Iran's Election, Netenyahu's Speech

(June 14, 2009) The "disputed" election in Iran and the "major policy address" by Israeli PM Netenyahu dominated the headlines this weekend, and neither portend well for the immediate future in the Middle East. I must admit that I become suspicious about the report I heard on the BBC last week about a surge in the popularity of President Ahmadinejad's main rival according to a poll reportedly conducted by the Iranian government itself. The BBC did not describe the polling method or give any other details. Other mainstream sources were similarly building anticipation among their western readers that Iranians were on the verge of kicking out their president. Then no sooner does the election take place than the main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, cries fraud. Predictably, the western media follow his lead. They interview Iranians in Britain and America who support Mousavi, while their correspondents in Tehran confirm that the challengers was the choice of most of the people they spoke to.
Well? If the 2004 election was judged on a sample of Americans living overseas or people that foreign journalists interviewed in Washington or New York then John Kerry would have won by a landslide. Iran is a huge country. How many people, especially foreigners, can say with confidence that they have their finger on the pulse of the whole country? My suspicion is that many in the media want to revoke Ahmadinejad's credentials as a legitimately elected leader so that there will be less resistance to an American or Israeli air strike on his country. Although much of the power in Iran rests in the hands of the Supreme Leader, whose term is for life, it has been an annoyance to Iran's enemies that at least its elections have been widely regarded as fair. But now that Ahmadinejad is claiming that he won more than 60% of the vote, well, isn't it obvious that the vote was rigged?
Not necessarily. A Voice of America report from last week quotes two western agencies as having conducted their own poll that showed Ahmadinejad well out in front. This poll, sponsored by "Terror Free Tomorrow" and the "New America Foundation" - found that 34 percent of those surveyed plan to vote for President Ahmadinejad while Mousavi was favored by 14 percent and 27 percent were undecided. These two organizations boost board members from the core of the American foreign policy establishment -- names like John McCain, Lee Hamilton, Fareed Zakaria, and Francis Fukuyama. The poll, which was conducted via telephone of 1000 Iranians, is not necessarily any better than the one mentioned by the BBC, but it does show that at least some western-sponsored polls showed Ahmadinejad way out in front during the last week before the election. It doesn't prove the Ahmadinejad victory, but it does make it plausible. So beware of media charges of election fraud morphing into a drum beat for war.
Speaking of war, Israeli Prime Minister Netenyahu has been beating the drum, calling Ahmadinejad "Hitler" and saying that it is 1939 all over again. Well, if Netenyahu is right it is time that we started calling HIM a Holocaust denier, because Tehran's Jewish community obviously feels safe and has resisted Israeli enticements for them to emigrate. Does Netenyahu realize that he is implying that Jews in Nazi Germany enjoyed the same degree of security?
Of course, Netenyahu's speech did not focus on Iran, but rather, as the headlines trumpeted, on his "endorsement of an independent Palestinian state." Of course, this "independent state" would have no military, no control over its air space, no right of return for Palestinians forced out of Israel, no piece of Jerusalem, and it would be saddled with hundreds of thousands of heavily-armed Jewish settlers within their state. It is safe to assume that Israel and the settlers would continue to control most of the territory's water resources and Gaza's coast line. Netenyahu did concede that Palestine should have its own flag and anthem. Wait a minute. That sounds exactly like what the Palestinians have today! Palestine is already independent, only we never realized it. How much irony for one weekend when Israel's Holocaust-denying prime minister discovers for us that Palestine has been an independent state all along!