Obama, Victor in Iran
Had Obama endorsed the protests in the slightest degree, Moussavi’s movement would have lost the legitimacy it had achieved by virtue of its grassroots origins…. A Green victory would have been tainted by claims that it had required a pact with the “Great Satan”—Ahmadinejad’s lavish, almost fawning epithet for America.
During the past two weeks, in what analysts have labeled the largest display of Iranian political dissent since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, violent clashes between authorities and protestors rocked the streets of Tehran. By last Friday night, however, the government had suppressed the upheaval and regained a firm grasp on all levers of power.
Now, the blood of those who contested President Ahmadinejad’s re-election, and voiced loud support for opposition candidate Moussavi, stains the city’s pavement with the ruddy hue of defeat (not, it will be decided, the shade associated with Muslim martyrdom). In twisted contortions, their green face paint stares from the sides of cinderblock buildings, the remnants of vandalized automobiles, in fact whatever surface they used to brace themselves at the time they were caught, kicked, clubbed, and apprehended; and their headscarves lay strewn among shattered storefronts like so many broken dreams—dreams now dark and unspeakable. The government’s crackdown, crafted by the powerful Revolutionary Guard and implemented by the Basij Militia, was harsh and, by most accounts, brutal. Hundreds were incarcerated, the Iranian government acknowledges, and many dozens were killed or seriously injured.
By late last week, the country’s governing apparatus had succeeded in quelling the massive demonstrations that had challenged and, at times, gravely threatened its legitimacy. On Saturday night, for the first time since the results of the presidential election were announced, reporters in the field wired back to their bureaus that the dust of discontent had fully settled. In its place pervaded a hushed tone of depression, exhaustion, and fear. The masses of student protestors – whose cries for democracy had once caused buildings to tremble and, in some cases, crumble – quietly, secretly returned to their homes, having learned a valuable lesson in Repression 101.
On Monday night, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, with the unsurprising support of the Guardian Council, confirmed that there would be no reelection; the partial recount they had granted included only ten percent of the nation’s voting precincts, many of which reported new results, giving President Ahmadinejad greater margins of victory. It was a final slap to the face of Moussavi and his supporters—the punch line of a grandiose, absurdist joke that lasted two weeks too long.
Today, it is clear that the Green “Revolution” has failed. As it turns out, the power of nonstop real-time Twitter updates, up-to-the-minute blog posts, and graphic YouTube videos was perceived, but not present. Palo Alto’s claims that technology had armed democracy with the weapons it needed to triumph over tyranny seemed comically overstated.
In spite of the ratings-driven media hype from both the left and the right, President Obama anticipated this outcome. In the face of criticism likening his inaction to that of President Jimmy Carter during the Islamic Revolution, he refused to label the election illegitimate. The day after the protests began, Obama issued a shockingly neutral press release, saying, “We don’t know yet how this is going to play out.” Eventually, he denounced the government crackdown on protestors as “outrageous,” but he remained mum on the issue of the election itself.
