To err on the side of accuracy, the real deal is the nearly prostrate condition of the economy as well as Ahmedinejad's propensity for prevarication on that reality. When Ahmedinejad won his unexpectedly convincing victory a while back, it was with the promise that Iran's oil riches would find their way to the dinner plates of the Iranian versions of Joe and Jane Sixpack. To say that the promise remains unfulfilled is to engage in world class understatement.
While the collapse of last year's record setting oil prices played a role in the meltdown of the Iranian economy, that was the lesser contributor to the current situation of high inflation and very high unemployment. The greater causes can be laid directly to the policies of Ahmedinejad and his clerical masters.
The mullahs and their mouthpiece have tossed oodles and gobs of the long green at military targets. The spinning centrifuges and the new generation of solid fuel boosters did not come cheap. Even without the sanctions which have caused an unspecifiable but far from negligible increase in costs, these projects and systems are big, very big ticket items.
Below the glitz of the centrifuges and missiles, the Iranians have spent an ever increasing percentage of their diminishing GDP on conventional weapons for their air, ground and naval forces. The overall size of the military, including its paramilitary components, have been increased--in part to offset the thirty plus percent unemployment among young men.
In addition, the Iranian government has continued to funnel large sums into their client groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Largess has also been spread among troublemaking groups from Afghanistan and Iraq to such far away places as the Philippines and Latin America. Quite simply, keeping and expanding the terrorist networks established as far back as the early Eighties is an expensive proposition, the costs of which are only partially offset by an increasing involvement in the fabrication, transportation and distribution of drugs.
Along with the guns, Ahmedinejad--with the necessary support of the senior clerics--has tossed money in the direction of "butter." The base of Ahmedinejad's support was and is the poor, the marginal and the most devout. Make work and relief projects as well as subsidies both open and disguised have been necessary to keep the support of these segments of the population. Holding the poorest from harm has been critical in Ahmedinejad's political future.
Mir Hossein Moussavi draws his support from the young, the "middle class," the less devout. His rivers of green draw from the waters of those who do not get the subsidies, the relief, the people who must work forty-eight hours a day to begin to make ends meet. The "Greenies" also include those who are nationalistic in what might be termed a "Persian" sense rather than one which rests on Islamism. These are the more educated, the more plugged into the world, who have been feeling an increased sense of embarrassment from Ahmedinejad's flights of oratorical excess around the world.
In addition the Moussavi supporters include those who rightly worry about the probable consequences of a continuation of intransigence on the nuclear issue. These Iranians have a sufficient grip on reality to recognise what will happen if Israel decides that the emerging Iranian nuclear threat must be removed regardless of costs.
The mullahocracy's policy of intransigence, more intransigence and even more intransigence has served the regime's interests well for thirty years now. Breaking the norms and customs of international relations has worked well--misleadingly well. The direct and proxy employment of terror, assassination and the other ploys of the twilight sort of war has also worked well--again misleadingly well.
Quite simply, all trains eventually reach the end of the line. The same may be coming true with respect to the thirty years of defiance, obstinacy, and lethal operations. Among the supporters of Moussavi this is a factor which equals or perhaps surpasses the economy.
President Obama does not want to see the military instrument employed in order to bring about a final solution to the Iranian conundrum. No American president has sought out war--not even Theodore Roosevelt despite rumors to the contrary. FDR didn't send the American navy against Japan on 6 December 1941. Harry Truman did not order an invasion of North Korea in 1950. The much maligned LBJ did not eagerly ship ground combat forces to South Vietnam in 1965.
Even George W. Bush didn't stare at a globe hoping to find a country to invade before 9/11.
The Obama version of "give peace a chance" is not new, not unprecedented. But, like the other peace oriented presidents before him, there well may come the day when war seems to be the least-worst option. That day may be upon him long before he or the rest of us expects or desires.
Undoubtedly there are Iranians who recognise this. There may even be members of the clerical elite, the powers in the back room of Iranian politics, who realise it as well.
Ultimately, it is the latter rather than the former who will make the crucial decision to drop the thirty year long policy and embark on a new course. No matter how the election turns out, the mullahs of Ayatollah Khamenei's inner circle make the decisions and enforce them.
The race in Iran is tighter now than any observer might have thought even two weeks ago. It is still unlikely that Moussavi will win. However, a strong showing by the challenger is enough.
Enough to fire warning shots across the bows of the mullahs and frontman Ahedinejad alike. There will be two rounds in particular in this electoral barrage.
The first is it's-the-economy,-stupid! The second is the limits of defiance.
The mullahs will have good reason to re-evaluate the commitment of vast amounts of the country's limited resources to military uses. They will have good reason to ask if they have pushed the forbearance of the West too far. They might wonder if they are perilously close to the line, the limits of tolerance.
The mullahs might even be so un-Islamist as to take a look at history. If they were to make such a bold move, they would discover that American presidents of the Democratic Party are the most likely to take the most robust military action when pushed over the line. Consider Woodrow Wilson, a peace loving man of almost True Believer status. Pushed beyond his limits, the Marines landed in Mexico and elsewhere, and the US went to war only six months after Wilson had won re-election as the man who "kept us out of war."
Or, they might consider Harry Truman's response to the North Korean invasion. Truman not only invoked the UN successfully as diplomatic cover for our military response, he signed off on NSC 68 which put us firmly on the road to the hydrogen bomb, long range missiles, the arms race with the Soviet Union and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.
Or, they might reflect on JFK. The Kennedy White House following the president's humiliation at the Vienna summit went full tilt in a campaign against Castro, sent special forces to Laos and ramped up our ability to counter presumed Soviet sponsored insurgencies throughout the world. Among other consequences were the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the last nanometer of the brink of nuclear war.
Even Jimmy Carter, the most un-warlike man to sit in the Oval since Rutherford B. Hayes, would have sent the troops to Iran in 1979--had he not already dismantled our special operations capacity and rapid response interventionary potential.
Barack Obama does not have the kind of mentality to accept diplomatic kicks to the groin while keeping his famed smile intact. President Obama (and the Democratic Congressional leadership) likes to see himself as a progressive, a globalist, even a post-nationalist. But, as the historical record demonstrates clearly, people of a similar self-characterisation have gone to war with a rush and a fury which almost surpasses understanding.
The Iranian regime has lied, assassinated, terrorised and generally behaved as global Bad Actor without real hindrance for thirty years. Along the way the mullahs have repressed and impoverished their own people to say nothing of dragging the long generations of proud Persian nationalism through the mire of Islamism. Now, with a little bit of luck, the elections will produce results which include the clerics re-evaluating their relations with both the Persian people and the governments of the world.
However, if the Supreme Ayatollah and his ilk insist with continuing more of the same old, same old, they and the rest of the world are in for a stretch of very bad road. All that can be hoped for realistically is that Moussavi will do well enough to force the assorted ayatollahs, imams and other bearers of clerical authority to discover that Allah wills, "Cowboy, mend your ways--now!"
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