Disputed election verdict in Iran

Power struggle between the ruling elite could be the reason for manipulation of election results to get conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected.

The statement by Islamic Republic of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei that the results to the Iranian presidential elections affirming incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were a "divine assessment" summed up the situation ironically pretty well. Conservative president Ahmadinejad, according to official results, won the elections by capturing 66% of the votes in the first round of the presidential polls defeating three of his challengers, including his chief opponent and "reformist" Mir-Hussein Mousavi who garnered 33%, enough to rule out further rounds of polling.

Various aspects of the incidents following the elections stand out- within three hours after the polling was complete, more than 80% of the almost 40 million ballots were "counted"; Mousavi trailed not only in Tehran and other cities, but also was way behind Ahmadinejad in his stronghold Azeri areas such as Tabriz; just following polling, a massive shutdown on communication devices and systems occurred and the military was on the streets, before Ahmadinejad was declared winner. Unwilling to accept the results, Ahmadinejad's opponents called foul and following unprecedented protests on the streets of Iran's biggest cities, a partial recount was finally ordered by the powerful Guardian Council.

Ahmadinejad was a strong favourite in the run-up to the polls, having established solid support primarily in the rural areas of Iran, through a mixture of strong nationalistic appeal and populism. But just as the elections were nearing, Mousavi mounted a spirited campaign basing his appeal on his previous record as the former prime minister during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and pointing fingers at Ahmadinejad's mishandling of the economy, and confrontationist foreign policy. He offered a more moderate regime which promised greater freedoms for women (hitherto denied in the Islamic regime), more civil liberties, looser controls over the state economy, a more conciliatory foreign policy while maintaining Iran's nuclear programme as contrasts to Ahmadinejad's hardline conservative rule. The set of policies and experience that Mousavi offered gradually found vast appeal particularly in the urban areas of Iran, among women, the university graduates, the "bazaar merchants" worried by inflation besides support from others who were aligned with the "reformers" such as former president Mohammad Khatami. Many opinion polls pointed to a closer outcome of results than that was officially declared, because of the strong appeal that Mousavi generated just before the elections.

If the disputed election results are indeed a consequence of manipulation, the question arises as to why even a moderate conservative such as Mir-Hussein Mousavi, part of the ruling elite is seen to be less preferred than the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by the powers that be in Iran. Any explanation would be from the manner the political system in Iran combines Islamic theocracy with modern aspects of democracy, wherein the Islamic institutions such as the supreme leader, the guardian council, the assembly of experts wield great influence. Included in this structure is the military Revolutionary Guard (the Pasdaran) and its associated Basij voluntary militia, who are tasked with security and ideological protection of the Islamic republic. There is a power struggle ensuing between conservatives and "reformists" within the guardian council and the assembly of experts and this has weighed upon the presidential elections as well. Ahmadinejad derives great support from the Pasdaran, the Basij and among the conservative sections of which Ayatollah Khamenei has been historically seen to be part of.

Ahmadinejad's support base can be attributed to his presidency's various radical economic measures such as instituting "justice shares" for the poor in Iran's private sector. A section of the ruling elite, seen to be aligned with former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are at odds with the radical economic agenda of Ahmadinejad and there is an alignment on economic principles with the reformists. This cohesion between pragmatists such as Rafsanjani and reformists such as Khatami was alluded to by Ahmadinejad himself in his attack against Mousavi during the election campaign. Supported by the Pasdaran and the Basij, the conservative Ahmadinejad was obliquely preferred to over his opponents, by Ayatollah Khamenei in the run up to the elections. The power struggle between the conservatives, the reformists and those with business interests such as Rafsanjani could thus possibly explain the alleged fraud that prevented a moderate conservative such as Mousavi from coming to power.

The concession by the guardian council of a partial recount is a reaction to the massive protests staged in the cities of Iran, orchestrated by supporters of Mousavi, and termed by the western media in particular as the "green revolution". There still persists a strong nationalist sentiment against the threatening postures against the country by United States and Israel and it is this sentiment that Ahmadinejad would hope to tap, to prevent the protests against the election results from spreading. The western coverage of the protests term them as a parallel to the "colour-coded revolutions" in the former east European countries of the socialist bloc. This is far from an accurate assessment having no relation to the reality of Iranian society and polity as the protestors are asking for an annulment of the election results and support reform well within the framework of the Iranian political framework and do not want any alignment of Iran with the West as of the pre-revolutionary past.

Although the ruling elite of Iran could acquiesce to a re-election if the protests gather much more momentum spreading to other areas of Iran or indeed quell these protests by violent repression, there is very little possibility of a radical transformation of Iran's polity into suddenly conceding greater civil liberties and genuine gender equality. Till the theocratic structure of Iran's polity and society remains intact and the democratic contestations are well limited to entities within the framework of the velayat-e-faqih (guardianship of the Islamic jurists), no major change is possible.

Draft of an editorial written for the Economic and Political Weekly.

Freudian slip or mental blip?

Time and again the warmonger presidential candidate in the American 2008 elections from the Republican Party, John McCain makes a nincompoopish statement that Al Qaeda is in control of Iraq and therefore the US occupation of Iraq must continue even if it lasts a 100 years! Obviously this bellowing warmonger is a Bush to the power of Bush. A paleoconservative, Pat Buchanan says that McCain will make the neoconservative lunatic veep Dick Cheney look like Gandhi with his harping on a militarist American foreign policy!



McCain yet again makes a case for Shiite Iran training the Sunni terrorist Al Qaeda, before being corrected by former Democrat, but current independent Zionist Joe Liebermann who points out his Freudian slip.



Hard to believe that this bloodthirsty warmonger is a presidential frontrunner, ain't it?

Dawn of Intelligence

In a dramatic admission of earlier negligence (although not in so many words), the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a report published by the co-ordination of the 16 intelligence agencies in the United States pronounced that Iran was not proceeding with a nuclear weaponisation programme since 2003. This admission came at a time, when the U.S. Administration was doing all that was necessary to ratchet up confrontation against yet another nation in the USA's perceived “axis of evil”, Iran. Only two years ago, the NIE had concluded differently, insinuating that Iran was a budding nuclear weapon threat, an estimate that ultimately led to the referral of Iran to the UN Security Council by the IAEA board of governors.
The main loser in the aftermath of this report is definitely the neo-conservative group in the United States establishment which has been hell bent upon going on the military path against Iran a la Iraq. The antipathy for the Islamic Republic in Iran in the US is not a secret and the current George Bush establishment has tried every trick in the book to go in for a military confrontation against the country. Making up the case for military intervention has been a series of revelations, insinuations coming about from different “intelligence sources”, and the threats have been built up step by hostile step from unilateral economic sanctions to naming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist outfit. President Bush had even mentioned about the threat of World War III in the offing from a “nuclear armed” Iran. Such was the sabre rattling, as the hardline Iranian President's response to such hostility was defiance and a fall back to the tested means of combating international pressure, stronger nationalism, and emphasising Iran's sovereignty.

The Indian response to the unfolding drama involving the United States and Iran since 2003 has been a part of what this author considers a paradigm change in the nation's previously considered independent foreign policy. Ever since the earlier intelligence estimates in the United States had warned of a nuclear armed Iran and the US administration went upon taking the international community on board in an attempt to sideline, censure the Iranian regime and even threatening to impose unilateral military action, the Indian response has been contradictory to the affirmed non-aligned policy. India, in contrast to their public postures on supporting Iran's right to persist with a civilian nuclear programme, under the aegis of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT of which Iran was a signatory) and IAEA safeguards, voted against Iran in the IAEA in 2005 in a case that took the Iran nuclear issue to the security council. This act by India, was according to some experts due to coercion by the United States, who wanted Indian co-option as part of a quid pro quo for the nuclear deal agreement which was built in 2005.

This in turn caused bitterness between Iran and India, even as the nations formally affirmed to keep the still continuing talks on the natural gas pipeline through Pakistan going. On the ground, at every behest of the Bush regime to pressurize the Iranians through sanctions and threats, there have been consequences in the Indian relationship with Iran. Recently the State Bank of India stopped issuing Letters of Credit to Iranian companies. There has been a visible impasse in the pipeline talks eventhough conceptually the project is a slam dunk for addressing energy concerns in the country. Although the Indian side claims that there is no pressure on the culmination of the project, the slowdown in the talks point toward a political negligence to address the bottlenecks (mostly in pricing) quickly and move ahead with the implementation of the pipeline project. In the meantime, China and Russia have upped their relationship with Iran, as they sense the necessity for stronger ties to buttress the energy partnership with a fossil fuel rich Iran.

Obviously, the paradigm shift in Indian foreign policy to cohere with a bandwagoning process and closer relationship with the global hegemon, is not paying any dividends for India in the west Asian region. Defenders of this shift had argued that there were shared areas of concern for India and the US about a nuclear armed Iran and hence the coherence in policy. Now that the NIE has said it with “high confidence” that the nuclear weaponisation programme in Iran had been wrapped up in 2003, it brings into question, India's vote against Iran in the IAEA for short term expediency, without any correct assessment of both the international situation as well as Iran's considerations. It must also be pointed out that the “better late than never” dawning of sense in the intelligence agencies in the US was despite the IAEA's repeated mention about the correct nature of Iran's nuclear programme. That it was virtually the very same intelligence community in the US that had decided to build a phony case for a brazen, illegal war and occupation of Iraq, points out to the fact that this community has grown tired of the hawkish neocon establishment in the country.

For the ordinary political watcher, who is not privy to the Kafkaesque dealings of the murky world of spooks, spies, and the security agencies of various countries, it will be difficult to comment upon the technical details and veracity of findings of amorphous intelligence bodies, which have a closed-door way of functioning in a complicated bureaucracy such as the United States'. It would be therefore difficult to say anything for sure about nuclear weaponisation projects in countries such as Iran too, as such projects inevitably involve covert transfers, illicit deals and thick veils of secrecy. Some in India point out that the Indian vote against Iran was driven by the fact that illicit sales of nuclear fuel and components existed between Iran and the A.Q.Khan network, even as it is necessary to mention that Iran voluntarily declared its nuclear enrichment activities to the IAEA in October 2003. But indeed, it is imperative to mention that careful calibration of foreign policy is a must, and this policy making must not be bothered only about short term expediency or hinge only on one point agendas, as the Indo-US nuclear deal seems to be for the current ruling regime (the UPA) in India. By making it a point to bank upon a divisive and hugely unpopular George Bush regime as being the cornerstone for the “new enlightened national interest driven foreign policy”, India has burnt its hands in west Asia vis-a-vis Iran.

India should for a first step, try to mend its relationship with Iran, which has been affected by the events since 2003. The bottlenecks in business relationships in the trading and banking sectors,that have ensued because of the American insistence, must be done away with, immediately. Whatever hurdle that seems to persist in the final culmination of the gas pipeline, has to be addressed with solid political endeavour. And hopefully, India can be resilient enough to demand that the United States give up the path of confrontation, pre-emption and naked hegemony, a legacy of the Bush administration and focus on strengthening the international institutions which are already dime-a-dozen present to prevent nuclear weapon profileration, conclude world peace and transact the business of maintaining world harmony.

The saving grace of the NIE's report is the fact that the war hawks have their wings clipped and hopefully the US administration (even the forthcoming one in 2008) realises that the best way to solve international problems is to use international instruments and institutions. And also the fact that diplomacy still remains a viable, tried, tested method of addressing disputes. Perhaps, the forthcoming US administration will also show the willpower and imagination to engage regimes that are not close to the US, in a way that builds future cooperation through the use of moral norms of mutual respect. Which means that the US can cooperate with Iran and use the stature of the nation in stabilising the environs in west Asia, particularly in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. One hopes that there is further dawning of intelligence among the various decision making structures of different nations' leadership.

Article written for "The Post"

Ambush Bush's plans before his Iran Putsch!

George Bush, head of the mighty Pax Americana, lynchpin of Neo-Conservatism and chief peddler of US Imperia, comes visiting to sovereign India. Anyone who has seen the miseries of the prisoners of Abu Ghraib, the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the unrequited victims of Hurricane Katrina, the tribals of Baluchistan, the common targets of Afghanistan would squirm at the thought of Bush receiving a red carpet welcome in sovereign India, my country, which was born out of a struggle against imperialism, the kind peddled by Pax Britannica.

Soon, Manmohan Singh, the so called scholarly economist, who happens to be the only un-elected Prime Minister of my country, and who has still to be represented in the Lok Sabha, the person who went about the clandestine process of voting against Iran in the Vienna IAEA meeting, without consulting his cabinet, his allies or fellow legistlators, the man who called British rule benign (shaming the memory of the millions of victims of man-made famines in my country), would be holding his hands forth to receive the mass murderer George Bush.

It makes my blood boil. Every word of history, I read, I see the contradictions of capitalism bursting out in its attempt to look for newer markets for profits and bringing forth forms of colonialism. Colonialism was explicit in the 19th and 20th centuries, it was implicit for a great time, faced it was by a challenge, flawed in its own ways it might be, from Socialism. Today the Soviet Union is gone, because of a myriad reasons and you have neo-colonialism ravaging Iraq and Afghanistan, an impending invasion of Iran and Syria, simmering anger and growing fundamentalist responses in a handful of third world countries as well as tragic suicides and rising hunger in countries affected by the brunt of neoliberal policies. The fact that George Bush represents the worst face of this imperialism, which I now sincerely believe, still exists, is reason enough that we oppose, resist and protest him when he comes over to India.

US Imperialism today goes about threatening sovereignty of nations in the name of spreading democracy. Little do we remember that it was the US which killed Mossadeh and brought down his democratically elected government in Iran, it was the US which sponsored a coup and brought down Salvador Allende in Chile, later on subjugating Chile into living hell under the dictator, Augusto Pinochet. It was the US's policies through the Washington Consensus (the IMF-WB) which brought Argentina to a financial crisis, Malaysia and Indonesia to currency crisis and it was after all American Imperialism which lost the War against the valiant Vietnamese, but which devastated the lives of lakhs of Vietnamese. It was the Americans who dropped the deadly atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We cannot erase these memories. George Bush is doing the same ills to Iraq and Afghanistan and plans to do the same to Iran, Syria and North Korea.

In the memory of the great anti-imperialists, may it be the leaders of the domestic bourgeosie, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, or the voices of the working classes, legendary Communists and Revolutionary leaders, I hold forth my own little light to add to the incandescent glow of anti-imperialism. Let us protest Bush and his policies, show our wrath by shouting slogans against him when he comes over to New Delhi. Join "us" at Ram Lila Maidan in the march to Parliament in protest against Bush and the policies of Imperia.

An Alternative World is possible, but first for that to happen, Imperium must hear the voices of dissent, the voices of protest and the anger of the marginalized.

"Fire Bush, Not Missiles"!!!
"Imperialism, Down, Down"!!!
When Bush comes to Shove, Resist !!!
Samrajyawaad ka ek jawab, Inquilaab Zindabaad!!!
Socialism is the Future!!!
Protest, Resist and Oppose American Imperialism!!!

The Iran Nuclear Issue: Draft

The Iran Nuclear Issue:

Chander tells me that he expected me to write a blog on this issue. Its a complex one indeed. Was India right in voting for the resolution to move to the Security Council, the issue of Iran enriching Uranium for power needs? First Glance, my opinion was No, certainly not. From all earlier reports, India always indicated that they were keen on taking a stance that they supported Iran's right to use Nuclear Energy for peaceful purposes, for it was a signatory to the NPT and as long as Iran adhered to the NPT norms, there was no problem at all and all issues were to be handled under the aegis of the IAEA. Yet, India voted in direct contravention to this pre-supposed position that she was supposed to take. Why did India take this position suddenly?

The Left, particularly CPM Gen Sec Prakash Karat was scathing on the government's decision. So was the Hindu's editorial. The basic funda was that India did this as a quid pro quo to the Indo-US Nuclear Deal that was yet to be ratified by the US Congress. Ergo, the statement by Manmohan Singh that it was difficult to go ahead with the Indo-Pak-Iran Gas Deal because it was difficult for financial backers to underwrite such a project. The Left feels that this position of India is tantamount to bending towards imperialism in a shameful manner and a betrayal of Non-Alignment, Third World Solidarity and inclining toward the diktats of the unipolar hegemon, the US.

Editorials of papers who do not regard the presence of imperialism any more tried to give their own spin to the entire issue. They called this a "maturing" of India's foreign policy in consonance with India trying to find a place among the comity of developed nations. The Indian Express, as has been its wont these days, was increasingly harsh on the Left's position. Different Editorials on Karat's essay in the People's Democracy, the Left position on Iran and Iran's internal polity, opinion pieces and reports of how Iran has noted the Left's displeasure and playing to this internal dynamics within India's political alignments, were all part of the Indian Express's take on the issue.

The Hindu on its part published a long Editorial criticizing the Indian Government's policy, followed up by a front page publication of a purported report that Iran was going to cut off the Gas deal with India, which later on was proved to be not the case. Even Sri Lanka, Pakistan and other Third World countries had abstained on this issue, and there was no reason why India couldnt' have abstained themselves. The only country that voted against this resolution was the exceedingly vocal and anti-imperialist regime of Venezuela (which unfortunately was termed "maverick" by bourgeois papers such as the Indian Express).

My take on this issue is a convoluted one. While I agree that the gameplan of the USA is right on the same track that was followed against Iraq not long ago, which resulted in the invasion of Iraq on the flimsiest of reasons, and I also agree that there indeed exists US imperialism in this unipolar hegemonic world, I also suspect the intentions of the Islamic government of Iran. This theocratic regime in its inception was a commeupance of a wide ranging progressive movement led by the Left in Iran, but later being scuttled and crushed by the theocrats, who later established an Islamic regime in this country in the early 1980s. Though this Islamic regime definitely had an anti-imperialist character, it never pursued a largely progressive agenda of governance in the country. The Left disagrees with the type of governance that is prevalent in Iran, but is sensitive to the cause of anti-imperialism and that explains its opinion on India's positioning on this issue.

As regards the other political actors in India, the BJP was not overly critical (it was expected, as largely, the BJP led NDA government was pro-American and pro-unipolar during the NDA rule), while the Congress still keeps on saying that there was no barter of interests between the US and India and what was done by India was probably good for Iran. The Congress logic however sounds very hollow though.

What concerns me more is not India's position on Iran's nuclear energy stance, but the proposed Gas deal. The Gas deal was supposed to make fuel available for travel, making it cheaper and more viable and was to link up Iran, India and Pakistan in a strategic partnership that could have stretched down to China. It however appears that India's adverse positioning has nearly jeopardised this deal. Indian Express however said that there were other alternatives for sourcing Natural Gas, yet, it didn't elaborate further.

Today, in JNU, we have a talk on this by Aijaz Ahmed, Political Scientist and Prabhat Patnaik, Economist on this issue. Both are Marxist theorists who liken the current phase of globalization to neo-liberalism and imperialism.

Prof Ahmad has written yet another incisive piece on the Iran issue in the latest issue of the Frontline. I intend to update the blog with further details from the Talk scheduled for today