Mousavi is no new-comer to the Iranian political stage. He held the now-defunct post of Prime Minister from 1981 to 1989 (which was, at the time, an executive position much akin to the current presidency) during Iran’s brutal eight-year war with Iraq. Currently the president of the Iranian Academy of Arts, the trilingual Mousavi – Farsi, Arabic, and English – served as a presidential adviser from 1989 to 2005 and held a position on the Expediency Council, Iran’s highest arbitration body.
In the American and European mainstream media, Iranian supporters of Mousavi are routinely referred to as "more educated," "better off," and "pro-Western" than their counterparts who support Ahmadinejad. The Iranian economy, which has seen rising inflation and slowed growth in the past four years, has become a major point of contention during the campaign process and recent debates. The President has been blamed for three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions, diminishing Iranian prestige and reputation internationally, and Mousavi even chided him as arrogant and driving Iran toward "dictatorship."
Ahmadinejad’s detractors point to all these factors as proof of his failed leadership; however, a closer look into the accusations may reveal a different story – or, at least, a different perspective.
Ahmadinejad is a populist who is seen as having "a deep sympathy for the poor". He has been associated with efforts to “redistribute wealth” across the wide range of socioeconomic tiers of Iranian society.
His opponents claim that his focus on redistribution, rather than creation, of wealth within Iran has harmed the Iranian economy and has resulted in increased unemployment, especially in Iran’s vast young population. Nevertheless, his supporters disagree. “Who says Ahmadinejad created unemployment?” twenty-five year old market worker Hamid Nassiri told the Times. “It’s not true at all. He is from the people, and he attends to the people’s needs.”
Over the past few years, Ahmadinejad has also courted economic alliances with a number of Latin and South American nations, promising $1 billion to help develop Bolivia’s oil and gas sector, opening a trade office in Ecuador, and entering into various agreements with Nicaragua, Cuba, Paraguay, Brazil and, of course, Venezuela. Not all of these overtures have to do with oil trade.
Mousavi, on the other hand, has set his sites closer to home, attacking Ahmadinejad for focusing on the Americas rather than "investing in Iran’s neighboring countries…the President has obviously failed to get his priorities right.” Mousavi favors increased privatization and foreign investment. "The private sector is a vital part of our plans to revive the country’s economy."
"Our country was harmed because of extremist policies adopted in the last three years…My foreign policy with all countries will be one of detente," Mousavi said after first announcing his candidacy. "We should try to gain the international community’s trust while preserving our national interests." He has also said, “In foreign policy we have undermined the dignity of our country and created problems for our development."
Nevertheless, the former prime minister insists that "Iran will never abandon its nuclear right" and echoes the statements of both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad when saying, "If America practically changes its Iran policy, then we will surely hold talks with them."
It is clear that an electoral victory for Mousavi would be seen as a political victory for Barack Obama as well. It is assumed that Mousavi is more "rational and reasonable" than Ahmadinejad and would therefore be more amenable to Washington’s demands, regardless of how illegal and hypocritical those demands may be. As such, he is the preferred candidate by Western analysts and politicians.
But how different would the United States treat Iran, really?
Back in 2003, soon after the invasion of Iraq, the Iranian government sent a "proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States" and the fax suggested everything was on the table – including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups." Flynt Leverett, a senior director on the National Security Council staff at the time, described the Iranian proposal as "a serious effort, a respectable effort to lay out a comprehensive agenda for U.S.-Iranian rapprochement."
The proposal was roundly rejected by the Bush administration.
The then-government of reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami – now a Mousavi supporter – even voluntarily suspended uranium enrichment from 2003 to 2005 and still received nothing but lies and threats from the United States and its European allies. As Ahmadinejad recently pointed out, "There was so much begging for having three centrifuges. Today more than 7,000 centrifuges are turning," and then asking, "Which foreign policy was successful? Which one created degradation? Which one kept our independence more, which one gave away more concessions but got no results?"
Many commentators point to a new approach from Barack Obama’s Washington, which they believe should be reciprocated from Tehran. Apparently, Obama’s recent Cairo speech appealed to many Iranians, even government officials. Ali Akbar Rezaie, the director-general of Iran’s foreign ministry’s office responsible for North America commended the new tone coming from the US president, saying, "Compared to anything we’ve heard in the last 30 years, and especially in the last eight years, his words were very different…People in the region received the speech, from this angle, very positively, with sympathy." He added that the upcoming Iranian election would set the stage for a new chapter in US-Iran relations. "After the election we will be in a better position to manage relations with the United States," he said. "We’ll be at the beginning of a new four-year period, and the political framework will be clear."
But what has Obama said to or about Iran that should prompt such positive and optimistic responses? Not a whole lot.
Exactly one year to the day before his Cairo speech, and the day after clinching the Democratic nomination for president, Obama stood before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and stated that "There is no greater threat to Israel — or to the peace and stability of the region — than Iran." He said this about a country that has not threatened nor attacked any other country in centuries and harbors absolutely no ambitions of territorial expansion. The same can obviously not be said about Israel, or the United States.
In his inaugural address, Obama seemed to calm down and offered the Muslim world "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect." A week later, during an interview with Al Arabiya TV, the new president reiterated his insistence that the US was now "ready to initiate a new partnership [with the Muslim world] based on mutual respect and mutual interest."
Two months later, in March, Obama addressed the Iranian people and government directly by releasing a taped message on the occasion of the Iranian New Year. The message urged a "new beginning" in diplomatic relations.
Ahmadinejad himself has used the phrase a number of times ever since he was the mayor of Tehran and running for president. More recently, in a July 2008 interview with NBC News, Ahmadinejad wondered if the United States was finally beginning "a new approach; in other words, mutual respect, cooperation, and justice? Or is this approach a continuation in the confrontation with the Iranian people but in a new guise?"
Some say that where Ahmadinejad is confrontational, Mousavi will be more mollifying. But Ahmadinejad has always been willing to engage in diplomacy with the United States, despite what you may hear constantly in the mainstream media. In fact, the day after Obama’sAl Arabiya interview, Ahmadinejad delivered a speech in the Iranian town of Kermanshah. This is how his speech ended: “We welcome change but on the condition that change is fundamental and on a right course, otherwise the world should know, that anyone with the same speaking manner of Mr. Bush, same language of Mr. Bush, the same spirit of Mr. Bush, adventurism of Mr. Bush, even using new words to speak to the nation of Iran, the answer is the same Mr. Bush and his lackeys received over the years.
“We hear that they are making plans for Iran. We in turn wait patiently, listen carefully to their words, carefully assess actions under the magnifying glass and if a real change occurs in a fundamental way, we shall welcome it.”
Obama’s appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and long-time AIPACer Dennis Ross as top Iran advisor is also troubling. Clinton once threatened to "totally obliterate Iran" if it ever attacked Israel with the nuclear weapons it doesn’t have and has suggested that negotiations with Iran, while doubtfully being fruitful, will be primarily useful to garner support for more “crippling” multilateral sanctions.
Even more recently, during his speech in Cairo, Obama, after once again mentioning "mutual respect," said that "any nation – including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty." Whereas this sounds like an unprecedented admission by a sitting US president, it’s important to remember what Bush said to Charlie Gibson back in 2002 during an ABC News interview: "Matter of fact, I said this in a press conference, that it’s the sovereign right of Iran to have civilian nuclear power, and I agree, and I believe that."
As Iran Affairs‘ Cyrus Safdari points out, "Arguably, Bush’s statement is more sweeping than Obama’s…compare ‘may have some right’ to ‘has a sovereign right’." He continues, “In any case, Iran’s absolute and unqualified and unquestionable right to access the full nuclear fuel cycle is based on international law and not for Obama or Bush to decide. Iran has the same rights to nuclear technology (or any other technology) as Japan, Argentina, Brazil, the USA…”
Nor is it up to Iran to "prove that its aspirations are peaceful" (code words for "must give up enrichment and forever rely on us to power their economy".) Iran has signed the NPT and after years of inspections, no evidence has been found of any weapons program. The burden is therefore on Iran’s accusers to prove their allegations, and not vice versa.
Nevertheless, Obama recently presented Iran with a "clear choice" of halting its nuclear and missile activity or facing increased isolation.
Maybe the US just doesn’t like Ahmadinejad, what with his deliberately being mistranslated and intentionally misquoted by Western media. Blamed for threatening to "wipe Israel off the map" (an idiom that doesn’t even exist in Farsi), Ahmadinejad is constantly called a Holocaust denier for questioning why the horrific Nazi genocide of European Jews resulted in the violent displacement and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Ahmadinejad has never threatened to attack Israel, but rather hopes that the people of Palestine can all – Jews, Christians, and Muslims – vote for whatever type of government system they are to live under. Ahmadinejad’s willingness to bring up issues pertaining to Zionism without worrying about the delicate sensibilities of Western audiences has made him a pariah.
Obviously, it is seldom remembered that, in 2001, the former Iranian president and putative moderate, Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is now heavily supporting Mousavi’s run for office, declared that although Israel would be destroyed by an atomic bomb, the Muslim world would only be damaged by one and therefore "such a scenario is not inconceivable." Nevertheless, the LA Times noted back in 2006, "four years later, when Rafsanjani was running for president, Washington and its European allies were eagerly hoping that he would win." Apparently, an actual threat of nuclear destruction didn’t seem to bother Western powers at the time. Now all they talk about is a fictitious one.
Still, hopes are that Mousavi will be more tactful in his discussion of Zionism and Israel’s reliance on the Holocaust for its own existential validation. Recently, when asked about his views on the Holocaust, Mousavi said: "Killing innocent people is condemned. The way the issue [Holocaust] was put forward [by Ahmadinejad] was incorrect," but continued in a manner almost identical to the incumbent president, "Of course the question could be that why Palestinians should be punished for a crime committed by Germans?"
As millions of Iranians have flooded to the polls to vote, it may be seen by some that a vote for Ahmadinejad is more a vote for continued Iranian resistance to US influence and hegemony in the region, whereas a vote for Mousavi is a vote for possible reconciliation based on Iranian fears, American demands, and Israeli paranoia and deception.
And so, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.