The whole world is atwitter – with fear and loathing – over Iran electing hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi to succeed purported reformer Hassan Rouhani as president. I submit, however, that this reaction is much ado about nothing.
Kudos to The New York Times for at least putting Raisi’s election into proper geopolitical context – as the following from its June 19 report attest:
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[H]is background appears unlikely to hinder the renewed negotiations between the United States and Iran over restoring a 2015 agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs in exchange for lifting American economic sanctions. Mr. Raisi has said he will remain committed to the deal and do all he can to remove the sanctions. …
This is the first government that is entirely beholden to Ayatollah Khamenei,’ said Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the International Crisis Group. ‘Khamenei has created a situation that is exploiting the sense of indifference and helplessness within the society to usher in changes that he thinks are essential for his legacy.’
To his supporters, Mr. Raisi’s close identification with the supreme leader, and by extension with the Islamic Revolution that brought Iran’s clerical leaders to power in 1979, is part of his appeal.
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But I am utterly stupefied that everyone seems to have forgotten the reign of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013). Because he gave everyone the impression that he was even more hardline than the Ayatollah himself. In fact, Ahmadinejad became so self-righteous that, after his presidency, the Ayatollah sent him to sit in a corner for a time out, where he has been making woe-is-me appeals ever since, to no avail.
The point, though, is that the only discernible difference between Ahmadinejad and Raisi is that Raisi prefers Islamic robes, whereas Ahmadinejad preferred Western garb. Hell, if you asked Raisi, he too would probably tell you that there are no gay people in Iran.
But nothing betrays the groundhog-day nature of this election result quite like the much ado, which turned out to be about nothing, that occasioned hardliner Ahmadinejad succeeding purported reformer Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005).
Here in part was my now-prescient take on that election in “New Iranian President: We Shall Have Nukes! v. President Bush: Over My Dead Body!” July 14, 2005:
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A few weeks ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran elected a new president in democratic elections that would’ve made even George Washington, the father of American democracy, proud. Unfortunately, it did not please his presidential heir and namesake, George W. Bush. After all, this curious George only likes democratic elections when those elected share his political views and religious values. And, Iran’s president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clearly shares neither.
Incidentally, Bush justifies his dismay by insisting that Ahmadinejad’s election was not free and fair because ‘an un-elected few decided who was on the ballot.’ Of course, Ralph Nader could say (and has said) the same about Bush’s election because of the quadrennial collusion by a few un-elected Democratic and Republican operatives to keep credible third-party candidates off the presidential ballot in key states around the country.
Ahmadinejad is an erstwhile university professor with a bohemian demeanor. The first non-cleric elected as president who espouses fundamentalist views which make most mullahs seem liberal. And, who is a perplexing and vexing character to Westerners accustomed to one-dimensional caricatures of the leaders of radical Islam.
Ahmadinejad is a proud disciple of the father of Iran’s Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. And, he won the presidency and acclaim as the rightful heir to Khomeini by advocating indifference to Western concerns instead of the accommodation and conciliation pursued by outgoing president Mohammed Khatami and proposed by the man he defeated – former president and converted reformer Hashemi Rafsanjani.
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See? Like I said, nothing new here.
Except I’d be remiss not to acknowledge how seized with fear my Iranian friends are about the Talibanization of their country under Raisi’s presidency. Because they fear Iran’s council of clerics will ape Afghanistan’s cabal of mullahs by enforcing a puritanical system of Islamic government – complete with a stifling of women’s rights and a crackdown on freedom of the press, especially social media.
But I continually point out that presidents come and go, but this Ayatollah is still the same. That’s why I reassure them that, if Iran were ever going to become a Taliban-style republic, the Ayatollah would have decreed it, and it would have been done, long ago.
Incidentally, this also means that, no matter Raisi’s hardline rhetoric (or that of Israel’s new hardline prime minister, Naftali Bennett), it’s only a matter of time before representatives for the Ayatollah and President Biden sort out their differences to revive the Iran nuclear deal.
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Ahmadinejad… Iran nuclear deal…