Goldfarb Thinks Invading Iraq Causes Reformist Election Victories in Iran
Mohammad Khatami won elections without any help from George W. Bush (Wikimedia)
As I understand the basic neoconservative approach to the eventual vindication of the Iraq War, their plan is to take advantage of the fact that over the course of the long-term, things tend to get better. So someday, the politics of the Persian Gulf region will almost certainly be less autocratic than they are now. This will all be credited to George W. Bush and his splendid little war. Of course by this same logic, Mao’s Five Year Plan was a smashing success, since today China is much richer than it was before the Revolution. Thus, Michael Goldfarb:
Is it possible that the Iraqi election experience had something to do with Iranian expectations of an election? If critics of the war can for just a moment move beyond their own deeply held opinions about the invasion of Iraq — that this was a war of choice fought on false premises to lower gas prices or whatever — and examine the effect of that war on the region as a whole, they might see a connection to the current turmoil in Iran. After all, one of the intellectual arguments in favor of overthrowing Saddam Hussein was, in the words of Dick Cheney, to place “a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, a nation that will be a positive force in influencing the world around it in the future.”
I think a case can be made that Barack Obama’s election as president has also raised expectations of the democratic process in countries around the world. It is certainly possible that we are seeing an Obama effect in Iran as young people there look to replicate the excitement and enthusiasm of young people here during last year’s election. But any honest assessment of events in Iran would also have to consider the effect of having a functioning democracy right next door — a democracy that millions of Iranians have seen for themselves as they make religious pilgrimages and conduct business in Iraq. Iran has had a tremendous influence on Iraq these last few years, usually to the detriment of peace and security there. Perhaps the current protests in Iran are evidence that influence doesn’t just cross the border in one direction.
Spencer Ackerman offers the sensible observation that if Iraq were a major source of inspiration for Iranian opposition leaders you might expect to hear something about that from the Iranian opposition leaders. But then again, the right-wing has gotten very invested in partisan criticism of Barack Obama for following the lead of actual Iranian dissidents and not injecting himself in a ham-fisted and counterproductive way into the crisis, and the general neocon view seems to be that Iranians are irrelevant to events in Iran.
So I think that the key point to make here is that the reformist candidate won the Iranian presidential election in 1997, and won re-election by a big margin in 2001. Then back in 2003 when a reformist president was actually in office and the Iranian government was looking to improve relations with the United States, the Bush administration chose to strengthen the hand of Iranian hardliners by (a) labeling Iran part of an “axis of evil” (b) refusing to engage in bilateral dialogue with Iran (c) cutting off cooperation on Afghanistan and (d) invading Iraq. We then got Ahmadenijad in the 2005 election, and now we’re watching the 2009 election unfold right before our eyes. The moral of the story is that there’s nothing unusual about a reformist candidate getting strong support from the Iranian voters.
80 Responses to “Goldfarb Thinks Invading Iraq Causes Reformist Election Victories in Iran”
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June 16th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
OK, now that’s funny!
June 16th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I demand fists of ham!
June 16th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Your last paragraph is the key.
The only reason the hardliners even won in the first place is the Iraq war. Otherwise the reformers would likely have been in power all along.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
“As I understand the basic neoconservative approach to the eventual vindication of the Iraq War, their plan is to take advantage of the fact that over the course of the long-term, things tend to get better. So someday, the politics of the Persian Gulf region will almost certainly be less autocratic than they are now.”
Ah the Panglossian view of history, just like DTM. Maybe this is right, but also maybe with the warmongering Saddam out of the scene and the Shia majority given the franchise in Iraq, and Iranian pilgrims once again allowed to visit Iraqi holy sites, it helped the more reformist Iranians. I know Goldfarb doesn’t appreciate the intricacies but still it could be true, nay probably is true.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
The HuffPo liveblog has footage of Iranian state TV using clips from Fox News to make the argument tying the opposition to meddling Americans. I know that neocons are intellectually invested in a vast number of incredibly stupid endeavors, but their hornblowing this time seems especially reckless.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
It’s also worth pointing out that not only were “reformist” candidates (the thin-gruel that were allowed to run, anyway) winning elections before the Iraq War, but there was huge protest movements as well. The July 1997 protests in Iran, for example. At one point, the regime was so frightened by the size of the rallies that they arrested, prosecuted, and convicted some of their own security personnel for the killing of protesters.
But that type of protest got shut off like a switch when Bush gave the Axis of Evil speech and invaded Iraq. And then Ahmedinejad won.
So now, a year after we announced our withdrawal from Iraq and half a year after we elected an opponent of that war, one who signaled a policy of ratcheting down tensions and renewing diplomatic efforts, to the presidency, we see that these things are back.
The truth is precisely the opposite of the neo-conservatives’ mythology. The democratic movements they wanted to see vanished when we pursued a neoconservative policy in the region, and reappeared as we changed course.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
There is no chance that this theory could be true, because of the existence of similar protests before Bush, the disappearance of those protests under Bush, and their reappearance now that he is gone and we are withdrawing from Iraq.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
that this was a war of choice fought on false premises to lower gas prices or whatever
And don’t mention Goldfarb’s own lies and made-up articles adding to those “false premises”, please?
Good to see the old warmongers still doing so well in the media, academia or government.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Something to note is that Iranian elections in 1997, 2001, and 2005 were much more free than this one. It may turn out that, unlike those other ones, this election featured massive fraud. And even if the election results were totally legit, you didn’t previously see massive police brutality towards supporters of the losing candidate like you do now. Seems plausible that, with all the reflexive war-mongering towards Iran and all around Iran in the last few years, the Iranian establishment was much less tolerant of reformism and free elections this time around.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Goldfarb is a turd sandwich.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
The sad part is, I think a slice of the neoconservatives actually mean what they say about the necessity of democratic reform and human rights in the Middle East. They just don’t have the foggiest clue how that works, and think that bombing the country or stoking a shouting match between our governments is a good way to help some liberalizing, democratizing dissidents gain populist cred among the Iranian public.
It’s sort of the “Of Mice and Men” theory of foreign policy. I will hug him and pet him and call him George.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Or maybe they saw a couple of free elections next door in Iraq and said ‘hey, why can’t we have one of those?’
June 16th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
“The sad part is, I think a slice of the neoconservatives actually mean what they say about the necessity of democratic reform and human rights in the Middle East. They just don’t have the foggiest clue how that works, and think that bombing the country or stoking a shouting match between our governments is a good way to help some liberalizing, democratizing dissidents gain populist cred among the Iranian public.”
The sad part is the many antiwar folks are driven to the left by the sort of bombastic nationalism of the American right wing which is analogous to Ahmedinejad. But they think the American right wing is worse than Ahmedinejad or Al Qaeda and more of a threat. So anything the right wing is for, they are against.
The residents of the Middle East don’t matter however much the antiwar folks wish them well, it’s more about American conservatives and domestic politics. Which is why Matt keeps mentioning McCain who is a has been and Neocons who are hasbeens.
Anti-war people use to mock the notion of democracy promotion in the Middle East. And now they are champions of the Iranian opposition? After people like Juan Cole would rhetorically defend Ahmedinejad again and again.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Poptarts,
The high point of your post was your misuse of “Panglossian”. It went downhill from there. I can see no conceivable way in which your conclusions flow from your argument. Would you care to make a logical argument from premise to conclusion, since you know the intracacies even better than Michael Goldfarb.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Some of them love Democracy like Lenny Small loved soft things.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
a democracy that millions of Iranians have seen for themselves
While dodging all the bombs. To quote Pauli: “This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong.”
Some actual reporting from Iran, including an interview with Mehdi Karroubi, the most reform-minded of the four presidential candidates:
Goldfarb seems not to appreciate that Iranians have been very very serious about the whole “republic” part of the Islamic Republic since 1979. They might disagree on what that means, but what unites them is a sense that they don’t consider the need to take lessons in political philosophy from anyone, not least a stupid person like Goldfarb.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Or maybe they saw a couple of free elections next door in Iraq and said ‘hey, why can’t we have one of those?’
And in Lebanon. And in NATO Turkey. And with Hamas. But no the anti-war people put their fingers in their ears and yell “la la la can’t here you…’ Necons are evvvviiiiillll…. and stupid”
June 16th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Or maybe they saw a couple of free elections next door in Iraq and said ‘hey, why can’t we have one of those?’
I’m pretty sure that judd the choad is too stupid to wipe his own ass.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
“The moral of the story is that there’s nothing unusual about a reformist candidate getting strong support from the Iranian voters.”
Exactly. Good post.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
If Goldfarb’s thesis were true, the new Iraqi government should be strong supporters of the protestors. Instead, Iraq’s government has come out in support of Ahmadinejad.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526266,00.html
“Iraq’s president on Sunday congratulated his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his re-election, becoming the second head of state to offer support.”
June 16th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
The high point of your post was your misuse of “Panglossian
Okay how am i misusing it smart guy? I’ll admit there are many different types of lefts, like do you believe Afghanistan was an agression? Or like Obama do you think it was a rational reaction?
June 16th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Not just analogous, symbiotic. Bush and Ahmedinejad needed each other, fed off each other. Our hardliners use their hardliners as weapons in domestic politics. Now that Ahmedinejad doesn’t have Bush as his boogeyman, he is having to import Lebanese Hezbollah to beat up Iranians.
No, the American right wing is right here, the proximate enemy. If we fight them over here, soldiers won’t have to fight them over there. For nothing. Again.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
@# judd Says:
June 16th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Or maybe they saw a couple of free elections next door in Iraq and said ‘hey, why can’t we have one of those?’
Trust me, there’s not a signal person in Iran who looks at Iraq and says “you know, what I really want is a government more like Iraq’s.”
June 16th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
And here we have an example of what I was just talking about: Mike Pence is trying to bail out Ahmadinejad.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
“Anti-war people use to mock the notion of democracy promotion in the Middle East. And now they are champions of the Iranian opposition?”
Umm, I’ve always been a champion of the Iranian opposition. That is why I opposed Bush’s successful efforts to undermine them. As for democracy promotion, I promote it everywhere. I just don’t think that bombs are the right way to do it. Those on the right need to acknowledge that their proposed method of democracy promotion in Iran would have killed many those who are out protesting now. The right needs to get over its belief that people LIKE to be bombed. History has shown time and time again that people get angry at those who are dropping bombs on them. Killing people is a bad way to earn their support.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
SO here come Judd and Poptarts with pro iraq war BS again.
Uh Judd you do realize that Iran had elections already right? You know the very point Matt made in his post? The elections that the reformers won in 1997 and 2001? Then along comes W and his merry adventure in Iraq and low and behold the hardline anti American candidate wins in 2005. Gee wonder what changed between 1997, 2001 and 2005?
Look for the umpteenth time poptarts, fuck off!!!!! Those of us who were right about the war are sick of being lectured to by assholes like you. Being willing to send lots of other people to war to kill lots of brown people to make yourself feel good that you’re doing something doesn’t make you serious and us unserious. It makes you an imperialist asshole. The best thing that can happen to the middle east is for the US to quit listening to assholes like you and but out so they can manage their own societies.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Do you have a point? Iran had elections before the invasion of Iraq. Iran had elections which put a moderate into the presidency before the war. Their elections are, if anything, less free and fair than they were.
And Turkey?! You’re claiming elections in Turkey as vindication for invading Iraq?! How about Mexico. They had elections in Mexico, why don’t you credit the Iraq invasion for those?
June 16th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Between the Iranian election and yesterday, Yglesias posted 6 entries pertaining to the actual situation totalling about 17-1/2 inches of text. I think it’s fair to characterize them as fairly cautious.
So far today, he’s posted 3 quite impassioned entries entirely concerned with what he views as politically inappropriate tendencies with regard to events there, totalling about 28-1/2 inches of text.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Remind me Poptarts, how many Americans have been killed by Ahmedinejad – using whatever metric you would like to use? Now, how many Americans were killed by the neocon focus on China in 2001? Don’t want to blame Bush and his cabal for 9/11? Fine. How about all the soldiers dead from Bush’s unprovoked assault on the Iraqi people?
Objectively, more Americans have died as a result of Bush’s actions than from Al Queda and Ahmedinejad combined. When you include all of the human life snuffed out by Bush’s cheerful little war, suddenly the balance shifts tremendously towards the American right as a far more dangerous force in the world than Al Queda.
How is this even a question in your mind?
Repeat after me “Bush’s actions resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. This is the mark of an evil ideology.”
June 16th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
And Poptarts,
We never mocked Democracy promotion. We mocked the idea that the way to pormote democracy was invading a country and imposing it. The “left” as you call us has always supported organic democracy growth from within. The thing is it is hard work and takes determination from the people themselves. You pro war types are typical lazy americans who want a quick fix. 1989 didn’t happen in Eastern Europe because the west did anything. It happened because people like Havel and Walechsa spent decades working for it.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
fostert:
“Umm, I’ve always been a champion of the Iranian opposition. That is why I opposed Bush’s successful efforts to undermine them. As for democracy promotion, I promote it everywhere. I just don’t think that bombs are the right way to do it.”
I’ve never been for bombing Iran. President Bush of all people said no to the Isaralis over their desire to bomb Iran. However I was disgusted by Juan Cole’s tendency to euphemize how bad the Iranian regime was, in different ways. However for some antiwar people, to criticize Iran is to want to bomb them.
I do think Obama has been handling the situation in the right way. If the Iranian opposition did come into office I think Mike Pence and the American rightwing would be horrifyied at their views.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Ah the Panglossian view of history, just like DTM. . . .
At this point, I am pretty sure Poptarts is accusing others of being Panglossian when his argument actually most closely resembles the view that this is the best of all possible worlds simply to taunt me.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
“Panglossian” means a naively optimistic view of the world. Matthew’s view was cynical concerning the machinations of the neocons, and statistical with respect to the middle east. He didn’t believe that things in the middle east would get better because we live in a happy, shiney universe where good things just happen. He believed that because history is long, things will likely be better and worse in the middle east at various times in the future, which means that at some point, things will be better.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
“You’re claiming elections in Turkey as vindication for invading Iraq?!”
In fairness, George W Bush was so awesome that he could cause positive developments to happen before he was even born. Remember Attaturk did what he did in Turkey because he knew Prescott Bush would have a grandson that could take credit for it.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Njorl
And Turkey?! You’re claiming elections in Turkey as vindication for invading Iraq?! How about Mexico. They had elections in Mexico, why don’t you credit the Iraq invasion for those?
Hey dumbass, look at the map at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey
Turkey and Iran share borders and many Iranians take vacations in Turkey and Turkey and Iran sometimes conspire, like to bomb Kurds in the border regions.
You should read up on the wikipedia entry.
I said elections in Iraq and Turkey and Lebanon probably inspiredd the Iranians that change is possible. Turkey used to have regular military coups but they’ve gotten better.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I once commended the Bush administration’s record on combatting human trafficking. It did not make me a Republican. I once explained to someone how the Iraq war was not about literally stealing the oil out of the Iraqi ground. That did not mean that I approved of the war.
There has never been a shortage of people with significant pulpits who make accusations about Iran. The fact that Cole defended the regime from some of those accusations does not make him a supporter.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Give it up guys. I mentioned Ataturk to poptarts when he gave the example of Turkey last time. It’s useless, those people just can’t learn anything.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
“However for some antiwar people, to criticize Iran is to want to bomb them.”
Virtually every right wing pundit has advocated bombing Iran. Cheney and Bolton advocated bombing Iran. McCain and every other Republican presidential candidate advocated bombing Iran. Rudy even went so far as to advocate a nuclear first strike. Bush was wise to listen instead to his military advisers who knew it wouldn’t work. The reason we think most of the right wingers support bombing Iran is because most of them wrote columns and blogs that said they did.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Turkey used to have regular military coups but they’ve gotten better.
And it’s all thanks to W killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Enough dead Arabs might even solve global warming (if it really exists).
June 16th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
If
criticsproponents of the war can for just a moment move beyond their own deeply held opinions about the invasion of IraqJune 16th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
“Panglossian” means a naively optimistic view of the world.
That’s what i meant. Matt’s view is the Middle East will naturally evolve in a good direction which is optimisitc. Which may be right, but it also may be right that the removal of a warmongering dictator helped the region and it’s opposition movements.
I’ll admit I was wrong in that Pangloss would try to justify evil things as really in fact good for various reasons because God made the best possible world, and DTM and Matt don’t do that.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I would think the key point is that Maliki is clearly and explicitly Ahmadinejad’s ally. A. picked Maliki over Muktadi Sadr, which is why Maliki is in office today.
The neo-cons are so terminally stupid they don’t know what they did in Iraq. They created a strong ally of Khomeinist Iran. They created a state headed by an ally of Hezbollah in Lebanon. That they can’t tell the truth about this is because they are fundamentally vile and dishonest. But we all know that by now.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
More than 40 people this week have been blown up in the streets of Iraq. Iran is so jealous!!
June 16th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
You seem to be in some sort of temporal fugue state. The last coup in Turkey was 1980. I don’t think the neocons can take credit for that. Any inspiration the Iranians took from Turkey would have been instilled before, or in any case, without, the Iraq invasion.
The fact remains, Poptarts, Iran elected a moderate government before the Iraq invasion, and neither the Revolutionary guard nor the mullahs nor the Ayatollah fixed the results. This stark fact completely invalidates your entire argument, yet you refuse to address it in any meaningful way.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
No, what Matt pointed out in the last paragraph was that the reformers were doing just fine until some idiot jingoist, with the backing of theocrats and hicks, made it possible for some idiot jingoist, with the backing of theocrats and hicks to get elected in Iran.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Birnnbaum,
What’s your point? Matt recommends taking a tread lightly apporach to the stituation in Iran. He also calls out American politicians and commentators who aren’t taking a tread lightly approach.
How is that inconsistent?
June 16th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I see. You used Panglossian correctly, because you completely misinterpreted what Matt said.
Things will get worse in the Middle East. Things will get better in the Middle East. Both statements are true and consistent. Neither is naive, nor optimistic. That’s just the way the world is. We don’t have very many monotonic trends in the real world.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
OK, Poptarts, you’re almost there. Now, can you think of a significant difference between the type of “democracy promotion” anti-war folks opposed in Iraq, and what’s going on in Iran?
Think hard.
Let me give you a hint: the term you used for them was “anti-” something. What was it?
BTW, Turkey has had elections since the 1920s, and Lebanon has had them for decades as well. Are you really so poorly informed about the region whose politics you’ve decided to lecture other people about, that you think Turkey and Lebanon began having elections after the invasion of Iraq?
June 16th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Oh, and if you think the world is going to evolve into something better, you cannot be a Panglossian. If the world can be better, this isn’t the best of all possible worlds.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
It’s very simple to understand poptarts’s logic, you just need a lobotomy:
Things will get worse in the Middle East.
Thanks to W’s crusade for democracy!
Things will get better in the Middle East.
Because sometimes Obama will waste all the opportunities given to him by Bush’s surge and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Eek, the opposite.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Finally, it’s worth repeating that the theory about the Iraq invasion causing these elections has been disproved under almost laboratory-controlled conditions.
Before Iraq War – big democratic, pro-American, reformist protests in the streets of Iran. Reformist candidates winning elections.
During Iraq War – no big democratic, reformist protests in the streets of Iran. Ahmedinejad winning elections.
After Iraq War – once again, big democratic, reformist protests in the streets of Iran. Reformist candidate wins election.
History is exactly the opposite of the neconservative narrative.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
After Iraq War
I believe that’s slightly optimistic. Nothing says the country won’t blow up again in the near future, with tens of thousands of American soldiers and contractors left.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Njorl:
The fact remains, Poptarts, Iran elected a moderate government before the Iraq invasion, and neither the Revolutionary guard nor the mullahs nor the Ayatollah fixed the results. This stark fact completely invalidates your entire argument, yet you refuse to address it in any meaningful way.
Actually they did fix the results by disqalifing certain candidates ahead of time, shutting down refromist papers, etc.
Never have there been mass protests like this sinces the 1979 revolution. And I am surprised by the Supreme leader’s attempts at mollification. Maybe it’s the size of the protests?
And why didn’t the election of Netanyahu provoke a reaction to bolster the Iranian hardliners? That puts a hole in your argument.
I tell obnoxious conservatives that Obama’s magic and his speech in Cairo spurred the change in Iran. That pisses them off. But they may be right that the removal of a warmongering dictator next door helped, not least by enfranchising the Iraqi Shia.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
So do I. Perhaps better labels would have been:
Before Bush Iraq Policy
During Bush Iraq Policy
After Bush Iraq Policy.
That would also account for the fact that the Bushies began acting thuggishly and destroyed the reformist moment in Iran well before the actual invasion, with actions like the Axis of Evil speech.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
They did that this time, too, but here you are, celebrating those elections.
There was plenty of mollification – including the arrest and imprisonment of security officials for the murder of protest leaders – in response to the pre-Bush protests, too.
You’re almost certainly wrong. What we’re seeing is a return to a norm that predated both Bush’s and Obama’s presidencies.
The Iraqi Shia are pro-Ahmedinejad (they literally threw flowers and candies at his motorcade when he rolled into Baghdad, remember?) and the Iraqi government is backing him.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Oh, and if you think the world is going to evolve into something better, you cannot be a Panglossian. If the world can be better, this isn’t the best of all possible worlds.
My best of all possible worlds would evolve in the right direction. Things have to change, but at least they’re getting better.
The anti-war narrative is that Iraq was the biggest disaster in human history, that it will just lead to chaos, without the ironfist, but here you have good things happening in Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq etc.
Maybe they are happening despite the Iraq war. Maybe not. I just think having a genocidal dictator taken from the scene probalby helps things.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Goldfarb isn’t right (no big surprise), but you’d be misrepresenting Iran’s history with Iraq if you didn’t understand how significant it was to no longer have the threat of an Iraqi invasion hanging over the heads of the Iranian regime.
Remember, we assisted Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war (remember that photo of Rumsfeld hanging out with Saddam) and the crackdown against opposition leaders in Iran intensified dramatically as a result of the war mobilization in the 1980s. Our invasion of Iraq in 1991 significantly alleviated the concern of another Iran/Iraq war, which did allow moderates more room to express alternatives to the hard-line rule. Khatami would not have been allowed to run if Iran’s military and religious establishment felt threatened by another Iraqi invasion.
There is no direct causality between our invading Iraq and Iran’s decision to allow Moussavi to run. However, Iran’s establishment is acutely aware of the level of threat it faces from foreign governments. You can be sure that if Saddam was still in power and seeking to regain his military strength it would be almost next to impossible for the opposition to win. The military would almost certainly intervene in favor of the status quo.
Given the usually high level of discourse on at least some of these topics on this blog I would have expected a more nuanced appreciation of the link between Iraq and Iran than I am seeing from Matt.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Joe from Lowell
The Iraqi Shia are pro-Ahmedinejad (they literally threw flowers and candies at his motorcade when he rolled into Baghdad, remember?) and the Iraqi government is backing him.
I take it you wish they were more like Saddam who invaded Iran and kept the majority Shia down?
June 16th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Logic FAIL.
All of the good things happening in Turkey, Lebanon and Iran were happening before the Iraq War. In fact, the good things happening in Iran stopped during, and because of, the Iraq War, and only started again when America abandoned the policies that led us there. I’ve made this point over and over and over, and you can’t answer it. Doesn’t that suggest anything to you.
I’m sure you do. But then, you’ve already demonstrated quite clearly that you make up positions to assign to your political opponents that they don’t actually hold, so I don’t really care very much what you take things as.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Oddly enough, Iranian history didn’t begin in 2002.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
You can be sure that if Saddam was still in power and seeking to regain his military strength it would be almost next to impossible for the opposition to win. The military would almost certainly intervene in favor of the status quo.
Iran is surrounded by American troops in two neighbouring countries. Israel (and many American political leaders) regularly threatens to bomb Iran, the new gravest-threat-to-Israel’s-existence since Saddam got deposed.
Somehow that’s a peaceful international environment for Iran, favoring moderates?
June 16th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
All of the good things happening in Turkey, Lebanon and Iran were happening before the Iraq War. In fact, the good things happening in Iran stopped during, and because of, the Iraq War, and only started again when America abandoned the policies that led us there. I’ve made this point over and over and over, and you can’t answer it. Doesn’t that suggest anything to you.
Things in Iran weren’t as good as portrayed before 2003. Fact. And in your view they should have gone bad in Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, etc b/c of Iraq, but they didn’t. They got better.
And by the way we’re still in Iraq. And on the other side of Iran in Afghanistan.
And it’s quite probable that with Saddam in power, things in Iran would have been worse than they were than with a friendly Shia government in nieghboring Iraq. You think?
I mean you guys used to rag the neocons about that. The
June 16th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
[...] bold is from Yglesias, though I would have preferred to remove it. Formatting [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Your evidence for this claim?
Ah. Hokay.
You’ve attributed three positions to me now. You’ve yet to get one right. I make actual arguments, Poppy. Why won’t you address them? Why do insist on making shit up that has nothing to do with anything I’ve written, instead of trying to refute my points, or defend your own?
Once again, your evidence for this claim? Oh, right. Ahem. “FACT!”
Sigh…OK, I’ll point it out for a FOURTH time. When Saddam was in power, reformist candidates won elections, and there were huge pro-democracy demonstrations in the streets. After he was removed from power by our military, the demonstrations stopped, and Ahmedinejad won the election. Now that we’ve announced our withdrawal from Iraq and ceased the Bush/McCain warmongering towards Iran, the Iranian public is once again electing reformers, and there are pro-democracy demonstrations on the streets of Tehran.
So, no, you are completely wrong. Your belief is refuted by the objective evidence.
Before Bush Iraq Policy: pro-democracy demonstrations, reformists winning
During Bush Iraq Policy: no demonstrations, hardliners winning
After Bush Iraq Policy: pro-democracy demonstrations, reformists winning.
I’ll be happy to keep pointing this out for as long as you’d like.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Let’s assume Poptarts is right (yes, I know, I know, but humor me). Let’s assume that things are better in Iran, Turkey and Lebanon because George W. Bush kicked off a murder spree in Iraq.
How is that acceptable?
Why did hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have to be sacrificed for this result?
Does this seem just?
Sorry Poptarts, even if the whole region is suddenly filled with flowers and overflowing with honey, it still doesn’t justify the cost in human life of Bush’s brutal war on the people of Iraq.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Really, Poptarts: the more you pull stuff out of your ass, the worse you look.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
It should be pointed out that the reformists want reform in the context of the Islamic revolution – they are very clear about that. Moussavi, far from being some one that the military would “prevent” from running, had plenty of power under Khomenei. The idea that he is a kind of Chalabi is comic. And, of course, the reformers won first in electing Mohammed Khatami, who crushed Nategh-Nouri in 1997.
Not that this makes a bit of difference. After eight years, the warmongers still think of the Middle East as a blank sheet upon which they project the senile fantasies of Dick Cheney. Thus, they simply don’t know or care about who, exactly, was elected to head Iraq – nor do they know squat about Iran – nor do they even seem to know what the protesters in Teheran are protesting about. They are not protesting against the Islamic republic, but for it – that is, they feel that their democracy is threatened by an internal coup. Yes, who’d of thunk it – instead of being a regular democratic country like the U.S., with an electoral college, legacy of the slave days, to make sure we don’t get carried away and have a majority rule country, the Iranians are so crazy they believe the person who gets the most votes wins the presidency. Imagine! If that rule had been in effect in the U.S. in 2000, it would have led to the disaster of AL “impoverish the working man for the spotted owl and take away his god given guns” Gore as preznit! Luckily, that was averted.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Poptarts twists FACTS and makes up more shit in
5
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pop
June 16th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
It’s nice to know that the American tradition of thinking that ‘foreners’ (especially the non-European) lack agency of their and only react to the actions of the United States is alive and well with Mr. Goldfarb.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Perhaps the truth will come out one day—Iran and the U.S. are essentially partners in carving up Iraq and selling it to the highest bidder.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
“Iran is surrounded by American troops in two neighbouring countries. Israel (and many American political leaders) regularly threatens to bomb Iran, the new gravest-threat-to-Israel’s-existence since Saddam got deposed.
Somehow that’s a peaceful international environment for Iran, favoring moderates?”
Actually, yes it does. The Iran/Iraq War was a hell for all involved. It lasted eight years, involved a kind of trench warfare not seen since World War I, and utterly destroyed civil society in Iran. Remember, the Iranian people were overjoyed at the outset of the 1979 Revolution. It was the war and the need to suppress internal dissent and round up citizens for forced military service that caused Iran to form the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij that are now terrorizing the population.
At this point, Iran has not felt it necessary to mobilize its military against a possible U.S. invasion. In part, it’s because our domestic politics is fairly transparent. It’s obvious to almost every observer that we don’t have the capability or political will to launch an invasion. And, with Obama now President, all the right signals to allow moderates to move forward are in place. If McCain had won, I doubt the election would have included Moussavi. My broader point was that if Saddam was still in power in Iraq I can assure you that the opposition would have been crushed by the military.
I actually do believe that the 1991 invasion of Iraq was a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the rise of Iranian moderates.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
This is the sort of content-free “analysis” you get from pundits on both sides.
There’s zero evidence for any of these assertions about the influences on Iranian internal politics of Iraq, etc.
The only thing we know is that there are so-called “moderate reformists” in Iran prior to the Bush Administration and they were in power at some point and then they got replaced by hardliners like Ahmadinejad during the Bush Administration, and now the hardliners and the reformists are having it out again.
The elections this time were basically a proxy fight between Khamenei and Rafsanjani. That’s all one can conclude Everything else is speculative. Read these articles:
Rafsanjani’s gambit backfires
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF16Ak05.html
The meaning of the Tehran spring
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF16Ak02.html
June 16th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
The picture text “Mohammad Khatami won elections without any help from George W. Bush” is good.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Joseph Cirincione has a post up on HuffPo where he thinks the Iranian election protests change everything. He thinks Iran is, if not on the verge of being overthrown, at least losing support for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, with the result that Iran will now have to give up its nuclear energy program, and blah, blah, blah.
I don’t know where he gets this from. It’s pure speculation. Based on the analysis of the two articles I cite above, what has happened is that Khamenei has trashed Rafsanjani, and the protests are Rafsanjani’s way of trying to get out from under.
Mousavi was nothing more than Rafsanjani’s stalking horse.
Unless the protests can amp up to something capable of dealing with the IRGC and the Basij militia (by some accounts the Basij number about 13 million troops now!), it’s not going anywhere.
The best the opposition can hope for is that a recount of the votes is done and Ahmadinejad wins by something less than the amount previously announced. By a miracle, they might rerun the election.
From the viewpoint of the US, neither result would matter. The end result is that either Mousavi or Ahmadinejad would win, which means more or less hardliners would win. The nuclear energy program would continue, contrary to Circincione’s notions that the nuclear program was always about Ahmadinejad’s and the hardliners nationalism.
Iran needs nuclear energy, they can’t trust an international consortium to handle their fuel needs unless one of those plants is on their soil. Therefore Iran will never give up enrichment no matter which side is in power, absent some really huge benefits offered them by the West, which is highly unlikely.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:06 am
“There’s zero evidence for any of these assertions about the influences on Iranian internal politics of Iraq, etc.”
Umm, RSH, you’re normally pretty well read, so are you taking your pills? I would think that the concept that the two largest parties in the Iraqi parliament were founded in Iran by the Revolutionary Guard might suggest a connection to Iran. But your proposition does work so long as you consider Iran to be everything in Iran but that which the government controls. But let’s face reality, the people who control Iraq are puppets of the Revolutionary Guard. No wonder they praised Ahmadinejad’s re-election.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:44 am
A fascinating exchange that vividly illustrates the Know-nothing, ethno- and ideologically-centric thinking that dominates right wing neoconservatism, is the one that took place recently between George W. speechwriter (and torture-apologist) Marc Thiessen and CNN war correspondent Michael Ware. The subject was Obama’s Cairo speech. Thiessen took the typical right wing track that Obama was dishonoring our troops and America itself by apologizing for past American wrongs, and for not reminding his Arab audience of all the wonderful things we’d done for them, and how ungrateful they’ve been in return. Ware said that the audience for this speech wasn’t a Republican rally or VFW dinner but the Arab Street, and that the troops Ware had gotten to know from the six years with them in those foxholes in Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t feel dishonored by Obama’s speech in the least. In fact, said Ware, if Obama could get the guys on the other side to stop shooting at them by “feeling their pain” and coming clean on a few past American sins that everyone knows we’ve committed, then that was OK with the troops.
But what was most fascinating was the utter contempt that Thiessen seemed to have real experience and knowledge. He could have cared less about the hard-earned experience and understanding of the Arab world and America’s conflicct with it that Ware had gotten from six years covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am sure Thiessen in his own head was willing to dismiss at the typical ramblings of the “biased left wing press” anything that Ware might have to say against the Bush and neo-conservative agenda. And most laughable of all, Thiessen was perfectly willing to match his four “visits” to Iraq against Ware’s six years in a war zone when it came to comparing insights and understanding of what made folks tick in the Middle East.
Thiessen was unwilling in any way to grant that perhaps Ware knew better than he did what impact Obama’s speech may have had on the Arab Street. Just because Ware has been living and breathing it every day for six years, did not mean that Thiessen’s views were equally valid after talking things over coffee with his fellow Fellows at the American Enterprise Institute. Ideology trumping real world experience and understanding. What better epitath could there be for the abject failures of the Bush administration and modern conservatism itself?
June 17th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Ted, well put.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Foster: “Umm, RSH, you’re normally pretty well read, so are you taking your pills? I would think that the concept that the two largest parties in the Iraqi parliament were founded in Iran by the Revolutionary Guard might suggest a connection to Iran. But your proposition does work so long as you consider Iran to be everything in Iran but that which the government controls. But let’s face reality, the people who control Iraq are puppets of the Revolutionary Guard. No wonder they praised Ahmadinejad’s re-election.”
You’re missing my point, dude. I’m saying that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the internal politics of Iran, as far as any actual evidence is concerned. The fact that Iran supports the Shia political parties in Iraq has nothing to do with whether the situation in Iraq influences Iran’s internal political divisions. Or at least my point was that we don’t know that.
As far as I know, the main divisions in Iran are between Khamenei and his IRGC and Basij militia and their hardliners, on the one hand, and Hashemi Rafsanjani and the more moderate Iranian politicians and mullahs on the other hand. I don’t see either of these groups being all that concerned with Iraq, except of course to the extent that it put 150,000 US troops on their borders. And on that point, they would have been united in opposition to the US.
On the point of Iran’s nuclear program, both sides have been united, given that, as someone mentioned, Mousavi started that program.
On the point of anti-Israeli rhetoric, the moderates might complain about Ahmadinejad’s irrelevant Holocaust revisionism as being puerile and damaging to Iran’s image, but I suspect the moderates don’t like the Israeli government either.
So the neocon notion that the invasion of Iraq emboldened the Iranian moderates seems unlikely absent stronger evidence, particularly since the moderates don’t like the US government either.
Likewise, the notion that it strengthened the hand of the hardliners has more logic behind it, but still little evidence. More likely is that the entire Bush Administration hostile approach to Iran from the get-go had an influence, if not responsible for, the ascent of Ahmadinejad and the hardliners. But without the basic division between Khamenei and Rafsanjani, that wouldn’t have mattered.
Khamenei and Rafsanjani have been fighting it out for years, with each gaining and losing. I think it’s much more likely that those sorts of internal power struggles matter more than anything the US does vis-a-vis Iran to determine which side gains or loses. Certainly each side can use US behavior as a talking point, but in the end, what matters is who controls what political, social, economic and military resources in Iran. And that has nothing to do with the US.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
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