Hassan Daioleslam
As the daily images of the Iranian people’s revolt on one hand, and the regime’s brutal repression on the other, are broadcast around the world, the illusion that the elections may bring a powerful Iranian president, capable of responding to Obama’s overture has unquestionably vanished.

Over the past four years, an army of self-proclaimed Iran experts had continuously preached friendship with Tehran’s theocratic rulers.   They have argued that kinder American attitude towards the Ayatollahs would be compensated by in-kind reaction from Tehran. They have insisted that  Ahmadinejad’s presidency in 2004 was  the result of the American harsh policies towards Iran and notably George Bush’s famous “axis of evil” speech. These “experts” have intentionally ignored massive electoral fraud in 2004 that prompted the rival candidate Hashemi Rafsanjani to take his “grief” to god!  They also chose to ignore the fact that Ahmadinejad’s ascendance started as the mayor of Tehran.  In fact, Ahmadinejad’s  “victory” in the city elections in early 2003 was in the midst of  an 18 months secret and cordial dealing between the Bush administration and the Iranian envoys.

Now, in 2009, after a long starch of the American good-will gestures and friendly overtures, the Iranian regime has once again imposed Ahmadinejad on the nation and on the world. It is predictable that the same “Iran experts” would probably blame Obama for not being generous enough towards the Mullahs.

The first casualty of the Iranian uprising is the much expected negotiations between the Obama administration and the Clerical rulers. Gary Sick, a long time advocate of friendship with Tehran has expressed his pessimism in this regard: 1

“With regard to the United States and the West, nothing would prevent them in principle from dealing with an illegitimate authoritarian government. But this election is an extraordinary gift to those who have been most skeptical about President Obama’s plan to conduct negotiations with Iran… In their own paranoia and hunger for power, the leaders of Iran have provided an invaluable gift to their worst enemies abroad.”

Interviewed by the Council on Foreign Relations, Sick illustrated his disarray:2

“It’s clear that the task of starting some kind of discussion or negotiations with Iran is going to be infinitely more complicated than it was before. It wasn’t easy from the beginning-and anybody who thought it would be an easy task didn’t understand the problem.  But now after this internal coup and all the coverage it has received, those people in the United States and particularly in Israel who really opposed the idea of having negotiations with Iran-who favored a pressure strategy to build up more sanctions and so on-are now going to use their clout in Congress and elsewhere to slow down or stop the process.”

Suzanne Maloney, an influential Iran expert at Brookings institution illustrated similar pessimism over the prospect of negotiation with Iran:3

“For the Obama administration, the developments of the past week in Iran represent perhaps the worst possible outcome… A win for the reformists would have added real energy to the effort, both within Iran and here at home, in the excitement over shifting ideological tides in Tehran and the inclusion of Iranian leaders who were both capable of and prepared to countenance serious negotiations. A plausible Ahmadinejad victory, while unwelcome, would at least have offered Washington the prospect of dealing with a consolidated conservative government that might have felt confident enough to pursue a historic shift in its relationship with an old adversary.

Instead, Washington now faces a newly fractured Iranian polity… That does not bode well for Iran’s capacity to undertake serious talks and eventually engage in historic concessions on its nuclear program and support for terrorism.”

Damage control

The pro-appeasement advocates are currently hard at work to limit the impact of the Iranian revolt and save their much publicized path of coexistence with the Iranian regime.  They have employed every imaginable argument to prevent Obama from discarding the regime’s mockery of elections. Obama’s refusal to approve the Iranian electoral show would deligitimize Ahmadinejad and Khamenei and rends future negotiations meaningless.

The advocates of friendship with Tehran are also actively present to dissuade Obama from a public support of the Iranian people’s uprisings. This would encourage them, undermine the regime’s legitimacy and would irremediably destroy any potential rapprochement.  These Iran experts have ample arguments in their bag to persuade Obama to leave the Iranian people alone with their predators. For example, Gary Sick refers to the usual argument of “do not support the Iranian people because you give the regime a pretext to suppress them“:2

“If I were on the NSC, my first piece of advice would be to do as little as possible. There is a battle going on inside Iran. This is an issue that is going to be fought out by Iranians-there’s nothing to be gained by external forces coming into this or trying to influence the outcome. That would be a terrible mistake, and no matter what was said or done by the administration, it would be interpreted as intervention and would actually undercut severely the position of the reformists as they would be tagged as “tools of the West.” So basically “do nothing for now” is not a bad piece of advice.”

Finally, pro-Tehran advocates try to convince the so-called reform leaders in Iran that for the sake of their own interests, it is better to calm down and prevent a radicalization of crisis. Gary Sick declares:1

“The Iranian opposition, which includes some very powerful individuals and institutions, has an agonizing decision to make. If they are intimidated and silenced by the show of force (as they have been in the past), they will lose all credibility in the future with even their most devoted followers. But if they choose to confront their ruthless colleagues forcefully, not only is it likely to be messy but it could risk running out of control and potentially bring down the entire existing power structure, of which they are participants and beneficiaries.”

Could the pro-Mullah lobbyists in the US survive through the present crisis themselves?

Notes:

1. Gary Sick http://garysick.tumblr.com/post/123070238/irans-political-coup
2. CFRinterviewhttp://www.cfr.orgpublication19622troubling_message_from_tehran.html?breadcrumb=%2F

Suzanne Maloney http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-13/an-absurd-outcome/3/