As massive protests rocked Iran after the “re-election” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over “reform” candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the western press was eager to attribute the protests to Barack Obama’s international influence — specifically the “support” Obama threw to Iranian reformers in his now famous speech in Cairo. Others suggested that Obama’s speech essentially frightened the Iranian regime into an overreaction, securing itself by rigging the election. Such is the power of hope and change.
The irony is that Obama probably did have a critical effect upon the outcome — albeit the opposite of what is being suggested.
Prior to his speech in Cairo, Obama made clear that his policy was to eschew meaningful action to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions unless and until Israel complied with Obama’s approach on Palestinian issues. This sent a clear message to the regime in Iran: Obama had prepared an excuse for himself if Iran should become nuclear power — a variation on the traditional Arab-Muslim strategy of blaming the Jews.
During his Cairo speech, Obama also continued his “Apology Tour” approach to American foreign policy, which attempts to win favor abroad by positing that the U.S. is at least as bad as, if not worse than, other nations. The mullahs were again the beneficiary: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” Obama said, referring to the CIA’s role in the 1953 deposing of Iranian prime minister Muhammad Moussadeq. [Preposterously, this statement was set against the 30 years of terror that the Islamic Republic has inflicted on the Unites States, Israel, and the West.] Most Iranians are too young to remember Moussadeq, of course. Obama was talking directly to the regime, making clear that he does not favor efforts to oust foreign leaders.
Given the conventional belief that military strikes against Iran’s nuclear assets will produce minimal success and possibly drastic retaliation, America’s only alternative in preventing a nuclear Iran seems to lie in working with the greatly pro-American population to bring down the regime. On its face, then, the Cairo statement gives Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reassurance that Obama will not engage in such an effort.
Obama’s Cairo speech had one last bit of aid and comfort for the nuclear-minded mullahs: “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. . . . And any nation, including Iran, should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
It is clear to any rational thinker that Iran’s activities to date can not be confused with the effort to obtain peaceful nuclear power. As Amir Taheri writes in his brilliant book, The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution:
The only nuclear power station under construction in Iran, in the Bushehr peninsula on the Persian Gulf, was designed by Germans in the 1970’s and is being built by a Russian company that constructed Chernobyl. The Bushehr plant is designed to use a specially graded and codified fuel that is produced only in Russia; it cannot use the uranium enriched by Iran.
Taheri further adds that Iran “is building a heavy water plant at Arak, west of Tehran, supposedly producing fuel for a nuclear power station using plutonium. However, the Islamic Republic has no such plant, nor has it even planned to build one. What is produced in Arak, therefore, could only have a military use.” In Cairo, Obama effectively announced to the world that he is willing to assist the Iranian regime in maintaining its charade that it is not working to obtain nuclear weapons — while at the same time preemptively granting it the right to do so.
America now mirrors the United Nations in its pusillanimous response to Iran’s persistent efforts at violating international norms. Why would Khamenei — who controls Iran’s election results just as he controls Iran’s nuclear program — feel any need to dismiss Ahmadinejad in favor of the faux-reformist Mousavi? Such a move would, in Persian minds, signal its own weakness — a strategic attempt to fool the world that some meaningful “change” is occurring. Why play that card now? No change is needed at present — not even a superficial one. So why not save that trump for later, in case the international community should reverse its course and promise strong action against Iran — or in case the Iranian protests and the crackdown against them should continue, threatening lasting effects. In either of those scenarios, the concession from the mullahs will come in spite of Obama, not because of him.
In Iran’s last election, Ahmadinejad used the slogan “We Can!” Once again, Obama is adding the word “Yes” to all that Ahmadinejad does.
– Bill Siegel lives in New York.