What to Say about Iran?

I'd feel remiss if I didn't mention anything about the events in Iran since last Friday but I am not sure I have much to say or even know how to begin to wrap my head around everything. There are so many moving parts to this story that I don't know where to place them all at this point. Some things that interest me/bother me (in no discernible order)-

* The election itself. What does one make of it? I think this first issue on my list is the most difficult. Juan Cole in post on his blog on Saturday lists the reasons he thinks the election was stolen. Compelling but not necessarily a silver bullet. Other analysts/commentators have over the course of the past few days listed reasons why the election was probably legitimate- most infamously now Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty's op-ed in the Post. (Some of the air was let out of the polling balloon by both the ABC polling unit and an organization called FiveThirtyEight.) Finally, the Post yesterday published an amalgamation of both sides of the argument in a front page article, perhaps in an attempt to take some heat off of the criticism of the Ballen/Doherty op-ed. As for this part of the moving story, I tend to think along with the Post, we'll never know what really happened on Friday unless someone decides to spill the beans publicly in a hope for redemption.

*The Protests. Lots of folks are noting that the protests, particularly in Tehran, are the biggest to rock the country since the Iranian election. What surprises me most about them is not how large they are or the fact that people keep coming to the street day after day, but that EVERYONE beyond the community of folks on Twitter and Facebook are surprised by them. I am still in a bit of shock that conventional media outlets have only gotten around to paying any attention to the social network response in the past 24 hours. Only today did the New York Times actually publish an article than resembled what's been reported non-stop on You Tube, FB, and Twitter since Friday. NBC caught on a bit more quickly but that was only after Monday's massive (!) protest and the deaths of 7 demonstrators. I am floored that even the experts I talked to on Monday thought this was a northern Tehran phenomenon only. This as You Tube was filled with videos of riot police in Shiraz and Isfahan.

Why were people surprised by the strength of feeling going into this vote? Did they assume that Iran's apathetic youth would remain apathetic? Did no one get the sense watching the rallies in support of Mousavi in the last week and a half before the election that perhaps this time it would be a little different? Reading posts on Facebook suggested that Iranians were much more engaged in the pre-election run up, watching the debates, arguing about the outcome. Why then, were folks surprised by the level of anger when Ahmedinejad and Khamenei quickly pulled the trigger on the results? It's not as if we're talking about a populace with no history of political uprisings, for god's sake. Ultimately, the protests may not change the election results but they have changed a few things. 1)Internal dynamics within Iran. I'd be surprised if the regime can ever put this genie back in the box entirely. I'd be afraid of the kind of repression it would take to make the populace passive again. 2) The way that everyone, both in the media and within governments, looks at social networking. I can't begin to understand its force (even as someone who uses it) but it will be one to be reckoned with for a long time to come. I hope we in the US finally begin to appreciate that.

*The Iranian Government Itself. Where can they possibly go from here? The little diversionary tactic of having the guardian council review some of the ballots has clearly failed and the response seems that the only way forward is to go more draconian. The You Tube images of students being hunted down in Isfahan (if they are credible) and gunshots in the night in Tehran are deeply disturbing. Clearly whomever is running the show these days is no student of history. The Shah tried to use the Savak to keep things under wrap, clearly an unsuccessful strategy. A friend of mine posted an interesting video to her FB profile of policemen standing alongside protesters. A consensus is forming that most of the violence being perpetrated against citizens is not being undertaken by conventional forces but by groups like the Basij. If this is true, it could indicate that the government could very quickly loose control of the security services outside of the militias. Yikes. The government's other tactic of shutting down media outlets is failing miserably. Let's face it- there are plenty of ways to get around government filters and those plugged in Iranians have been using them all, and using them pretty well. I can't tell you how many requests I've seen to spread anti-filter software around. How does the government get control back of the situation? I would posit that they don't unless the air goes out of the balloon for some reason. But the more violence and the more intractable Khamenei seems, the more likely this continues in my mind. A lot of people see Khamenei as the lynch pin, including this NY Times article. I'd argue that things are probably broken, perhaps not irreparably, but broken all the same for him as well.

*The US Response Almost as appalling confusing as the election itself is the varying expectations of how the US should respond. On the one hand, you have conservatives arguing that the system was broken before the election so we should just accept the fact that yes, the election may have been illegitimate (are they ever legitimate? goes this line), but Ahmedinejad is the winner and he's the one we'll deal with. You almost get the sense that there is some glee in this camp since Ahmedinejad is such an unlikeable character he's easy to kick around. Tied to this argument although a bit separate from it is the insinuation (as evidenced by the tone of the Ballen/Doherty op-ed) that there is something inherently untrustworthy about Iranians themselves so it should be no surprise that they re-elected a feckless, evil leader. Meyrav Wurmser in the NYT blog "Room for Debate" and Fouad Ajami on CNN break this way. Wurmser is particular wacky, ending her piece with the line "What is left is a military strike to stop the bomb program and rattle the regime." (Christ, remind me to defect to Canada if she ever enters government!) On the other extreme, you have the Journal's op-ed page today which accuses President Obama of abdicating his responsibility towards democracy in Iran. (Here's the first and here's the second)

Fortunately, the President himself seems pretty deaf to all of this nonsense. He knows that he will have to deal with whomever comes out of this nasty fray and he can't kick Ahmedinejad around beforehand (although he will certainly be able to do so post facto, I imagine) but at the same time he can't risk isolating a new movement in Iranian politics if that is in fact what is emerging. I think he's planning it pretty cool at the moment. Express your concern but stay uninvolved. Look what our history of interference has wrought in the past anyway.

Regardless, the events in Iran are frightening and fascinating all at once. It's almost like watching a woman in the midst of a terrifying childbirth. You're absolutely not sure that modern technology will save mother and baby but you can't help rooting for the daring will to survive and change.

As for the rest of the region, what happens in Iran is critical to every one's self interest. No one should expect that even if, by some as yet unseen miracle, a new election happens the policies of the state will radically change. But something is about to change. If I were a neighbor, I'd be holding my breath right now. But wait a second, I already am.