As I type, Iranians are voting to determine their president. They are also voting to determine their immediate future to a much larger degree than many Iran hawks would care to admit. A common refrain — not entirely without merit — among Western thinkers both left and right is that Iran’s presidential elections are irrelevant to Iran’s course of action vis-a-vis its nuclear program. The Supreme Leader, after all, has the final say on Iran’s military. I am a great admirer of Dennis Ross, Hillary Clinton’s point person on Iran, but I have been disappointed that the administration has failed to put together a coherent strategy in dealing with Iran.
Time is of the essence as new developments indicate Iran is installing ever more centrifuges at its Natanz enriching facility and Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu has been rumored to allow Obama until the end of this calendar year to try the diplomatic approach before considering other options. It’s also become a consensus that Iran has enough low-enriched uranium for a bomb. But it makes some sense that the administration has wanted to wait until this election to determine its approach. As this New York Times article shows, there is a great energy behind the competing campaigns of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hussein Moussavi.
The mullahs, the real power center in Iran, are taken aback at this wave of democratic energy. They value, like other authoritarian rulers, the sustainability of their regime above all else. This is why the right combination of pressures — the threat of military attack, an economy that is wreaking havoc on Iran’s budget, and a revived reformist movement — could push the incoming president, even Ahmadinejad, to be more conciliatory and open with the West. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but that’s idealism for you.
