An OpEd appearing in today’s Arabic-press quotes an anonymous Western diplomat as saying he believes Ahmedinejad won the election by the numbers (”Ahmedinejad’s ‘Success’ Delivers Iran into the hands of the Extreme Right”, Huda Al Husseini, Asharq Al Awsat, 6/18). The interesting thing, according to Al Husseini’s source, is that so many people within Iran believe he did not.
Perhaps the Sepah e Pasdaran were spooked by Mousavi’s expressions of pre-polling confidence, and uncertain of the impact of foreign polling and/or social networking technology, and decided not to take any chances. Hence the odd Ahmedinejad majorities in pro-Mousavi locales, the swiftness of the manual vote counting and the comfortable –but not excessive–margin of victory by Ahmedinejad.
Whatever the case, Al Husseini says, it will be increasingly difficult to convince people either in or out of Iran in light of ongoing violent crackdowns, that the regime has the full confidence of its people–in fact, this behavior may have changed quite a few minds. This further feeds into the deep rooted fear of the current leadership that outside powers might make a try at regime change (fears the Obama administration is wisely not stoking). In the past, this was one of the primary motivations for the Islamic Republic to develop nuclear weapons. That motivation has just got much stronger. Al Husseini points to the next few weeks, and ‘behind the scenes dealmaking’ as critical. No doubt, former President Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, reportedly bent on unseating the Supreme Leader, will play a key role in all of this. If protests subside, and no second or partial polling takes place (unlikely, says another source), look for an ‘extreme right-wing’ government, and a very difficult time ahead.
–EDC
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