Iran's Election and US - Iranian Relations

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 1 of 5 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

For OpEdNews: Stephen Lendman - Writer

Iran's Election and US - Iranian Relations - by Stephen Lendman

In the run-up to Iran's June 12 presidential election, early indications suggested the media's reaction if the wrong candidate won. On June 7, New York Times writer Robert Worth reported "a surge of energy (for) Mir Hussein Mousavi, a reformist who is the leading contender to defeat Mr. Ahmadinejad (and) a new unofficial poll (has him well ahead) with 54 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him compared with 39 percent for Mr. Ahmadinejad." No mention of who conducted the poll, how it was done, what interests they represented, or if Mousavi winning might be the wrong result. More on that below.

Writing for the influential far right Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Fariborz Ghadar described the contest as "pit(ting) the hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against two relatively moderate and one conservative challenger." In spite of one or more independent polls showing Ahmadinejad way ahead, he suggested that "the outcome (isn't) all that clear." More on the poll results below.

The Wall Street Journal sounded a similar tone in calling Ahmadinejad's opponents "two reformists and one conservative (who) criticized his government for its lack of tolerance. Each has promised more personal and social freedom if elected."

Newsweek quoted Iranian historian Mohammed Javad Mozafar saying:

"The choice is....between democracy and an authoritarian government. If Ahmadinejad wins, that means the end of this reformist dream for a while. Many of these young people will be depressed and even leave the country. But if Mousavi wins, that means the citizens have won despite Ahmadinejad's deceitful policies and the support he receives from above (meaning Iran's Guardian Council and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)."

The dominant US media repeated similar comments to the above ones, so their post-June 12 response was no surprise.

On June 13, Robert Worth and Nazila Fathi in The New York Times headlined: "Protests Flare in Tehran as Opposition Disputes Vote," then described "the most intense protests in a decade....with riot police officers using batons and tear gas against opposition demonstrators who claimed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had stolen the presidential election."

The Wall Street Journal called the election "a sham" and cited the AP reporting that "election authorities were miraculously able to count millions of paper ballots (in just hours) after the polls closed to hand Mr. Ahmadinejad his supposed victory." It quoted writer Laura Secor in the New Yorker saying: "What is most shocking is not the fraud itself, but that it was brazen and entirely without pretext."

Perhaps she meant "precedent," but either way she ignored two stolen US elections for George Bush and the shameful media response to them.

Also disturbing are more moderate, supposedly even-handed, and progressive US voices. On June 13, Stephen Zunes asked "Has the Election Been Stolen in Iran?" Again with no evidence he wrote:

"....predictions of knowledgeable Iranian observers from various countries and from across the political spectrum were nearly unanimous in the belief that the leading challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would (win) decisively.." Given the results, "the only reasonable assumption was that there has been fraud on a massive scale."

Juan Cole admitted "difficulties of catching history on the run (and said evidence) may emerge for Ahmadinejad's upset that does not involve fraud," yet he concluded on first reaction that "this post-election situation looks to me like a crime scene."

The Nation magazine has had a shameful record since inception. In more recent years, it called the US-led NATO Serbia-Kosovo aggression "humanitarian intervention." Initially it supported the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war in its run-up and early months. In 2000 and 2004, it ignored blatant electoral fraud for George Bush. It attacks Hugo Chavez, and was hostile to Jean-Bertrand Aristide during his years as Haiti's President. It called the 2008 US presidential campaign the "Obama Moment" for his "historic candidacy" and keeps supporting him despite his brazen betrayal of voters who elected him.

Now it's at it again in a June 13 Robert Dreyfuss article headlined, "Iran's Ex-Foreign Minister Yazdi: It's a Coup" in which (without no substantiating evidence) he called the election "rigged," referred to Ahmadinejad as "radical-right," and said "his paramilitary backers were kept in office." Now "Iran's capital (is) steeped in anger, despair, and bitterness" as he almost cheerled for a "color revolution" with comments like:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.