{"id":8156,"date":"2009-07-01T00:48:58","date_gmt":"2009-07-01T07:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8156"},"modified":"2009-07-01T00:48:58","modified_gmt":"2009-07-01T07:48:58","slug":"the-real-struggle-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8156","title":{"rendered":""The Real Struggle In Iran""},"content":{"rendered":"

I’d highly recommend reading “The Real Struggle In Iran<\/a>,” George Friedman’s analysis the recent events in Iran. I have no way of knowing if Friedman’s analysis is accurate or not; but it seems a good deal more plausible to me than the narrative I’ve seen from much of the major media.<\/p>\n

When Ahmadinejad defeated Mir Hossein Mousavi on the night of the election, the clerical elite saw themselves in serious danger. The margin of victory Ahmadinejad claimed might have given him the political clout to challenge their position. Mousavi immediately claimed fraud, and Rafsanjani backed him up. Whatever the motives of those in the streets, the real action was a knife fight between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani. By the end of the week, Khamenei decided to end the situation. In essence, he tried to hold things together by ordering the demonstrations to halt while throwing a bone to Rafsanjani and Mousavi by extending a probe into the election irregularities and postponing a partial recount by five days.<\/p>\n

The key to understanding the situation in Iran is realizing that the past weeks have seen not an uprising against the regime, but a struggle within the regime. Ahmadinejad is not part of the establishment, but rather has been struggling against it, accusing it of having betrayed the principles of the Islamic Revolution. The post-election unrest in Iran therefore was not a matter of a repressive regime suppressing liberals (as in Prague in 1989), but a struggle between two Islamist factions that are each committed to the regime, but opposed to each other.<\/p>\n

The demonstrators certainly included Western-style liberalizing elements, but they also included adherents of senior clerics who wanted to block Ahmadinejad\u2019s re-election. And while Ahmadinejad undoubtedly committed electoral fraud to bulk up his numbers, his ability to commit unlimited fraud was blocked, because very powerful people looking for a chance to bring him down were arrayed against him.<\/p>\n

The situation is even more complex because it is not simply a fight between Ahmadinejad and the clerics, but also a fight among the clerical elite regarding perks and privileges \u2014 and Ahmadinejad is himself being used within this infighting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Friedman argues that in terms of foreign policy, there is likely to be no difference to the US, no matter which faction comes out on top.<\/p>\n

We do not believe that Iran is close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, a point we have made frequently. Iran understands that the actual acquisition of a nuclear weapon would lead to immediate U.S. or Israeli attacks. Accordingly, Iran\u2019s ideal position is to be seen as developing nuclear weapons, but not close to having them. This gives Tehran a platform for bargaining without triggering Iran\u2019s destruction, a task at which it has proved sure-footed.<\/p>\n

In addition, Iran has maintained capabilities in Iraq and Lebanon. Should the United States or Israel attack, Iran would thus be able to counter by doing everything possible to destabilize Iraq \u2014 bogging down U.S. forces there \u2014 while simultaneously using Hezbollah\u2019s global reach to carry out terror attacks. After all, Hezbollah is today\u2019s al Qaeda on steroids. The radical Shiite group\u2019s ability, coupled with that of Iranian intelligence, is substantial.<\/p>\n

We see no likelihood that any Iranian government would abandon this two-pronged strategy without substantial guarantees and concessions from the West. Those would have to include guarantees of noninterference in Iranian affairs. Obama, of course, has been aware of this bedrock condition, which is why he went out of his way before the election to assure Khamenei in a letter that the United States had no intention of interfering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’d recommend reading the whole thing, as well as this earlier piece by Friedman<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d highly recommend reading “The Real Struggle In Iran,” George Friedman’s analysis the recent events in Iran. I have no way of knowing if Friedman’s analysis is accurate or not; but it seems a good deal more plausible to me … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-issues","category-iraq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}