OPINION
March 4, 2003 9:00 a.m.
The Iranian-Election Revolt
The people speak. The West wont listen.
Michael Ledeen - National Review
Iran held municipal elections over the weekend. All
the regime's big guns had implored the people to turn
out in record numbers, to demonstrate that the people
were committed to participation in the Islamic
Republic. Supreme Leader Khamenei, Eminence Grise
Rafsanjani, and President Khatami the vapid matinee
idol of the New York and Los Angeles Times apologists
made clear their desperate desire for a record
turnout.
Be careful what you ask for. There was a record
turnout, but it was a negative record. The official
reports speak of a ten-percent turnout in Tehran and
other major cities, with higher participation
elsewhere. If those numbers were accurate, it would
represent a massive abstention, and hence an enormous
vote of no confidence in the system. But the real
numbers are worse still: Of the roughly seven million
people entitled to vote in Tehran, less than 70,000
actually voted. I make that about one percent. These
data come directly from a high-ranking official
involved in the elections office, who was shocked by
the results.
The Iranian people rejected the regime in the most
unmistakable way, yet the "story" you read in our
newspapers is that the hard liners routed the
reformers in something resembling a real election. As
if the Iranian people, after years of mass
demonstrations against the mullahcracy, after
thousands of freedom fighters had sacrificed their
lives in protest against Islamic oppression, had
suddenly seen the darkness and decided they preferred
tyranny to freedom. Or perhaps they had heard the
shameful nonsense emanating from the mouth of Deputy
Secretary of State Armitage ("Iran is a democracy")
and decided that since the Supreme Leader was a
confirmed democrat, the best path to liberty was to
give the regime a huge vote of confidence.
No way. The elections were a protest non-vote, pure
and simple. The pathetic Khatami and his apologists at
the BBC and elsewhere in the Western media are now
crying that "the system" is being undermined and
chances for reform have been weakened, but they have
totally missed the point. Chances for reform are nil
so long as Khamenei and Rafsanjani are in command, and
the Iranian people are disgusted with Khatami's failed
promises and empty gestures. He's not only
ineffectual, but a coward to boot. He's threatened to
resign with monotonous regularity, but never does it.
He promised reforms but has produced none at all, and
there is manifestly less freedom today than when he
came to office.
If we had had any honest reporters in Tehran for the
past two weeks, they would have put the elections in
their proper context. The vote came hard on the heels
of a weeklong demonstration for the benefit of the
United Nations Human Rights Commission, which visited
Iran on a fact-finding mission. Headed by the usual
Frenchman, the commission managed to complain about
the protracted use of solitary confinement in Iranian
prisons. But they did not denounce the more terrible
practices such as torture and arbitrary executions.
Indeed, while they were in Iran, the regime rounded up
five more newspaper editors and locked them up, with
no protest from the commissioners. And apparently the
commissioners did not insist on interviewing the
country's most celebrated prisoners, like student
leader Tabarzadeh or the recently arrested jurist
Sholeh Sadi, who had bravely denounced the regime in
uncompromising language. And unbeknownst to the
commissioners, the regime had staged a "dry run" for
the prisoners. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed agents of the
regime, pretending to be commissioners, were sent into
the prisons to interview prisoners. Those who
complained about maltreatment were isolated, and
maltreated some more. Those who spoke well about their
conditions were permitted to be interviewed by the
real commissioners.
God willing, Judgment Day is coming to the Middle
East, and the long-suffering people of Iran, Iraq,
Syria, and Saudi Arabia will get their chance to be
free. I have no doubt that they will have suitably
harsh words for the Western governments and
journalists who failed to help them, or even tell the
real story.
Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most
recently the author of The War Against the Terror
Masters. Ledeen, Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair
at the American Enterprise Institute, can be reached
through Benador Associates.
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John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq:
Your enemy is not surrounding your country your enemy is ruling your
country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be
the day of your liberation." -George W. Bush 1/29/03
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