Iran and that “reform” candidate
I hate to be so pessimistic, but…
Prediction: “reform candidate” Hasan Rowhani, who won big in Iran, will not actually be able to pull off any reforms of import.
Here’s Barry Rubin on the subject:
Did the Tehran regime put in a seemingly moderate but actually helpless or compliant front so it could claim moderation and thus stall for time to build nuclear weapons? Or did he masses simply overwhelmed the regime so that his victory was undeniable? Perhaps the regime figured that a second straight election stolen by the regime from the reformists–the previous one was in 2009–would set off a revolt.
New York Times correspondent Thomas Erdbrink reported that Tehran has turned into a massive street celebration…
No matter what the regime’s intentions or acceptance, the outcome will be this:
1. Rowhani will have little power. Remember that a moderate already served eight years as president and accomplished nothing. Rowhani is clearly loyal to the regime or he wouldn’t have been the only reformist candidate who was approved for the election by the regime.
2. A lot of Iranians will be very happy. One big thing they will hope for is better management of the economy.
3. There will be many analysts and politicians and government officials saying that since Iran has now turned in a moderate direction, it must be given a chance to show whether this is true. Rowhani is a very articulate and glib man. He will know how to make things look good in Washington especially compared to Ahmadinejad’s outrageously radical style.
4. Therefore, the Obama Administration will spend the rest of 2013 in exploratory negotiations as Iran moves forward toward nuclear weapons. People will talk about gestures toward Iran like reducing sanctions and certainly not increasing them. Russia, Turkey, and China will continue to get waivers on sanctions.
Please read the whole thing. It seems rather sensible to me.
[ADDENDUM: And in somewhat related news, more on the Syrian “rebels.”]
According to Sohrab Ahmari of the WSJ Rowhani is not even a “moderate” in the first place.
Someday the non-Muslim world will come to terms with the fact that the expressions “reformist” and “moderate” don’t mean in an Islamic context what they do elsewhere.
The Mullahs are not going to permit anyone to run for office whom they don’t approve of. As they don’t approve of reform, the conclusion is obvious.
You’re not being pessimistic neo and it’s not merely sensible, it’s exactly the rationale that the Mullah’s are following. Rowhani’s election is a ploy by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been fully in charge since Ayatollah Khomeini’s death.
That so many besides Rubin see this for the ploy that it is, means that pretty much every Western leader, including Obama, does as well. In fact, they welcome it because it gives them the political cover needed to do nothing while only offering empty rhetoric. Once Iran has the bomb, we’ll hear a chorus of sentiments like, “If we had only known how insincere the Iranian’s actually were, things would have been different…”
Once again, liberals are arguing fiercely against warnings of consequence and when those warnings prove true, they’ll deny, deny, and deny any responsibility for the situation.
Obama has no plans to stop Iran and is doing all he can to ensure that Israel makes no attempts to stop or delay the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Obama has had his people ‘formulate’ a “containment strategy” that he will offer as meaningful. While knowing full well that Iran is not going to directly attack anyone with nukes.
And most importantly, that a ‘containment strategy’ will prove entirely ineffective at preventing the most serious consequence of Iran gaining nuclear weapons capability; nuclear proliferation throughout the region (Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia have already expressed interest in nuclear capability) and the eventual spread of nuclear weapons into terrorist hands.
At the very least he’s kicking the can down the road, knowing he can always blame his successor and his predecessor. After all, look what he was handed by Bush and it’s not his fault that Clinton (most likely) flubbed her presidential duties.
Depraved indifference sums up his attitude toward the Presidential responsibility he is shirking.
Gringo and Geoffrey B. beat me to the punch. Khamenei and the Guardian Council hold all the meaningful power in Iran, and they are never up for popular election. The president, whether he’s a “reformist” (yeah, right) like Rowhani or a certifiable fruitcake like Ahmadinejad matters little. They’re there for window dressing. Behind the scenes, the mullahs call the shots.
“I hate to be so pessimistic, but…”
No you don’t. 🙂
whatever outcome all mullah under control and guidness of iran sprem mulla ali khamanie.
In other new Rowhani cv he put he gained his PhD dgree from UK uni, its turned that uni have no records under his name….
Geoffrey Britain: “That so many besides Rubin see this for the ploy that it is, means that pretty much every Western leader, including Obama, does as well. … At the very least he’s kicking the can down the road”
Worked for Bill Clinton.
Studying Clinton’s counterterror and Iraq policies, it’s evident that he understood the problems.
Yet it’s also evident when studying his administration’s actions, Clinton did not act in a sufficient degree to resolve the problems on his watch. He cared more about being credited for action rather than acting decisively as a leader. In effect, Clinton kicked the can so a successor would have to deal with the cost and controversy of decisive action when the problems reached a head.
However imperfectly, Bush attempted to rationally match means to ends and, indeed, incurred high cost and controversy.
At best, Obama seems to be using the Clinton strategy that favors the appearance of action over decisive action that rationally matches means to ends.
Eric, it did indeed work for Clinton. The difference of course is that Iran will get the bomb on Obama’s watch. Not that he cares.
Given the political divide in America, the machinations by democrats, the propaganda and obfuscation practiced by the MSM and the craven, incremental yielding by Republicans…no President and Congress can act to a degree sufficient to resolve the problems on their watch. The best they can do is slap a band-aid on the problems.
In the main, we agree as to Bush and his inaction on Iran was a direct result of the high cost and controversy he incurred in trying to protect America. Far before the time he would have pivoted from Iraq to Iran, the left had demonized him to such an extent that political and public support for his War on Terror had evaporated.
Even then, Bush was blocked at every turn, the left assuring the public that diplomacy, negotiations and offers of appeasement could persuade Iran’s Mullah’s. When those efforts failed, the West refused to confront Russia and China on their gutting of UN economic sanctions.
The left has ‘convinced’ American liberals that sticking our heads in the sand on the most pressing issues (both foreign and domestic) facing America is a viable policy.
Liberal’s amenability to the left’s ‘arguments’ is entirely due to liberal’s moral cowardice. Lacking a moral compass due to the embrace of the left’s moral relativism and situational ethics, liberal’s seize upon the left’s assurance of an “easy way out” and then fiercely defend that position rather than face their own moral culpability.
When the consequences of these intellectually bankrupt policies blows up in America’s face, the left will refuse to accept responsibility and use its propaganda organ the MSM to blame the right.
All in a strategy to secure even more power.
Liberals will then seize upon the scapegoat offered by the left, rather than face their own personal responsibility. There’s no saving lemmings from their fate.
Geoffrey Britain: “Even then, Bush was blocked at every turn, the left assuring the public that diplomacy, negotiations and offers of appeasement could persuade Iran’s Mullah’s.”
Regarding the Left’s focus on undermining Bush, you reminded me about Neo’s post on Hagel’s nomination for SecDef and his admission that stopping Bush from confronting Iran was more important to him than confronting Iran:
http://neoneocon.com/2013/02/02/shorter-liberalleft-commentary-on-the-hagel-hearings/
I prefer a liberal foreign policy where the US is the vigorous ‘leader of the free world’ and hegemonic head of a robust liberal world order.
But short of that, at least give me a rational foreign policy that rationally matches means to long-term, big picture ends. If that means going Jeffersonian or Jacksonian or Hamiltonian rather than Wilsonian in our foreign policy, then commit to its success, alpha to omega.
The world is a competition. Holding onto a liberal foreign policy framework but then undercommitting to it only guarantees American failure and the collapse of any US-led world order in that competition in the long-term, big picture.
“Holding onto a liberal foreign policy framework but then undercommitting to it only guarantees American failure and the collapse of any US-led world order in that competition in the long-term, big picture.”
Given that Obama is a transnationalist and opposed to a robust American sovereignty while in favor of an America subservient to the UN…how are any of Obama’s actions opposed to the collapse of the prior US-led world order?
Many presuppose ignorance and incompetence. To do so requires assigning a remarkable degree of coincidence to the demonstrated fact that everything Obama has done and said has contributed to a decline in both American influence and our continuing to be the “hegemonic head of a robust liberal world order”.
Add: Democrats (see Hoyer) and Obama’s defense on Syria and the NSA surveillance controversy is, predictably, claiming to be better than Bush, or at least the reliable Bush-strawman. It’s infuriating to watch Democrats justify destructively weak leadership by warning against repeating circumstances that they created during the Bush administration.
As I’ve repeated ad nauseum, if the GOP and the Right would rehabilitate Bush’s legacy, particularly in a pointed Obama v Bush frame, they would pull the lynchpin of the Democrats’ current political advantage and hopefully push American leadership in the right direction.
Geoffrey Britain: “… everything Obama has done and said has contributed to a decline in both American influence and our continuing to be the “hegemonic head of a robust liberal world order”.”
And that’s the nub. As a liberal, I wouldn’t like a fundamental change of course for America’s posture in the world, but if it’s a rational change made with the long view, I could accept it.
But that’s not what Obama has done in his foreign affairs. He seems to be acting for America to fail and lose, not fundamentally and rationally changing our course.
Eric, is it that Obama seems “to be acting for America to fail and lose” or that he is intentionally “acting for America to fail and lose”… but, that possibility is too terrible to contemplate?