Silence Is Still Golden
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Roger Cohen received a lot of grief earlier this year for attempting to show other sides of Iran besides the one offered up by jingoists, and he deserves credit for having done that, but you have to wonder what he’s thinking when he says this:
The president has been right to tread carefully, given poisonous American-Iranian history, but has erred on the side of caution. He sounds like a man rehearsing prepared lines rather than the leader of the free world. A stronger condemnation of the violence and repression is needed, despite Khamenei’s warnings. Obama should also rectify his erroneous equating, from the U.S. national security perspective, of Ahmadinejad and Moussavi.
It is precisely “from the U.S. national security perspective” that the two of them are most alike. For the record, Obama did not equate them, but at most minimized the differences between them, which were exaggerated in the course of the campaign and in the eyes of Western observers. Whether or not Mousavi’s modestly different foreign policy views won him some votes (they probably did), those views are not why huge crowds have been protesting in the streets, nor on the whole is it why they wanted to defeat Ahmadinejad at the polls. Iranians probably are tired of the government throwing money at Hizbullah when their own economic woes are so severe, but it was probably the country’s economic and social conditions that boosted Ahmadinejad’s opponents rather than his international buffoonery.
Incidentally, has anyone else noticed how readily Obama supporters have forgotten their campaign-era arguments that it was Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad, who really mattered when it came to negotiations? Whenever someone mocked Obama about negotiating with Ahmadinejad, citing the latter’s belligerent rhetoric as a reason not to talk to him, his supporters used to point out, reasonably enough, that Ahmadinejad had limited power and no real control over the nuclear program anyway. Back then, Obama supporters were pointing to the structure of the deep state to explain why Ahmadinejad was not all that important. Now the structure of the deep state is to be ignored, and personalities are once more taking center stage. Why is it that so many of them have adopted the hawks’ preoccupation with the relatively powerless position of Iranian President? Obama seems not to have forgotten who is actually in charge of the Iranian government, which is why he said what he said, but many of his most earnest backers during our presidential election suddenly see great significance on matters of proliferation and foreign policy in exchanging one president for another.
In any case, Obama cannot rectify something he didn’t get wrong, and there is actually no benefit for Mousavi from Obama stressing how much more pliant and cooperative with the United States’ policies Mousavi is likely to be. Indeed, I cannot think of anything more clearly helpful to Mousavi and his supporters than to have the President affirm that they are no less supportive of Iranian ambitions and security than their opponents. This is not only true, but it may prove to be politically useful to Mousavi and his supporters as well. At the very least, it will do him no harm among Iranians. Practically the only people at the moment who care whether Mousavi is “better” on nuclear proliferation and foreign policy from the American perspective are, remarkably enough, Americans. Most of the people whose opinion of Mousavi is likely to change because of this are Americans.
As for stronger condemnation of the violence, why is it needed? What good would it actually do? Someone needs to make an argument why the protesters need such a condemnation to further their cause, and then this same person would need to explain why it is the business of the United States government to do that. If it is only American and Western audiences that are dissatisfied with Obama’s statements, perhaps that is as it should be. After all, whose need is being fulfilled by taking a “stronger” line? If it is merely an American need to have the President act as “leader of the free world,” even when doing so is the clumsy, ham-handed move that will harm both the protesters and U.S. interests, Obama should refuse to satisfy it. Obama has been cautious, but it is far from clear that he has erred in being so.
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
When Roger Cohen had put out those articles trying to show the other side of Iran that the US media doesn’t show (ie the kinder gentler tolerant side) he got a lot of heat from the Iranian Jewish Americans as well as the pro-Israel community as a whole for trying to depict Iran in a nicer light. Methinks that this time around Cohen has figured he has nothing to lose by acting a bit hawkish, given that even some of Obama’s more ardent anti war supporters are braying for Ahmedinajad’s head, and if anything he actually gains by salvaging any good will that the pro-Israel community has for him.
Daniel, I haven’t noticed an outpouring of support for Mousavi specifically. I believe you’re conflating global support for citizen expression with the Great Leader at the head of the parade. I believe that conflation has been central to several of your recent posts. No doubt some project their psyche on him but I do not believe that to be the rule.
Frankly in my mind it would be a beautiful thing for Mousavi to be assassinated and populace yet carries the day.
If Mousavi is that unimportant to the people protesting, it makes it even more irrelevant whether Obama said that he and Ahmadinejad were close together on policy. But he is the visible figurehead of the protests, and their cause has become identified with him.
If he were killed despite his long association with the government and Khomeini, that would be a signal that no one in the opposition is safe. It would make it much less likely that the protesters would prevail. That would likely be very bad for the average protester.
Perhaps. But you are now answering a question not asked, and side-stepping the strawman you drew with a wide brush.
But I will focus on your answer to the question not asked. Again, perhaps.
Perhaps the young people on the street who went to the salon to thin their eyebrows and were later that afternoon shot dead through their neck… perhaps they are not opposed to the corruption of their government. Perhaps they are not past the breaking point and want the freedoms they see on their cell phones and facebook pages that other young in other young countries appear to have.
Perhaps they want the same lack of freedom, the same lack of access, the same inability to decide their own economic path… that they have under Ahmenijhad… but now instead under Mousavi. Perhaps they lack your academic familiarity with Mousavi, and never listened to their parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents as to what colors the Mousavi horse.
Perhaps they are truly pro-Mousavi instead of simply anti-establishment.
Then you have a point.
I leave it as an honest mental exercise on your part to decide which seems most likely.
Very droll. If we could be serious and honest, the reality is that the leader of this movement is Mousavi, and his baggage is relevant to the practical possibilities of what this movement will be able to accomplish in the unlikely event that it prevails. His supporters may want very different things from what he represents, just as there were probably earnest Yushchenko or Saakashvili supporters who were not interested in the former’s corrupt dealings or the latter’s reckless nationalist fantasies, but he is the leader they have. They are channeling their anti-establishment sentiments through Mousavi, and at the moment the most plausible path to power for them is also through Mousavi, which is why they have become pro-Mousavi. It is not because they have some great love for him or his past record, but because he is the vehicle they can use.
Furthermore, it is exactly in the social and economic sphere at home where Mousavi and Ahmadinejad differ the most, which is why anti-establishment forces have rallied around Mousavi and against Ahmadinejad. You are arguing with a position I never took. I was talking almost exclusively about security and foreign policies, and you respond by talking about Facebook. Can you now see how non-responsive and irrelevant your second comment is?
Oh please.
Leaders are taken beyond the movements they cheer lead.
Myths wrap because the man and his actions never represent the goal.
Enoch, Noah, Yeshua, Charlemagne, Gandhi, George Washington, Mother Theresa, John Kennedy, John Lennon, Mousavi… they were all deeply flawed, with baggage, simply human. None of them got exactly what they as individuals claimed to want. They got what the movement could tolerate.
The movements they all led either contemporaneously or post-humously… all were NOT tied to this “relevant baggage”.
Again, you conflate the flawed man with the sentiment that drives movement, change, and self-sacrifice.
Droll indeed. I’m disappointed you doubled down.
Out.
I don’t care whether you’re disappointed. You’re not making any sense. You want to detach the movement from its figurehead, but it doesn’t work that way. Would it be nice if Iran could have a political reform movement that wasn’t stocked full of Khomeini-era holdovers? Sure, but that’s not the reality at the present time.
Iranian foreign policy was never going to change dramatically under either man, and it still won’t no matter which side wins. Obama was entirely right about this, and I really have no idea why anyone would be arguing the point. The sentiment driving the movement is all very well and good, but it has no bearing on Iranian ambitions and the vast majority of Iranians’ understanding of what Iranian national rights and interests are. Did you read Mousavi’s remarks today? He was waxing nostalgic for the good old days of Khomeini and the “pure principles” of the Islamic revolution and even finding room for praise for the IRGC. You want to tell me that this is irrelevant to how he would govern were he somehow to gain power? That’s just delusional.
I’ve followed your blog for some months now. You are authoritarian social conservative. In that order.
I give you props on your consistency. Your world view always come down to the authority of great leaders, where leader is always equivalent in your mental model with time over evolution. The more time the more credence.
You’ve consistently dismissed social evolution as the “masses behind them” who bow to that “time proven authority”. Luther, another propagandized flawed human whose legacy outstrips his intrinsic self and acts, would note your facade and post another broadside. Unless of course you subscribed to his newsletter.
You’ll quibble over the authenticity of that authority.
But you’ve yet to question that framework’s efficacy, the concept that authority overrules sophisticated individuals regardless of how they project that “will”. “Will” usually defined as a framework that perpetuates oppressive social continuity at the expense of letting free will work itself out.
Yeshua’s legacy writings, even after heavy redaction and agitprop, is completely antithetical to such a worldview.
Delusional indeed. You draw a line in sand and then deny the tide that blurs it.
Yes, I am that great authoritarian who has opposed almost every U.S. military campaign of the last fifteen years (all except Afghanistan), rails against the torture regime, abhors executive usurpation, protests illegal wiretapping and the PATRIOT Act, condemned the Andijan massacre and the wars in Lebanon and Gaza, called for withdrawing U.S. support from Musharraf and pointed out the destructive tendencies of Saakashvili for years before he attacked South Ossetia. Yes, I am just thrilled by authoritarian rulers, which is why I constantly demand decentralization of power and broad distribution of wealth. If I am an authoritarian, there is practically no one who is not. Please stop embarrassing yourself.
Luther backed secular rulers when they slaughtered peasants who had risen in rebellion. Good choice.
Bad choice on your part. I didn’t say you chose political dictators.
But that you choose religious authorities. Which normatively suggests Mousavi is right up your alley. He’s the religious purist.
Hence your concern and flag waving. “Why chose this religious believer who is identical to the mafia pugilist who’d take his place”.
And of course you are right.
But why wedding yourself to the position that anti-establishment blood in the streets is conflated with this fanatic?. Oh because we have to. He is the Great Leader. He’s Religious. So we have to.
No we don’t. Mousavi understands it is not a movement based on love for his history of personal actions. Whether cynically or something else he’s riding the public wave based on something else.
Indeed. But you insist it must be. In the absence of any reality than that Daniel must triple, is it double?, perhaps octuple now, whatever double down on it.
Mousavi cynically rides the waves. He’ll lose the curl he desires to shoot and will be caught up on the rocks. He’ll play the next part because history and legacy demands he should.
This is how historic authority is built. You seem to misunderstand that legacy is not God-mandated so much as God cultivated.
So stop it already.
Your comments are utterly irrelevant to everything I said in the initial post, and to everything I have written this week. Repeating yourself isn’t helping, and I’m tired of wasting my time on this.
Your privilege.
Duck duck goose.
“Now the structure of the deep state is to be ignored, and personalities are once more taking center stage. Why is it that so many of them have adopted the hawks’ preoccupation with the relatively powerless position of Iranian President? Obama seems not to have forgotten who is actually in charge of the Iranian government, which is why he said what he said, but many of his most earnest backers during our presidential election suddenly see great significance on matters of proliferation and foreign policy in exchanging one president for another.”
If “many of his most earnest backers” refers partially or entirely to Andrew Sullivan, I think it’s a bit off to say that “personalities are once more taking center stage.” Personalities always take center stage for Sullivan.
Last year, when he was minimizing the power of the Iranian presidency, it wasn’t that he was wisely putting Ahmadinejad’s outlandish rhetoric and behavior in its proper context. Sullivan was enamored of Obama and therefore his instinct was to examine Iran in ways that were favorable to Obama.
But what seemed personally appealing about Obama during the campaign (measured, temperamentally conservative, etc.) doesn’t jibe with Sullivan’s romantic worldview and operatic temperament. It doesn’t translate into the large-scale social, political and geopolitical changes Sullivan consistently advocates. So now that we’re seeing the temperamentally conservative Obama in action Sullivan’s displeased with the results on multiple fronts.
Hence his newfound interest in the odiousness of Ahmadinejad and the nobility of the Iranian president’s enemies. The arguments are utterly inconsistent but Sullivan’s personality,style and approach have not changed.
For another example of this, consider Sullivan’s arguments in favor of war in Iraq and, subsequently, in favor of immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Even in advocating withdrawal he was blithely arguing that, hey, maybe what Iraq and the broader region need is a hideous sectarian bloodbath to precipitate some sort of Islamic Reformation. He was advocating opposite policies (“Send troops into Iraq!”/”Get troops out of Iraq”) but his general approach (“let’s shake things up big-time and see what happens!”) was identical.
Not wishing to interrupt all the good feelings here, but it seems there’s a valid point in suggesting that the movement is bigger than Mousavi, bigger than even the election. It’s about the trust and legitimacy of the government at this point. One does not have to see Mousavi as some selfless, saintly figure to see that the government has betrayed its potemkin village promise of being a religious democracy under some kind of rule of law and morality. When a government acts as Iran’s has in the last week, it crosses a threshold from merely wronging someone (mousavi) and his supporters, to betraying its own principles and laws, thus exposing itself as a lawless nation of authoritarian power-mongers using religion as an excuse, rather than an end.
We see this kind of decay in all kinds of authoritarian regimes, where the leaders like Khamenei and Ahmadinejad equate themselves with the goals of the country (rule by the righteous), and in so doing act in a most unjust and morally repulsive manner. As long as the people remain supportive of the main purpose of the regime, and it produces favorable results, this can be tolerated, if only out of fear. But when it crosses the line and blatantly comes off as power-grabbing for its own sake, with no deiscernable favorable results for the country, a revolt can be provoked. The problem here is one of legitimacy and trust, and having made their stand, the government cannot back down without falling down. Khamenei cannot just say, sorry, I stole the election, but I thought I could get away with it, and after all, I’m the Supreme Leader, so it’s more important that people think I can do no wrong than admit to doing wrong, so we’re all just going to have to live with the result.That’s not how Supreme Leaders think or act. They never admit anything. But the people just aren’t that stupid. Everyone knows what they did, and they just can’t pretend otherwise. So we have a movement in response to a government that has shed it’s illusions of democratic legitimacy, and shown itself to be merely another authoritarian power machine, and Mousavi only matters in that he’s the most visible symbol of that lack of legitimacy.
It doesn’t much matter what Mousavi himself represents, policy-wise, except to the degree that he represents the visible symbol of the corrupt and power-mad regime which has unwittingly exposed itself as such. It’s true he’s only a moderate reformer, not a revolutionary, but the circumstances have moved beyond his control, because the corruption in this case undermines the legitimacy not just of Ahmadinejad, but of Khamenei himself, and even of the whole system that gives such people so much unaccountable power. So now Mousavi is in the position of having to advocate even bigger reforms than he did before the election, some kind of increasing democratization of the government. At the very least, it would seem to point towards replacing Khamenei with a more liberal cleric, and then proceeding with some kind of reform path which would prevent future governments from stealing elections like this. I don’t think Mousavi wants a genuine revolution, and that’s probably a good thing, in that Iran probably needs much more time to make any transition towards full democracy. The success of this uprising shouldn’t be measured in terms of an end to theocratic government in Iran (which would probably involve horrible bloodshed, but by a more liberal, more openly democratized theocracy. Mousavi has a role to play in that, regardless of his past. And it would be a very positive thing, nothing to sneer at either.
There are different questions here. First, I don’t disagree that the movement is bigger than Mousavi. I don’t think it can be separated from him, but it is about more than him and his agenda. As far as I can tell, nothing I have said can be reasonably read as rejecting that. Then again, I haven’t been talking about that in most of my posts. We shouldn’t lose perspective that the protests are being expressed in Islamist terms and in defense of a “true” Islamic republic that the protesters believe, understandably enough, has been corrupted, but as long as we acknowledge that I have no problem recognizing this as a real mass movement.
Mousavi’s foreign policy views may not matter at all to the protesters. That was part of my point, which is why Cohen and others who are complaining about Obama’s statement on this point are just wrong. As far as *we* are concerned on foreign policy, the differences between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad are minimal, and there is nothing wrong in acknowledging this. This does not undermine the protesters, and may even bolster the protesters’ cause. As far as they are concerned, the differences between the candidates that matter are on controls on economic and social life. And, yes, this has gone beyond the two candidates and now represents a more thoroughgoing critique of the corruption of the regime, which once again is not related to the policy questions Obama was discussing, but is entirely internal.
The point is precisely that these protests have nothing to do with the West – it is not even clear to me to what extent the freedoms and rights that the protesters are demanding are comparable to Western freedoms and rights. I’m sure there are some Iranians who would like to live in a Western style democracy but many of them have already left Iran. These protests are about the failure of the Islamic Republic to live up to its Islamic Republican values – as Mousavi’s statement indicated.
I think there is a way in which these protests do relate to the west, and even to Mousavi’s foreign policy differences. It’s the issue of peaceful engagement rather than polarized opposition. One can certainly equate the general reform movement with a general desire to engage the west, and the US, in a less aggressive, 1979-ish manner. Mousavi himself likes to call himself the “Iranian Obama”, which I take to simply mean a less confrontational figure who wants to get past the old polarities. The difference in attitude between him and Ahmadinejad does seem to roughly parallel the difference between Obama and McCain. One can even see in this crisis, how Obama approaches it quite differently than McCain. You have in the past pointed out that Obama’s general policy differences with McCain are not so great, and yet you’ve also been very appreciative of the difference in style and communication Obama has been exhibiting. I think something similar would be evident in a Mousavi government. While ostensibly pursuing Iran’s general interests, he would be much less confrontational, and far more willing to come to a peaceful set of agreements that respect Iran while not just looking for ways to piss of the West. He sees Obama as someone he could work with, whereas Ahmadinejad simply has no clue as to how to proceed. I think something serious gets missed when viewing merely the technical details of foreign policy and not examining the overall approach. Image a world with Obama and Mousavi in charge (and in Iran’s case, a more liberal Supreme Leader than Khamenei), and one in which McCain, Ahmadinjed, and Khamenei dominate. I think you can well appreciate the differences.
It’s not wrong for Iran to pursue it’s national interests, just as it isn’t wrong for the US to do the same. No one expects Mousavi to pursue the US’s national interests. But it’s certainly possible to see a way where both the US and Iran can pursue their national interests without getting into needless conflicts aimed at scoring points for domestic political consumption, ramping up tensions to benefit their respective defense and oil industries at the cost of economic tranquility, and just generally behaving like grown ups. If Iran can move in that direction, following Obama’s subtle lead, it’s a good thing all around. And the protesters are actually aware of these things, in a loose way. They sense that it’s time to change, that there are opportunities in the world to change the way their country operates that could benefit them and their relationships. This is why Obama’s hands off approach is so important. No one wants to be led by a nose-ring. They want to make their own way in the world. But that doesn’t mean they don’t see the west as making an attractive partner, rather than an adversary, in creating a modern Iran. Social and economic controls are of course the meat and potatoes issues, but one can’t really separate that from the general westernization/modernization impulse that goes against the medieval theocratic direction.
I’m not suggesting Iran wants to suddenly overthrow its Islamic Republic, but the protesters do want an Islamic Republic that is far more modern and liberal than it is at present. The whole point of that Republic, of course, was to create a Constitutional Theocracy, not a lawless one. And so the general aim is to put the emphasis more and more on the “constitutional” aspect of the equation, and less on the Theocratic. One can see this in a fashion similar to the gradual democratization of monarchial nations. Even England still has an official Church and a Monarch. I’m not saying Iran will ever go quite that far, but it’s certainly possible for their theocratic Republic to become much more liberal, while yet retaining the basic elelments of an Islamic government. And that seems to be what the movement is about. I don’t want to be overoptimistic in the short term, but In the long term, I’d say its chances are very good.
I may have overstated the case when I said “nothing to do with the West” but I think it’s fairly clear that the substantive issue in the protest if not the election itself is domestic legitimacy and the perception (almost certainly justified) of an unconstitutional manipulation of the votes. To the extent that foreign and Western relations come into the protest it is only because some of the more vocal protesters are pro-Western (at least in Iranian terms) and because some protesters believe that playing to an international audience increases the pressure on the regime – about which they may well be right. It is not clear to me that the kinds of objections that protesting Iranians have about this election and that Mousavi supporters have about the system as a whole are usefully called ‘modern and liberal’. Is it necessarily liberal to want a constitutional system to operate according to the rules?
“Is it necessarily liberal to want a constitutional system to operate according to the rules?”
Actually, yes, it is. The Iranian Constitution allows for the Supreme Leader to override any election, to refuse to seat any elected official deemed unacceptable to him, and to essentially do as he sees fits, so long as the clerical councils back him. The very idea that a set of secular laws and elections should control the country, rather than unelected clergy, is a western, liberal notion, the value of which is on the line in the streets of Iran. Rejecting the wise leadership of Khamenei is a kind of liberal blasphemy that represents a modern, liberal viewpoint considered heretical by those supporting the Supreme Leader.
conradg -
To play devils advocate here, this protest is not ostensibly about the ability of the Supreme Leader to override any election etc but rather the perception that the election has been rigged. Who knows whether there would have been a protest if the result had been announced as a Mousavi victory and then Khameni had refused to allow him to stand? More generally, it is not uniquely liberal to insist on constitutional obedience – one could just as well argue that it is conservative.
In all honesty I have to admit that I am torn between your view and a more cautious reading of events. I certainly hope that there is an underlying liberal viewpoint behind the protests in Iran and that it emerges triumphant. But I am also aware of how little I know about Iran and how different their society is from ours. I can certainly conceive of a protest against this election that is not liberal in any meaningful sense.
Agreed that the SP has played it fast and loose. But if he had openly admitted that Mousavi won, and yet still refused to seat him, and kept Ahmadinejad on, the situation would be no better, and the protests would be even stronger. So at the heart of the protest is a rejection of the SP’s absolute authority to override elections, whether done overtly or covertly.
As to whether abiding by elections and constitutional laws is liberal or conservative, you are using nomenclature that only makes sense within the overall scheme of “liberal society” such as exists in the modern west. Genuine conservatives in our society want to preserve liberty, and advocate that we abide by laws in order to preserve liberty, whereas conservatives in Iran wish to restrain it and assert that the very notion of a liberal society goes against God, and has only a very limited place in a just, holy world. The Iranian Revolution has an other-worldly sense of justice, not geared towards finding satisfaction in this world, but contemptuous of that very notion, and insisting on imposing sacred edicts upon this world, and abiding by the wisdom of the holy men who are the only true “trustees” of mankind. But they also understand that they have to pay lip service to these notions of democracy and the will of the people, which is why they even bothered to falsify the election. Now they are trapped in a hypocritical double-bind, and have no way out other than crass repression and violence. The liberal notion that the liberty of the people is best decided by the people themselves is at the heart of the conflict here, which is inherent in the very structure of the Iranian Republic, which tries to balance theocracy and democracy. Right now, it seems badly out of balance to many people in Iran.
That should be SL (Supreme Leader), not SP. Not sure what I was thinking.
This election was never about Mousavi. This election was about you!