The Shadow Hanging Over the Iranian Election

The Bush administration has made democracy in the Middle East a focal point of its diplomacy. Administration officials point to reforms in Egypt, elections in Lebanon and Palestine, and American-sponsored elections in Iraq as proof of its success. On the other hand, the administration asserts that foreign fighters discredit the legitimacy of the Iraqi insurgency. The inconsistency that an army of occupation might raise some questions regarding the legitimacy of the American-backed elections never seems to dawn upon the president and his policymakers.

Of course, the reality of American policy and the lack of commitment to democracy in the region are evident in the support for authoritarian and repressive regimes in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, which joined Bush’s coalition of the willing. Democracy may also unleash uncontrollable forces. For example, the participation of Hamas in the electoral process in Palestine and Lebanon may bring forces to power which are unfriendly to the United States and Israel.

These caveats, however, have not discouraged the president from lecturing the Iranians on the democratic process. The president has correctly pointed out that clerics on the Guardian Council have barred reform and female candidates. The irony of Bush’s 2000 election being confirmed by a supreme unelected body, however, was probably lost upon the president . Although participation in the first round of the elections was above 60 percent and resulted in a run-off election between the top two candidates (a system used in many democracies which most likely would have denied a Bush victory in 2000), the American media focused only upon irregularities in the Iranian elections which provided for a run-off between former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the conservative mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The upset victory of Ahmadinejad in the run-off, who takes a fairly hard line position against the United States, is encouraging a great deal of hand wringing in the American press.

The story which the media ignored and was certainly not mentioned by the president is that the United States must assume responsibility for the problems with Iranian democracy. In the early 1950s, Mohammad Mossadegh was the democratically chosen prime minister of Iran whose policies were deemed unfriendly to British petroleum interests. The British convinced their American allies that Mossadegh was a threat to Western capitalism and friendly with the Soviets. In 1953, the CIA engineered a coup which overthrew Mossadegh and restored Mohammad Reza Shah to the Peacock throne in Iran, ushering in a repressive regime which culminated in the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and Iranian hostage crisis. The next quarter century witnessed considerable hostility between the United States and Iran, including American support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. It is little wonder that the imprisoned Saddam Hussein has expressed to American captors his admiration for Ronald Reagan.

It is within this historical context that we must seek to understand contemporary Iranian diplomatic, electoral, and nuclear policy. Not only has the 1953 Iranian coup poisoned relations to the present between the United States and Iran, but the short run success of the CIA’s operation encouraged a faith in covert operations which resulted in the 1954 overthrow of the democratic government of president Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, as well as the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion and the September 11, 1971 coup against president Salvador Allende in Chile.

The history of American foreign policy in the post World War II era casts a shadow over the president ’s Wilsonian rhetoric of freedom and democracy. This is a history which Americans must confront if they wish to understand why many in the world question our commitment to democratic reform. We have demanded an accounting by white Southerners with crimes committed against black Americans during the Civil Rights era. When it comes to apologizing, which is so popular among politicians these days, it might be worth remembering the legacy of American policy in the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mossadegh.