Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election presents both challenges and opportunities for President Barack Obama’s efforts to improve relations with Iran sufficiently to constrain its nuclear program.
The June 12 election results surprised many American policy makers. The initial Washington consensus was that Ahmadinejad’s re-election was probable given the support he enjoyed among important groups—the Revolutionary Guard, the rural poor, as well as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his entourage. Then, U.S. analysts noticed the polls and television images suggesting a late surge in support for Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The expectation emerged that neither candidate would win a first-round victory.
When Iranian authorities announced that Ahmadinejad had won by an almost two-to-one margin (63%-to-34%), many American foreign policy experts suspected the margin had been closer. What caught Western observers off-guard, however, was the mass protests that ensued from the perception of large numbers of Iranians that their votes had been stolen. The initial failure of the regime to stop the protesters, and the backing the demonstrators gained among influential Iranian politicians such as Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, also exposed surprising divisions within the ruling elite.
Obama himself pointed out that Mousavi shared many of Ahmadinejad’s policy positions. It is also recognized that Iran’s president enjoys relatively little power over Iran’s foreign and defense policy, which traditionally falls under the authority of the Supreme Leader, Even so, Mousavi in defeat has now become a genuine force for reform. Besides accusing the establishment of engaging in widespread electoral fraud, he has called for comprehensive changes in the Iranian political system. Although there is little likelihood of these reforms being implemented or Mousavi’s soon becoming president, his charges have gained some support among influential Iranians as well as provided many people an opportunity to express their disenchantment with the regime.
Unfortunately, these developments have also increased the prospects that the embattled hardliners will rely on the Iranian military and internal security forces to establish an even more tightly controlled political regime. Ahmadinejad and his supporters could attempt to compensate for their diminished popular support by seeking an accommodation with the West, but they could equally plausibly resort to more confrontational policies to rally popular support behind their government.
Obama has taken care to hedge against a wide range of possible outcomes in Iran. Although he supports the spread of liberal democracy, Obama believes democracy cannot be easily exported. In recent days, he has responded to domestic pressure within the United States for stronger action regarding Iran by stepping up criticism of the post-ballot crackdown, but he has not renounced his engagement strategy. Obama has thereby reaffirmed a core message of his well-received Cairo speech, which called for a change in Iran’s policies, not a change in its regime.
The Obama administration’s clear priority regarding Iran is to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. A few days after the election, International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed El-Baradei publicly declared that Iran’s behavior suggested that Tehran was seeking the capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons for a mixture of defensive and offensive reasons. ‘This is to them the road to … power and prestige and ... an insurance policy against what they heard in the past about regime change.”
President Obama and his top advisers fear that Iran’s acquisition of an atomic bomb, coming so soon after North Korea has declared itself a viable nuclear weapons state, would inflict a fatal blow on the nuclear nonproliferation regime. If Iran acquires a nuclear arsenal, then the expectation is that Egypt, Turkey, and other Middle Eastern countries will likely pursue that option as well. The larger the number of nuclear weapons states, the greater the risks of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism.
The widely negative international reaction to the Iranian election and its aftermath will make it easier for the Obama administration to adopt a harder stance towards Tehran if its engagement strategy proves unsuccessful at constraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Many experts understand that the Iranian Republic has never conducted free and fair elections, in the liberal democratic tradition. The authorities’ severe vetting of candidates unduly limits the range of permissible electoral choice. However, the tarnished vote, by sharply diminishing the legitimacy and popularity of the Iranian government among foreign audiences, will make it easier for Obama to rally international support behind increased diplomatic and economic pressure.
Ahmadinejad’s weakened position was in evidence when he attended the June 16 meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Unlike in previous years, there was no discussion of admitting Iran as the organization’s seventh full member. Despite the imminent withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq’s urban areas, moreover, Iran’s influence in Iraq also appears to be in decline. American officials who recently visited Damascus report that Syrian leaders, traditionally close to Iran, seem newly open to reconciling with Washington. Perhaps most importantly, West European governments will now find it harder to oppose sanctions against an Iranian government that has used widespread force against unarmed protesters.
Conversely, the mass demonstrations in Iran will make it even more difficult for the United States to engage in a major military campaign to disrupt Tehran’s nuclear program. Although the protesters do not appear to object to Iran’s nuclear policies, authorizing a military operation that could kill many innocent Iranians has become more problematic now that they have gained many supporters and sympathizers in the West. The Obama administration had largely excluded that option even before the recent ballot, but it could now experience less criticism within the United States for its efforts to prevent Israel from conducting such an attack.
In the short-term, the election results will make it more difficult for the Obama administration to engage Iran. From a longer-term perspective, however, the recent developments in Iran could offer the United States new opportunities to achieve its core policies in the Gulf region.
Richard Weitz, Ph.D. - Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute- Washington DC.
