Obama and the Ayatollah

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared today that the time for protest is past.

Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.

It's a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.

Obama's speech to the Muslim world two weeks ago in Cairo positioned him as a new kind of American leader.

As the president of the United States, it's Obama's job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them.

As a global icon, he is expected to inspire.

In 2007, as a still underdog candidate for president, Obama identified several targets he was going to pursue as president with the very troublesome Islamic Republic of Iran. He would directly engage it, for several purposes. To help stabilize the situation in Iraq, making possible the American troop withdrawal. To gain assistance for the American effort in Afghanistan. To cut back Iran's involvement with terrorist groups. To prevent Iran from developing a viable nuclear weapon.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who opposed Obama's engagement with Iran during the Democratic presidential primaries, talks about the situation.

This was a seemingly radical move, departing from decades of American dogma after the fall of the shah, the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the bitter American embassy hostage crisis. Virtually all Republicans denounced it, as did then Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Who is now, in one of history's delicious ironies, carrying out the policy as Obama's secretary of state. The fact that the Bush/Cheney Administration was privately trying to work with Iran to stabilize Iraq was just one of those major hypocrisies in American political life.

In a nutshell, that's Obama's agenda with Iran, which he is pursuing no matter who is the president there.

The widespread assumption before the Iranian election on June 12th was that the rather sinister President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would continue to be the president. That's the good working assumption today, too. I assume that President Obama and company have much the same plans now as they did the last few years. But something's changed.

The difference now is that there is a highly mobilized and visible reformist tendency in Iran, much friendlier to America under Obama than it would be America under McCain, that produced a big vote for the most moderate presidential candidate and is not afraid to stand up in the streets against an entrenched theocracy.

With the Iranian regime cracking down on journalists, we're relying on dramatic images and communiques delivered by sources hard to verify on YouTube and Twitter.

Was it a winning vote? Who knows?

While Iran is modernizing, phone usage still lags, making polling problematic. And Ahmadinejad, while he's popular among the more traditionally devout, also sports a contemporary style and reportedly won his presidential debates with top challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was prime minister under Khomeini and is now more of a modernist, and the other two candidates.

Still, whatever the facts, the impression I've developed, along with apparently most everyone else, is that Ahmadinejad's immediately declared landslide victory stinks to high heaven and that a highly legitimate reformist movement is in danger of being forcibly put down.

Obama the inspirational icon is expected to speak up about this sort of thing. Here is a modern Islam, an iPod Islam, an Islam he engaged in his Cairo address two weeks ago, which was well received around the world.

Al Jazeera reports that Khamenei is in the midst of a power struggle at the top of the Iranian state.

Of course, if Obama does speak up aggressively about what's going on in Tehran and other cities in Iran, he risks playing right into Supreme Leader Khamenei's hands. The ayatollah, according to Al Jazeera and other sources, is, along with Ahmadinejad, engaged in a power struggle with other elements at the top of the Iranian power structure.

Stronger statements from Obama, who can't buy a hamburger without a weirdly heightened level of interest, might actually backfire. "The Great Satan" is telling Iran what to do, again. Already, in today's address, Khamenei blamed Britain and America for inciting the unrest.

Meanwhile, according to multiple reports, the Revolutionary Guard is taking over security in Tehran, where the opposition is expected to mount another protest on Saturday. Khamenei says that the time for protest is past. What will happen? And is there anything Obama can do about it?

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Comments

[Winning09]

It looks like the new revolution is fizzling.

It's too bad.

[LizM]

It's too early to say that, I think...

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I see a movement, but not a revolution.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

It certainly fizzled today.

[Waltfl]

Why even respond? Iran didn't respond to our election mess in 2000, so would a US comment about Iran' internal affairs do any good? Do we even have reliable information about the elections in Iran? Why say something if we don't know exactly what's going on? Besides, after 8 years of Bush/Cheney the USA is not in a position any more to lecture other countries about human rights and freedom. No matter what Obama is going to say, it probably will always b criticized by Republicans. If he says not enough, they'll bash him for it, if he says too much they'll clobber him for that. Sometimes it's better to say nothing.

[Winning09]

You're right. We don't really know what's going on,

[jake1492]

The one thing we know for sure that we would be in opposition to is the violent suppression of political expression.

The other thing we would be in opposition to if we knew it, but we don't, is if the vote was in fact manipulated to make Ahmadinejad win, when he shouldn't have.

How to express that opposition? What to do about it? Say something about it. Which Obama has done in a diplomatic way that is intended to not lend comfort to the hardliners.

[chlai88]

Obama can only firmly declare and reaffirm that the US is standing on the side of the iranian people and their rights and well-being without taking sides in the battles between the leaders. Such are the stark choices that the world superpower is left with because of years of mishandled foreign policy starting with the shah and demonization of Iran. So now, Iranians are generally suspicious of the US and the conservatives will use association with US as a weapon against any reformist. This is the hole the US has dug itself into.

But Khamenei himself is also digging a hole for himself by clenching his fist instead of defusing tensions. If he unleash the Basij on the demonstrators, he will be portrayed as the shah, the hated icon of the enemy of the Islamic Revolution he himself so wants to protect. But if he does not follow thru with his threats, the Mousavi camp will be further emboldened to press on. He is leaving very little options for himself. The only peaceful way out for Khamenei and everyone is probably for him to listen and negotiate with the pro-Mousavi camp.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Very nice.

[LizM]

That was a great summation of the separate conundrums in which President Obama and the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei find themselves - worthy of a HuffPost Pick designation, I might add.

Both leaders are walking a tightrope on this one, it seems - one heavily constrained by not too distant history and the other influenced by how to maintain the status quo well into the future. That’s a recipe for disaster, on both fronts.

[dst1]

FANNED

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

What does that mean?

[sc300nc]

If he indeed is considered an icon globally, they will soon see that it has been false adverising.

[Winning09]

Yeah, yeah, yeah ...

There's no "if" there, either, except on Rushbo's show.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

If?

[sc300nc]

You think Israel thinks he is an icon? Just for beginners.

[MarkOfBrooklyn]

Let's not forget the risk /threat to troops already in Iraq who are fighting against Iranian supported insurgents. Iran will stepup the violence in Iraq if we "meddle", and will still crack the skulls of their people.

We must also think about Americans troops in Iraq.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks. I think I mentioned that as one of the four key points on Obama's agenda with Iran since calling for engagement in 2007.

[Winning09]

The Al Jazeera report on the power struggle at the top in Iran is fascinating.

Recommended viewing.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Yes, it's very complicated, which is why I didn't get into the particulars in a shorter piece.

[Winning09]

Al Jazeera in that clip sounds like it believes the CIA may be manipulating the Twitter type stuff supposedly coming out of Iran.

How hard would that be to do?

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't know.

Clearly, CIA did not create a large political movement in Iran.

But can an intelligence service use unsourced reports and selective video to manipulate perception?

Absolutely. It may actually be a mistake for the mullahs to keep foreign press away.

I remember during the "Tea Party" movement a few months ago, the organizers were insisting that they had 20,000 people at one event that I happened to stop by. And it was clear to me that there were only 3000 people there.

Relying on tweets and vid from that event supplied by activists would have given a very distorted view of what happened.

[Winning09]

That would be ironic if the zealots got a bigger black eye because they allowed media manipulation by not allowing news media.

[Winning09]

It cracks me up that Hillary is out there in that news clip as Obama's Secretary of State.

Now she's talking about Twitter, which I doubt she uses. Is it really that big a deal in Iran? It's not even that big a deal here.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I do love the irony of Hillary as the secretary of state.

[Winning09]

Obama's speech in Cairo was great. I'll watch it here again later.

[Winning09]

The Ayatollah sounds pretty adamant in that news clip. IS he really going to put down demonstrations with force?

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't know. I doubt it. But I've certainly never met the guy.

[Winning09]

Obama is President first, global icon second. We need to make things work better with Iran.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

And there is the question of what America could do to affect the outcome.

We know how America can affect the outcome in a negative way, because that's the historical pattern.

However, no matter how things go down, Obama does have to be on the side of reform.

[Winning09]

What can America do?

I'm sure the neocons would love to invade, they're always itching for more war.

But that's a bad idea.