most of the credible opposition within Iran has renounced this U.S. initiative and has asserted that it has simply made it easier for the regime to claim that all pro-democracy groups and activists are paid agents of the United States.

In an effort to head off such a popular uprising and discredit pro-democracy leaders and their supporters, Iran's reactionary leadership has been making false claims, aired in detail in a series of television broadcasts beginning in 2007, that certain Western nongovernmental organizations that have given workshops and offered seminars for Iranian pro-democracy activists on the theory and history of strategic nonviolent struggle are actually plotting with the U.S. government to overthrow the regime. On several occasions, Iranian authorities have arrested and tortured these activists, forcing them to sign phony confessions allegedly confirming these allegations.

Some Western bloggers and other writers, understandably skeptical of U.S. intervention in oil-producing nations in the name of "democracy," have actually bought into these claims by Iran's hardline clerics that prominent nonviolent activists from Europe and the United States -- most of whom happen to be highly critical of U.S. policy toward Iran -- are somehow working as U.S. agents. These conspiracy theories have in turn been picked up by some progressive websites and periodicals, which repeat them as fact. Unfortunately, such accusations do little more than strengthen the hand of Iran's repressive regime, weaken democratic forces inside the country, and strengthen the argument of U.S. neoconservatives that only U.S. intervention -- and not nonviolent struggle by the Iranian people themselves -- is capable of freeing the county.

Historically, individuals and groups with experience in effective mass nonviolent mobilization tend to come from the left and carry a skeptical view of government power, particularly governments with a history of militarism and conquest. Conversely, large bureaucratic governments used to projecting political power through military force or elite diplomatic channels have little understanding or appreciation of mass popular struggles. As a result, the dilemma for U.S. policy-makers is that the most realistic way to democratize Iran is through a process the United States cannot control.

The U.S. government has historically promoted regime change through military invasions, coups d'etat and other kinds of violent seizures of power by an undemocratic minority. Nonviolent "people power" movements, by contrast, promote regime change through empowering pro-democratic majorities. Unlike fomenting a military coup or supporting a military occupation, which are based upon control over the population and repression of potential political opponents, nonviolent civil insurrections -- as a result of being based upon a broad coalition of popular movements -- are virtually impossible for an outside power to control.

In any case, the Obama administration does not seem to be very interested in promoting such a "people power" revolution. On Meet the Press this Sunday, Vice-President Joe Biden spoke about Iran with the assumption that Ahamdinejad would remain president, blithely referring to the incumbent who had just stolen the election as "durable." The most criticism Biden could muster was his observation that even if the election was won "fair and square," Ahmadinejad still had "domestic critics" (quite an understatement for a country that may be on the verge of a popular insurrection.) The most Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could say, even as the extent of the fraud was becoming apparent, was that the United States hoped that the outcome of Iranian vote reflected the "genuine will and desire" of the Iranian people.

Despite the growing repression from its government, the negative consequences of sanctions and threats against their country, and Washington's disinterest in their struggle, the best hope for Iran comes from Iranian civil society. It is the Iranian people alone who have the right and the capability to reform or bring down the country's increasingly illegitimate regime and establish a more just and democratic society. Whether it will be in the short-term or the long-term, freedom will come to Iran. When it does, however, it will likely be in spite of -- rather than because of -- the policies of the United States.

Comments

[Traveller]

I say that US should sit up and take notice. Last year Pakistan showed us a little bit about democracy. Now it is Iran. These are touted to be fundamental countries with clerics in charge. Yet when the majority of common humans feel they have been wronged they get out on the streets with no regard to personal safety and demand justice. This is done keeping the future generations in mind. Without justice and freedom what is peace?

In 2000 we sat in the safety of our living rooms and watched while the presidency in the US was hijacked. This was followed by 8 years of unleashed violence in he world which is unprecedented, in the name of weaponry, regime change, democracy, change of air who knows? There is no excuses to lack of restraint and common sense specially in the face of terrorism as we saw at 9/11. There have been attacks on many countries and allies after 2001. I have not yet seen ANY country react the way we did. With no restraint , no sense and no plan. They have all got responsible governments with simple common sense.

I say we should learn today from the common man around the world and watch how well they demand and get what they ask for. Fear is a common factor amongst the common man dont get them wrong. To face fear and be able to overcome it by numbers and determination is true strength and bravery.

[paixa3]

Stephen, look in a mirror, year 2000 in the USA.

The USA has absolutely NO MORAL FORTITUDE to speak or interfere.

[research]

Bingo!

[smilodon1]

2004 was even more blatant. Remember Ohio and Blackwell?

[Hanzi Lai]

In every conflict and in every region, the circumstances are different and that demands different strategies to deal with them. There is no 1 size fits all. It may be effective in bombing Serbia into submission but doing that to Iran will probably have different results. The Iraq war has shown that it can over-consume US energies. This is a region of widespread suspicion and sometimes hate of US because of years of political meddling. US sponsorship of despotic regimes have indirectly resulted mostly in disastrous unintended consequences, giving birth to hardline anti-US groups. Iran's attitudes towards the US today is the direct result of 1 of these, the 1953 coup of a democratically elected leader in Iran by the US. The author is right that not meddling in Iran could very well be the best policy.

[oxi]

"There have been cases, however, where such attempted thefts have been overturned through massive nonviolent resistance, as in the Philippines in 1985, Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and Ukraine in 2005."

The wonderful color revolutions!

You make it look like these people actually did this? Not!

The CIA was heavily involved in Serbia 2000, Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine 2005! NATO expansion has a high price for those nations and their leadership that seek not to join the west with the EU or NATO!

Serbia was bombed (mostly civilian infrastructure) into submission so now they have no choice but to join the EU even NATO. Note they are surronded by EU and NATO states. Georgia and their U.S. puppet regime attacked Russian troops in South Ossetia and now Georgia is all carved up like Yugoslavia was. Ukraine, another coup attempt recently, how many more before they crumble?

Without the CIA, their would be no color revolutions!

[Pye Ian - Huffpost Blogger]

The author ignores the wider geopolitical game in which Iran serves as a vital chess piece. I.E. Russia and China value Iran greatly, and vice versa. Washington's core rivalry is with them, and thus engaging Iran - from the POV of Establishmentary heavies like Brzezinski, Kissinger, et al. - is in part to check the growing influence of these nations, their alliances (Shanghai Cooperation Organization, in which Iran retains a critical "Observer Status"), and economic trades with every continent on the planet.

For the sake of said wider game, Washington should treat Iran as it treats India, and engage economically. I know people in the Iranian state energy sector who would LOVE to see superior American energy servicing firms assist their operations, and who resent the pull-outs by Total, Royal Dutch Shell and others last year.

There is nothing wrong with American engagement in the Iranian oil and natural gas sectors, provided it is done above level without coercive political meddling.

[RoloTomassi]

I didn't get past the headline, as even that is a clear sign that this author has based an entire article on assumptions he cannot prove as fact.

CLEARLY, nothing is clear, other than a lot of civil unrest and a disputed election result.

And here's some food for thought:

Perhaps it is easily demonstrable that the US is a FAR more democratic nation than Iran--but if that is indeed the case, then WHY are we seeing them behave as if they are protesting in a democratic society, and yet we don't see this kind of passion for our own elections when an election result is disputed?

IMO, it comes down to the following:

1) we fear our government too much to protest so passionately, and

2) I think Iranians truly believe that major change is dependent upon this election; here in the US we KNOW that nothing major is likely to change, regardless of election results--in the US it's far more like watching a sporting event and simply "backing" [in a non-committed way] your favorite team. For far too many, it's just a sporting event that shouldn't be taken seriously.

[peterg76]

The US usually promotes instability in stronger countries. Iran is not likely to need any more help in that respect.

[Biscuit]

The 2000 election was stolen, whatever your opinion on what should have happened. Gore won a majority of the popular vote nationwide and in Florida. What Bush did may have been legal, but it was stealing.

And we paid the price. We lost over 10,000 Americans, a city, and a war.

[Biscuit]

HuffPost's Pick

What should we do? Lead by example. Pass health care reform. Help our economy get better. Stand up to terrorists and fundamentalists. End the war in Iraq. Get Bin Laden. And so on.

That's what makes us stronger, and what inspires other countries to follow our example. You can't force democracy on others, but you can inspire them to want it.

[paixa3]

Your country has missed the mark for an awful lot of years..........!

[Konnie]

what should we do???????????? NOTHING!

We have no moral authority to meddle.

let them fix their own country. maybe we could learn something. oh i don't know -

something like humility. something like "minding your own business"

[southwindow]

I love how most of the people commenting (and answering the question posed in the title) seem not to have read the article, and restate the obvious in the most clumsy and abrasive manner.

Anyways, near the end the article takes a critical tone towards the apparent disinterest of American officials, while stating elsewhere that the US should not be involved- well which is it? Should Hillary, Biden and Obama keep quiet? Or take a more interested stance and speak out on the subject? The article should be clearer on this point.

[skeptic 0]

Stolen Election? really?

Then why, UNLIKE the Western mass Media, THREE DAYS before the election, Voice of America,(referring to two US pollsters), accurately guessed a resounding victory for Ahmadinejed? (ratio of 34 to 14)

http://www.payvand.com/news/09/jun/1085.html

Why Mousavi, even before the counting began declared victory, heating up the atmosphere and raising the unrealistic hopes of his supporters who are rightfully fed up with their backward regime ?

Why, (as seen on a CNN video) a truck dumped a load of rocks / stones among the Tehran supporters of Mousavi (to be used as weapons against the riot police ?). Who were behind the dumping? Didn’t they know the punishment for such an act (according Iranian Constitution) is death (by hanging)?

Can Ben Menache, (an Israeli author) be believed claiming, in 1980s, one of Mousavi’s friends was a CIA agent? Or is there any credibility on the (Internet) allegations of his ties with Mossad?

And the big question...... was the June 9 prediction of Voice of America similar to NIE, trying to foil an ugly uprising... and why VOA continues to indirectly discredit the mass media who are still shouting “..widespread rigging, election fraud”?

Western and Iranian government pollsters knew what Americans knew. Was there a need to rig the election? With such a wide margin....obviously not.

The intentional trashing and ridiculing of the “Iranian Election” by Western corporate mass media was unified and well coordinated ......who is (are) the coordinator(s)?

[JustAThought56]

I asked myself these questions as well. It does not seem to me that this election was stolen at all, and I was appalled that Mousavi's wife urged his supporters to demonstrate and to fight what will inevitably be a losing battle. These are very young people getting hurt, and to what end? It will ultimately only create the excuse Ahmadinejad needs for a more repressive state bureaucracy.

I understand that international corporate interests are not happy with Ahmadinejad, and international corporations run the major news outlets here and around the world. It seems to me that they decided to foment this rebellion weeks ago and challenge the foregone conclusion of Ahmadinejad's victory in a legitimate election. I don't understand why, unless it is to destabilize the fabric of Iranian society and threaten Ahmadinejad's power base.

Seems to me they are only going to make him stronger.

[delta7777]

.
To our eyes,Ahmadinejad is certainly no angel; however if you look closely, Mousavi is not quite the "Saviour" he is set forth to be; in fact here is every liklihood that he would turn Iran away from secularism back to a theocracy. Whether the election was rigged is not an unfair question, and it seems to me that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointment of the Council of Guardians to investigate this is a far more honest approach than the U.S. rigged coronation of Bush after he lost the 2000 election to Gore, which certainly should have been investigated by an independent prosecutor, as now being done in Iran by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who deserves respect for this.
In the mean time, inflammatory comments from the west. such as made by Biden, are totally inappropriate and may well make diplomatic relations exceptionally difficult if it turns out that Ahamdinejad prevails. The U.S. should get its filthy hands off of trying to govern other soverign nations. U.S. has left nothing but a trail of blood and disaster every time it meddles.
.
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[twofish]

How do you count 48 million paper ballots in 3 hours to declare the winner? Something stinks here.

[JD44Irish]

Like the other posters, I agree, we shouldn't do anything at this point in time.

If we really beleive in freedom, then we must leave it to the people of Iran to handle this potential scandal. Use this experience to learn about Iran.

The US's most persuasive tool for encouraging a pro-west Iranian state is subtle propaganda. Pumping Iran full of Wallmarts and Statbucks is a start. Get them to watch insipid TV like the Hills and other reality TV shows and they will become star struck like the rest of our country is. Eventually, our cultural influence and domination will win out.

Btw, I think the SC decided Bush v. Gore incorrectly, but that does not make it a fraudulent election. The congress makes laws, the executive enforces them and the courts review the laws. That is the system we all signed up for and it applied to Bush v. Gore. I and many other American's strongly disagreed - but like Al Gore did, we must accept the finality of that decision. The consequences of not accepting it were too dire. If riots, protets and anarchy come as a result of an unfavorable decision on a close call - what standard do we set for the future.

We paid a heavy price for Bush 2000-08, but how much heavier a price would it have been if months of rioting ensued?

[cliffstep]

y'know , it's long been my opinion that "I Love Lucy" did more to end the cold war than perhaps anything. As tv reached out , along with VOA went the Ricardos. And Cubans in the 50s and eventually Eastern Europeans in the 60s watched and thought , "I'm supposed to be scared of them?"
But , on point , anything we do is wrong.
The better we are , the more peoples want to be like us.

[delta7777]

.
"The congress makes laws, the executive enforces them and the courts review the laws. "
is a rather shallow view of the basic principle of U.S. Government.

The controlling legal foundation for the United States is our Constitution, and it is on this document that our laws are established,
Congress is not empowered to make laws ad-libitum.

It is inconcievable that the founders who drafted U.S.Constitution would tolerate, even for an instant, allowing the Judicial branch to have the direct effect on the electoral process of the Executive as was done in Bush v Gore.

We have truly become a nation of complacent Megabank-governed sheeple.
.

[kellog1]

What were people in US doing when 2000/2004 elections were stolen by bush...NUTHING!!!!!

[asichii]

Absolutely nothing! The World is in chaos now chiefly because of warped policies of an illegitimate POTUS. Dictators across the world derive comfort and strength in rigging elections because of Mr B.ush. The US lost all moral authority to stand up against vote-riggers. In this case... the US's rumblings will be totally inconsequential. Madinajad (sp) ain't goin nowhere, our best bet is to castrate him diplomatically (unfortuantely engaging him). Great article my friend!