Grim Portents from Iran’s Election Results

The outcome of yesterday’s election in Iran is, to say the least, disturbing. From CNN:

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won a landslide election victory despite protests by his main challenger of “blatant violations.”

Ahmadinejad won 62.63 percent of the vote while chief rival Mir Hossein Moussavi received 33.75 percent, the Iranian government said Saturday.

Winning by nearly 63%, in a field of 4, is indeed a landslide. More — it’s a complete shock to nearly everyone who watched the evolving campaign. From the hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets of Tehran, to pre-election polling, it appeared that this election was going to be close, and at the very least would head into a run-off.

If one can believe the official results, it wasn’t close at all.

I don’t know, frankly, that I do believe those results, but I’m also not sure it matters. The Iranian clerics who actually run the country have apparently rejected any public moderation of their positions, however superficial they might have been with a new president.

So what does any of this mean? I think there are a couple of possible ways to read the situation.

1. If one accepts the results as reported, then the Iranian people have overwhelmingly signaled support for Iran’s present course — including pursuit of nuclear options. If voters were totally focused on domestic issues, that might be limited to nuclear energy. However, if foreign policy had any impact on these results, then voters also embraced the current hard line on Israel, relations with the West, and even perhaps nuclear weapons.

It would also be a resounding rejection of Obama’s attempts to reach out, and could have serious negative political consequences here in the US.

2. If one suspects that the reported results are false, then it’s possible that somewhere between 10 and 20 million people will feel that their choice has been thwarted and their government is a sham. If Moussavi challenges the results (he’s already filed a complaint), unrest is highly possible.

Furthermore, if Iranian citizens were responding in even a small way to Obama’s speech in Cairo last week, the US will have to maintain a very delicate balance as it officially responds to the election. The United States cannot foment revolution, nor take even an indirect hand in violent dissent. However tempting it might be to feed the flame, the history between the US and Iran will not allow for it.

In any case, this is an extremely dangerous development — for the mid-East in general, and for western relations with Iran in particular.