The fact that the Iranian government accuses “foreign help” of organizing the rallies is a good example of this country's perception of the global system. Iran blames Western governments, especially the UK, for provoking the Iranian people in order to foment social trouble aiming at destabilizing the country. These foreign powers' purpose, according to Tehran, is to prevent Iran, a country that has important oil and probably nuclear energy potential, from becoming a regional power. The recent examples of Western intervention in Iraq and in Afghanistan are presented by Iranian authorities as indicators of this wider plan. It's true that many Iraqis or Afghans are also convinced that the Western interventions' real purpose was something other than “correcting” these countries. However, it's also true that the international community is no longer closing its eyes to governments that bring nothing but poverty, injustice and oppression to their citizens. That's why, even if the Iranian opposition benefits from some kind of support from the outside world, this support is also the consequence of sympathy toward peoples who ask for more humanistic ways of government.On the other hand, while we talk about Iran or Afghanistan, we must also emphasize that the term liberty means a lot different things for these countries' inhabitants and Western nations. For the Western public, the essential criterion to determine if one country is “free” enough is to observe the dressing habits of its people. Westerners believe that if women are allowed to refuse wearing headscarves and if there aren't too many women in burqas, then one can say the country is quite free. This way of thinking reflects Western peoples' fears. However, this approach is not sufficient when analyzing what's going on in Iran or Afghanistan.
First of all, when people in the Middle East talk about freedom, they want to express their wish to become free from Western influence and to establish their own political systems shaped according to their own cultures. That's why they also want to oust authoritarian governments who oppress popular demands with violence and interdictions. They want more representative governments, an equitable distribution of wealth and the suppression of political and economic monopolies. That's why the core of the issue is not women's wardrobes but people's economic freedoms.
Secondly, it's clear that as the West continues to support the Iranian people's demands for more openness through a “Western” approach, the Iranian government will become more aggressive and authoritarian. If the West and especially European Union countries decide to impose diplomatic sanctions on Tehran, the latter will inevitably become a fervently anti-EU government, and if other prominent players in the system, such as the US, Russia or China don't adopt similar policies against Iran, then the EU will find itself isolated. As a result, Western countries' internal cohesion could suffer from this and EU countries may choose to reduce their support of the US in Afghanistan. But this time, the EU will pay the higher price if the US is left alone anywhere in the globe because the Bush era has finished and Washington is now perfectly capable of establishing serious partnerships with actors outside of Europe. Maybe that's exactly what Barack Obama is discussing with Vladimir Putin.
