Once again, something truly historic is under way in Iran. The scale of the protests is unprecedented. Unlike the student revolts of 2003 and 1999, this movement is broad-based. The depth of people's sense of injustice and rage is palpable. The Basij and Revolutionary Guards have been authorized to use force. Yet this has not dissuaded the thousands who still bravely decided to take to the streets, risking their lives for their ideals and for a better regime in Iran. What is taking place in Iran has transcended a clash of personalities. This is no longer about Mir Hossein Moussavi versus Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The energy behind these unprecedented demonstrations is more due to the sense of outrage and betrayal at the gross manipulation of what was supposed to be a fair election within the strict confines of the Islamic regime. In other words, people are not calling for a wholesale revolution as they were in 1979. They don't have the same naïve, utopian dreams. But they want a system that is more representative of the people. This proved too much for the supreme leader, however. Ali Khamenei announced the “divine assessment” of the election outcome -- even before it would have been physically possible to count the more than 40 million ballots. Then, in the face of mass protests, he ordered an investigation of the results by the Guardian Council -- the same organization responsible for managing the election in the first place.As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argues: “Iran's ruling mullahs were always ruthless. But they disguised it a bit with faux elections. I say faux elections because while the regime may have counted the votes accurately, it tightly controlled who could run. The choices were dark black and light black.” The way the regime has handled these elections shows that even light black has become a luxury for an increasingly insecure political regime in Iran.
In addition to the size and scope of protests, there is another unprecedented element in what is happening: The fissures among revolutionary elites. There are widespread reports that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the founding fathers of the Islamic Revolution, is trying to assemble a coalition of grand ayatollahs in Qom against Khamenei. Rafsanjani heads the Assembly of Experts, a body that has the constitutional authority to anoint and remove the supreme leader. Similarly, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri -- who was Ayatollah Khomeini's former heir apparent, a genuine grand ayatollah, not someone who had mid-ranking credentials and was made an ayatollah overnight like Khamenei -- has openly challenged both this election and Khamenei's reign.
How should Washington react to the situation in Iran? The Obama administration seems to have understood the toxic legacy of the United States in Iran and the lingering, conspiratorial image of America in the Middle East as the evil manipulator behind everything. Therefore the main principle for Washington at this point is simple: do no harm. There is no need for America to unwittingly undermine those it obviously wishes to strengthen. Historically, that's often been the case in Iran.
On the other hand, the Obama administration should also clearly be on the right side of history. This is why acknowledging the results of these contested elections would be premature and immoral at this point. Obama, once again, seems to have found the right balance. Instead of democracy, he is talking about a concept a concept dear to the hearts and minds of pious Muslims: justice. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” the US president said, invoking the words of Martin Luther King Jr. One can only wish the Turkish leadership had shown the same wisdom instead of prematurely congratulating those who are on the wrong side of history.
