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The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has made a miscalculation in how he handled the Iranian presidential election. The next few days will determine if it was just an embarrassing mistake or if it will threaten the very existence of the theocratic regime that he runs.
It all started with Khamenei demurring when it came to disqualifying Ahmedinejad's chief opponent, the reformist Mir Hossein Moussavi. The world was watching and turnout of registered voters was expected to be extremely large. The reformist movement became attached to this wartime Prime Minister (Moussavi had been the PM for nearly all of the Iran-Iraq War which ran from 1980-88) as its icon symbolizing change and moderates had looked to Moussavi's organization of a bond-based economy during the war which enabled the country to fund its military with hope as Iran's economy is mired in 25% inflation (the real number is likely more, this is the number that Ahmadinejad admitted to during the campaign) and a lack of available housing that is driving rents in the capital of Tehran to dizzyingly painful heights.
It has been suggested to me by an astute friend here on the Vine that Khamenei left Moussavi in to avoid the appearance of impropriety, so that Khamenei could later say that Ahmadinejad won fair and square and not have that look to be a complete lie. This is a no-no in volatile countries like Iran. You cannot give the people hope and then take it away from them in such a way that they realize you have boned them. Khamenei, whose government officially claimed that Ahmadinejad won two-thirds of the vote, committed that mistake by leaving Moussavi in and then issuing such a bald-faced lie that even the least-perceptive Iranian could see was not true. Allowing Moussavi to stay in and then confirming that he was indeed chosen by the electorate by issuing such an unconvincing lie assured some sort of protest and the reality is that it has resulted in violence between Iranian police and paramilitary forces and reformist supporters of Moussavi and/or opponents of Ahmadinejad.
Another mistake made by Khamenei was to take down the SMS (text messaging) systems throughout the entire country on Wednesday night (the Iranian government runs the only mobile phone company in the nation) and not restoring it. Were he trying to torpedo the election against Moussavi he should have had the SMS system go off mysteriously late Thursday as Moussavi's campaign was shifting into its highest gear to finish the race by shuffling their resources to press their advantage on Election Day. Instead, Khamenei allowed the SMS system to be "broken" on Wednesday night. Had he been thinking about good strategy, Khamenei would have had the system "break" on Thursday evening and remain broken through Election Day. He would allow it to flicker to life a few times after the voting was completed and then it would encounter more troubles the day after the election. Then, when the official result was announced, if violence broke out he could keep it off line citing security measures since he believed the violent protesters to be using text messaging to organize their anti-government campaign. Instead, Khamenei foolishly allowed it to be broken on Wednesday night which gave Moussavi supporters all of Thursday (which in Iran is a day of rest for a political campaign because campaigning is forbidden by law on the day before the election) to get angrier and angrier which motivated them to go out and work even harder for Moussavi on Election Day and, ultimately, build up a large reserve of anger that they are currently turning to with the intent of dethroning Ahmadinejad and running roughshod over any obstacle blocking their accomplishment of that which includes the government.
Khamenei also made a mistake when it came to the counting of the votes. Past elections have featured votes trickling in a few hours after the polls close and subsequently the amount of votes coming in grows. This election featured a higher turnout percentage than the most recent elections (voter turnout was pegged at around 85% of all registered voters in Iran) and yet this did not make the system less efficient. According to the official vote tallies, all the extra votes made it more efficient. Millions upon millions of votes came in almost immediately after the close of the polls and boosting the appearance of impropriety, the busiest election in recent Iranian history was quickly officiated by the government as a 62.6%-33.75% landslide victory for Ahmadinejad. That means that the government took in and assessed 39,270,000 votes, analyzed them and established a very specific percentage by which the reformist candidate lost. There is a certain amount of indignant outrage in election scandals that can be negated by those doing the vote-rigging making it appear as though the results were not predetermined. Khamenei simply skipped over good drama and had the government issue less than half a day after the polls closed what it had concluded the results would be before a single vote was cast. Part of the anger that is currently creating tension in Iran is anger fueled by many Iranians knowing that their government thinks them so stupid that there is no need to have a pause between a hard-fought election in which the pro-reform side shed blood, sweat and tears campaigning for and their government does not have enough respect for them to attempt to conceal that it rigged the election in Ahmadinejad's favor.
Khamenei made his most recent mistake with regards to the election just hours ago. Khamenei obviously has the power to intervene in the election as the country's Supreme Leader. He could have had the government float its preposterous little story of an Ahmadinejad landslide victory powered by populism and then decided what side to take after these clashes between the government and pro-reform citizens. Instead, Khamenei urged all Iranians to unite behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and called the election results a "divine assessment." It was clearly divine because to accurately count the votes in the timespan the government did, they would need Allah's direct intervention. Khamenei has now blessed the election results and said that this election in which the government willfully and boldly cheated the reformists out of a win without any concern for concealing their cheating is consistent with the best practices of Islam, a religion that forbids Muslims (and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presents himself as a very pious Muslim man) from cheating and stealing against other Muslims. To Iranians that are observant Muslims who supported Moussavi, Khamenei has committed blasphemy in their eyes because they know that the government rigged the election. Khamenei derives his power from status that is conferred upon him by religion and for him to directly tie this election fraud to Allah that will undercut his prestige as a religious figure in some Iranians' eyes. It remains to be seen how many will lose respect for him because of this decision, but if many lose respect for him because of this stance on the election it could hasten some sort of political change in the country.
Khamenei seems to have forgotten the simple truths of the Iranian system of governance. The people of Iran believe their government to be a government that is based on the tenets of Islam where almost unlimited power is bequeathed to Khamenei because of his religious standing and in which they are entitled to choose some of their government representatives such as the President of the country. It matters not who the president of Iran is because Ayatollah Ali Khamenei metaphorically has his hand stuffed up the president's backside. The president is the puppet of the Ayatollah Khamenei and it matters not who acts as the puppet. Khamenei could have wisely put Moussavi on his lap and the show would have gone along without a hitch. Instead, he has endeavored for unknown reasons to hang on for dear life to a very unpopular president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while making many in the public angry and resentful of Khamenei's choice. His choices from the very beginning have been strategically unsound from not disqualifying Moussavi to begin with, allowing televised debates in which Ahmadinejad broke Iranian political taboos & offended many Iranian citizens, interrupting the tools of the Moussavi campaign even though he knew that the election would be fixed, and insulting Moussavi supporters by saying that the government violating their rights by openly ignoring their votes & making up its own numbers was blessed by Allah. Khamenei has created an opening in the minds of the Iranian people, making many more than before seriously question whether the Khamenei government is truly tolerable. It is this opening that America should utilize to offer strong but subtle (read: invisible) support to the pro-Moussavi partisans to take their fight to the Khamenei government and to reason with their fellow Iranians that Ahmadinejad is not only a thief and liar but that he is also not a pious Muslim and that Khamenei's choice to side with him means that Khamenei must be convinced to side with Moussavi or he must be replaced. What passes for moderates in Iran need our help right now to continue on in the face of government opposition and I believe we must absolutely give it. President Obama needs to sign a highly classified presidential finding that regime change is our top priority in Iran starting with helping Moussavi partisans to dismount Ahmadinejad from the presidency and extending to ousting the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the long term. Moussavi and his supporters are the best chance in ten years to improve Iran and American relations with the country: we must take it because I may not see an opportunity as good as this again in my lifetime. If we have success in overturning Ahmadinejad's false victory, Moussavi's supporters can provide a foundation upon which Iran can build a more secular democracy that gives more credence to the rule of law.
