Elections
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Why were the Lebanese elections regarded as a “crushing defeat” for Hizbullah and FPM and their allies? It was not because the final count of seats was substantially different from what it had been before, but because pre-election hype had made it seem as if the opposition was going to sweep into power. When the government retained its majority amid high turnout, this was declared to be a wonderful thing and proof of the vibrancy of Lebanese democracy, such as it is, even though in terms of the sheer number of votes cast the opposition garnered more support. Because of the sectarian balancing act that is required in Lebanese government, the larger vote tally won by the opposition translated into a minority of seats because of where those votes were cast. In the parallel universe in which most Western commentary on such things is written, this was a repudiation of the opposition and a triumph for freedom, etc., rather than being seen as something of a fluke of Lebanese parliamentary politics. I suppose flukes don’t lend themselves very well to propagandistic uses. It is apparently far better to celebrate a biased, inherently rigged system as pure democracy in action. Unless the biased, inherently rigged system is Iranian, in which case it is nothing but an enormous sham.
Now let us turn to Iran. The pre-election hype was that the opposition candidate was enjoying a surge in support in the final weeks and stood a chance of forcing a run-off, if not actually beating the incumbent outright. Then, amid record-high turnout, the incumbent won handily and the opposition complained that it had been robbed. In other words, the hype in Lebanon was just hype and was shown to be such on election day, whereas it was God’s own truth in Iran. As the Leveretts argue in Politico today, Ahmadinejad’s official percentage of the vote is very close to his 2005 total against Rafsanjani. As it happens, this is true. Of course, this result was from the head-to-head run-off between two candidates, rather than the multi-candidate first round, but it is not necessarily impossible that a comparable percetange of a larger electorate backed Ahmadinejad in the first round as turnout increased. This does not rule out the use of fraud. Fraud may have been widespread as well, but what we do not know as yet is how significant the effect of this fraud was.
Given all of this, the readiness with which almost everyone in the West seems to be accepting the “coup” explanation is rather worrisome. It is similar to the lockstep consensus on the “Iraqi threat” six years ago that made war all but inevitable, and it is similar to our political class’ certainty last year that Georgia was merely an innocent victim of “Russian aggression,” which has been found again and again to be false. The “coup” in Iran is becoming one of those things that “everyone knows,” and as we have seen more than a few times in the past the things that “everyone knows” are not always true. Moreover, this thing that “everyone knows” about the Iranian election is based on partial, sketchy and biased information–sound familiar? There may be elements of the “coup” story that hold up under scrutiny. It is true that the Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia are loyal to Ahmadinejad and had a significant role in all of this, but how much of that role was illegal under Iranian law remains to be seen.
Part of the “coup” argument is that America must not side against the Iranian people, and it is taken for granted that the people are on Mousavi’s side, because Mousavi’s claims of representing the majority are taken at face value and Mousavi’s side is sometimes simply identified as the side of The People. Were the situation reversed and Ahmadinejad supporters were the ones rioting, it is all but certain that no one would believe a word of their complaints. It is being called fascism when the police attack pro-Mousavi protesters, but you know that it would also be called fascism if it were Ahmadinejad’s people rioting in the streets rather than Mousavi’s, even if the positions of the two candidates were reversed exactly and their actions were identical. (Of course, if Mousavi were the incumbent, he might very well win, because no incumbent has ever lost in any Iranian presidential election–why exactly do we think that anything has changed this time?) If Ahmadinejad’s supporters were the ones in the streets, we would hear all about how they need to accept defeat and acknowledge the validity of the election, and if they refused to do so they would be charged with subverting the democratic process.
The “coup” argument is a consensus view that fits a lot of existing prejudices, allows us to reaffirm pleasant myths about the virtues of popular government (which we are supposed to believe would have yielded a good result, were it not for those meddling fraudsters), and provides an excuse for moralistic posturing in which we get to flaunt our enthusiasm for democracy mostly for our own satisfaction. I am increasingly skeptical that it describes the events of the last few days.
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
Daniel, this moralistic posturing is simply another aspect of the myth of American Exceptionalism. Very, very few of us are exceptional in any meaningful way, and even for those few, being born American (winning the birth lottery, so to speak) is not actually a recommendation.
Equally true for most of us is that little since our birth has much of the exceptional, either.
Jake
Daniel, I agree with many, if not most, of your criticisms of the reactions to the unrest in Iran, and even as a progressive am usually more in agreement than not with your perspective. But I have to say here that your attempts to dismiss the accussations of election fraud here are pretty spurius. For example, from the wikipedia entry you cite above:
“The election led to the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline mayor of Tehran, with 19.48% of the votes in the first round and 61.69% in the second. Ahmadinejad is believed to have won the second round because of his populist views, especially those regarding the poor and their economic status[citation needed]. Officials reported a turnout of about 48% of Iran’s 47 million eligible voters, a decline from the 63% turnout reported in the first round of balloting a week before.”
Since then, Ahmadinejad has presided over a huge economic collapse; the election last week saw turnout of around 85%. It would be unprecedented to see a massive increase in turnout to re-elect an incumbent who oversaw such conditions, especially considering that the vast majority of the new voters were probably in the younger set. This doesn’t consider as well the more specific pieces of evidence raised for fraud by folks who, unlike me, have some expertise in the study of Iran, elections, or both, as well as first-hand reports from Iran.
You should note that 90% of what you say here remains valid whether the election was fraudulent or not. Your main thrust is about how Westerners are trying to interpret the events there, which is epistimologically independent of the facts on the ground. Certainly the coup hasn’t been proven, but the balance of evidence suggests at the least that the election was troubled, if not simply rigged.
Jake – it’s also inherent in this sense of American universalism – as in, our values are transcendent and thus we must support them wheverer in the world they are “threatened,” regardless of how sketchy the information on the “threat.”
Great post, Daniel. Great series of posts, actually. There’s so much sentimentalism wrapped up in this – Sullivan is actually using green type. This sentimentalism is a fatal barrier to thinking clearly about an issue – as was the case with Iraq, as you noted.
Juan Cole, who seems to have a good deal of knowledge, presents some cogent reasons to suggest the reported result was fraudulent.
That these things are often hyped by our press is unquestionable, and the “revolutionary” euphoria of the color parades is as likely to give way to the rule of new rascals, such as Saakasvili in Georgia.
It does seem, though, that there was chicanery in Iran (in addition to the filtering of the candidates beforehand). Our President, on the surface, is maintaining a posture of “We’d like you all to be nice to each other, and we don’t have a dog in your fight” posture, which seems balanced and wise, on the whole, along with a commitment to dialogue whoever emerges the victor.
For the reasons put out by Juan Cole and others, I think there was fraud in the Iranian election. But, I also think it’s likely that Ahmadinejad won anyway. That’s why I think you’re right to say we should just back off and let this situation play out internally.
I think one of the reasons people like Sullivan have been so quick to jump on the Mousavi bandwagon is that we’ve been conditioned by the media and hawks to equate Ahmadinejad and the Iranian establishment with evil. It will probably never occur to most of us to consider whether or not the replacement might be worse.
Most of what you say is valid in the moral, diplomatic sense, but as others point out, in the practical sense, there are very, very good reasons to think this election was fraudulent and stolen, and that Mousavi did in fact win and has been robbed.
What I find interesting about the western outrage over this stolen election is that it’s not as if Mousavi or the other candidates are in any way challenging the clerical, theocratic rule in Iran which essentially makes all elections, legitimate or not, rather secondary matters of little import. It’s the clergy which sets all the policy, and the President just carries it out. True, Mousavi wanted to reform the system, make it a little more democratic, and that’s why Kamenei agreed to rig this election. But even if Mousavi had been allowed to win, Iran would still be just a slightly more liberal theocracy, not a democracy.
Expectations-wise, you’re also a little off, in that earlier polls had shown Ahmadinejad with a lead, bt Mousavi coming on strong at the end. The actual results, hard as they are to discern, seem to show Mousavi with a solid win, which was clearly not the expected result.
@conradg, I’m with you. I see the rhetorical value in pointing out there are potentially valid arguments about whether there was vote fraud or not, but in the end, I tend to agree that one way or the other the USA is gonna have to do some serious give and take with whoever is in power to end (or at least get them to proclaim it so) the nuke program in Iran.
Al Giodarno wrote a very interesting piece about the issue of election fraud, legitimacy, and how the numbers get muddy in the hurry. http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/iran-question-illegitimacy-bigger-electoral-fraud
Thank you Daniel for a no nonsense article. All those speculating about stolen , fraud, or rigged election are just speculating. Show me the money; where is your solid proof?
It is true that Mussavi had a good showing in Tehran among the young, especially women, a noisy minority of even a million strong, in a capital with about 12 million people. They came out, and they got all the press.
I completely agree with you. Watching some, supposed reality based individuals become faith based hysterics has been a bit of an eye opener. I’m sorry the taser and law enforcement people have garnered the term excited delirium because it would seem to be a perfect description for the twitter based vision of Iran now.
[...] and our interventionist foreign policy in general. Daniel Larison could intelligently discuss the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics instead of the shrill “the Islamomeanies are out to get us unless we bomb them first” cries [...]