Centrist Pundits

I am going to try to write here regularly again.  Probably weekly, probably posted on Sundays.  Just an FYI for our readers.

Now, as to the issue of the day: A year or so ago, Vice President Biden predicted Obama would be tested on foreign policy in his first year in office.  A few months ago, there was the Somali Pirate incident which Obama ordered our special forces to handle, and they did so, beautifully.  That wasn’t the test Biden referred to.

I think today’s news is it.  Iraq is reporting Iran has seized an Iraqi oil rig.  Either Iran has done so, or Iraq is making false accusations, or this is all a set up.  In any case, the whole area is a powder keg and this is a dangerous, dangerous thing that is happening.

I don’t know what the outcome will be, but we can only hope Obama handles it well.  To make matters more difficult, I don’t even have a prediction of what “well” would be at this time.

Good luck, Mr. President.

JC Foreign Relations iran, Iraq, obama

How many of my readers have seen the movie “Blazing Saddles”?  Remember when Mongo shows up in town, and they get the sheriff to deal with him?  Gene Wilder advises Clevon Little not to shoot Mongo, it will only make him mad.

I think about that scene with regards to foreign relations, sometimes.  There are just times that I don’t know why one country would do something, when it is guaranteed to infuriate a more powerful nation.  Iran arrested nine British Embassy staff on suspicion that they were helping fuel the unrest in Iran.  They released 5 of them but continue to hold 4 others.

Never mind diplomatic immunity nor the fact that such things “just aren’t done”.  Why in the world would you antagonize Britain?  In and of themselves they may not be the greatest military power in the world, but they have the biggest, baddest little brother on the planet, the USA.  Now I’m not saying this will boil down to a military engagement, but that’s often how these situations go.

Using the military in Iran would be a huge mistake in many ways, we all know this.  But counting on that seems a risky proposition on their part.  Nothing raises the ire of a nation like holding diplomats hostage.  It may not reach a point of violence.  But if it does, Iran has no capacity to resist, long term. 

Maybe the fact I can’t fathom the reasoning here is why I’m not ambassador to someplace.

JC iran diplomacy, iran

When will the tipping point be reached in Iran, if it will be reached at all?  Something is coming, soon.  It will most likely be very bloody, very frightening, and game changing, at least for the Middle East.  Whether it is a fundamentalist crack-down, a new tyranny, or an new pro-freedoms government is impossible to tell right now, though the first two have a much greater chance than the latter two.

I’m not sure when things changed in Iran.  The first days of the protests, they were interesting, they were intriguing, but I’m not sure anyone thought much would come of them.  I’m not sure that it was the death of Neda Agha-Soltan that was a game changer, although that was certainly about the right time.  But the charge of electricity with the protests is different now.  It may also have been the more violent crack-down by the government itself, rather than the specific death, that caused things to change.  At first, things seemed like they might peter out, cowed by the violence, but now… here’s what I see that tells me this has the legs enough to cross the line (I know, terrible mixed metaphor): clerics are protesting.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/23/iran.protest.faces/index.html

I’m not sure how to adequately explain how much that changes things.  Iran has a complex government but it all boils down to one thing: the Supreme Leader is pretty much, well, Supreme.  And he’s also the Supreme Leader of the religion; Iran is essentially a theocracy.  To have clerics defying the Leader over a political issue is to have them also defy him as a religious leader.  The way everything is connected, this could be devastating to stability in that regime.

Separate reports indicate that at least some of the very security forces that are being called upon to club down the protestors are doing it, but then going home, changing, and coming back to be part of the protests.  It is only a matter of time before their conscience gets the best of them, if true, and the security forces either stop showing up, or start actively fighting each other (or, best case but unlikely, start protecting the protests as a whole).

Even the government is admitting at this point that things were wrong with the election, even if they also add “but that didn’t change the outcome.”  That was actually kind of stupid of them; claiming that nothing was wrong was the only thing that kept them having any claim of legitimacy.  They are just inflaming the protestors… unless, of course, that’s what they want.

The real problem with the protests as an insurgency, of course, is that it is likely to fail.  Yes, is I were Ahmadinejad or Khamenei I’d be fearful for my neck at the moment, but the truth is, barring those with the guns switching sides, there is a severe weapon imbalance in the modern day world between governments and the people.  America may have a second amendment to keep the people able to have a revolution, but guns don’t do much against tanks.  Tiananmen Square showed us exactly what happens when people go up against government.  And if the military or security forces do side with the protestors, do we get a legitimate government in Iran, or is that just a military coup?

But we may have reached a point where heads rolling is the only outcome left.  Will it be those of the government officials or those of the protestors may be the only question left.

Image by Milad Avazbeigi and licensed using Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0.  Let us know if further attribution is required.

JC Foreign Relations iran, protests

The good people over at The Moderate Voice have posted about an article in the Christian Science Monitor that quotes a researcher from the University of Hawaii who has data from previous elections that shows that these election results was almost certainly fraudulent.

In the article, Farideh Farhi states that she is “convinced that they just pulled it out of their hats.” She goes on to speculate that the miscalculation this time was how severe the protests would be. Her thinking was that there was an expectation of some street protests after the election was stolen, but that it would die down quickly.

This would seem to jive with what we’ve seen. The religious authority must feel that they’re on the verge of losing their country, because, otherwise, they’d just stand by the results. I think there is a real fear that this could be 1979 all over again — only they would be on the receiving end of the wrath this time.

Let’s hope so.

Greg Foreign Relations diplomacy, iran

I agree that there’s no possible way that Ahmadinejad could have gotten 60+% of the vote, but that’s not important right now.  Or, it is important, but we here at Centrist Pundits would just like to express our desire that the situation in Iran calm down.

While I wouldn’t quite say riots never do any good, they tend to be very destructive.  Our hopes are that the people of Iran are okay.

The people of Iran deserve to have their voices heard and they deserve to have a democratically elected government.  They deserve all the basic human rights that Western Civilization (so to speak) says it grants to its people.  But at their most basic, they also deserve to be safe.

If it must continue, and I hope it does not, but I would hope it would lead to genuine reform and change in the nation of Iran.  But far more likely is a bloody repression of those hoping for freedoms to be granted.

As for the election, send in Jimmy Carter.

JC Foreign Relations iran

I beg your pardon for the terrible headline.

In a few hours, Iranians will go the polls to elect a new President.  Ahmadinejad, the current President, is in a tight race against Mousavi, who has held the post of Prime Minister before that position was eliminated.  Ahmadinejad is noted as the more conservative of the two candidates, while Mousavi considered more liberal.  It is important to note, however, that no matter who is elected, the ultimate political authority in Iran will remain with the “Supreme Leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei.  (On the other hand, a religious council has to approve all candidates, so its not like Khamenei has any big problems with Mousavi).  Still, this is a notable election in some ways.

It has been noted in the past that despite what we see from the religious leaders of Islamic nations, America… or more precisely, American cultural items, are popular in these nations.  Iranians like wearing blue jeans, they like drinking Coca-cola.  It is therefore entirely possible that given the right leaders, relations between America and Iran don’t have to be frosty.  America – like him or loathe him – has elected a leader that understands more of the Islamic world than our previous Presidents by electing Barack Obama.  Iran could do its part by electing Mousavi; Ahmadinejad continues to make things more difficult then they need to be – his stance on the Holocaust being only one of the problems he has dealing with foreign leaders.

Ahmadinejad has a lot of support from the religious and those he’s funneled oil money to, and, perhaps surprisingly, the poor.  Mousavi has support from an energized youth vote.  I would never count on a youth vote in America, but maybe it will accomplish something in Iran.  Interestingly, this election has already been markedly different from previous Iranian elections, normally quiet affairs, with Mousavi and Ahmadinejad’s supporters being vocal and public (there are two other candidates that no one is paying attention to), and even nationwide protests and gatherings of Mousavi’s supporters in the last few days.

The Middle-East is a complex place and no one event will bring about positive change in the area, and I think he’s the longer shot to win, but I would be very interested to see how Mousavi would lead Iran, and how he and Obama would interact.  Will it happen?  Time will tell.  Not much time now.

Photo of Ahmadinejad by Daniella Zalcman, photo of Mousavi by Mardetanha (wikipedia username) – both photos were allowed to be used with proper attribution.  If our attribution is insufficient contact us and we will correct it.

JC Foreign Relations diplomacy, elections, iran

So I read that Iran wants to talk with us. And, despite the screams we’re likely to get from the far-right, I think that it’s a good idea.

History has shown us that little good can ever come from not having diplomatic relations with a country. I mean, look how well it worked for places like Afghanistan.

Obama got a lot of grief during the campaign for saying that he’d meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. That was a faux-pas because heads of state never meed without preconditions; it’s simply the nature of international diplomacy.

But I think that the US has a much better chance of being a long-term friend of Iran than we do of being continually adversarial with no ill effects. If President Obama can get  US Embassy open in Tehran, then that will impress me. I think the more contact we have with the Iranians, the less likely that we’ll have terrorists coming out of the country headed our way.

Well, maybe just outside Tehran. Heavily fortified. While I am an optimist in regards to our future with Iran, I do remember November 4, 1979.

Greg Foreign Relations, Terrorism diplomacy, iran