Prior to Ahmadinejad's victory for a second term in office, the Western press opted for the following headlines in reference to the electoral campaign: -Yes they can-fired-up Iranians dare to dream of a presidential job loss (a slogan borrowed from Obama) - Iran's bold new face of rebellion hopes to see off 'empire of lies' - Ahmadinejad fights for survival at last poll rally as late surge gives rival hope - In Iran, disparate, powerful forces ally against Ahmadinejad - Conservative rival chips away at Ahmadinejad's base in Iran - Rural Iran may shift its loyalty - Middle-class revolt boosts moderate's chances of victory in Iranian election - A Thunder of free speech The above headlines were used before the elections, but after Ahmadinejad's victory, I read the following: - We are fighting to get our stolen votes back - Dreams turn to ashes on Tehran boulevard after vote - A face in the crowd, a cry from the heart - Tehran on a knife-edge after dubious victory for hardliners And so on and so forth … All the above reflect personal wishes, not any reality. I have repeatedly criticized President Ahmadinejad, describing him as a hollow drum. I also objected to his denial of the Holocaust and to his provocative and unjustified speeches. But I did not tailor the world to my size as his opponents in the West and Israel have done. It was clear from the start that he was ahead of his rivals. On the eve of the elections, the VOA itself broadcast the results of an Iranian public opinion poll conducted by the two American institutes Terror Free Tomorrow and the New America Foundation. 34 percent of the respondents supported Ahmadinejad against 14 percent for reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, 2 percent for Mehdi Karroubi and 1 percent for Mohsen Rezaei. Such a result does not suit the president's contenders who decided that the reformists were ahead. The decision taken by Ayatollah Khamenei to recount the votes in some polling stations reflected his confidence in the final result. I personally took the result of the American opinion poll from institutes opposing the regime and added what can be logically presumed. Tehran is not Iran. The reformists, educated women, intellectuals and their supporters remain a slim minority in comparison with the entire Iranian people. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a populist president. The poor constituency in rural areas represents his popular base, not the Azad University in Tehran. For this reason, objection to the results has to do with Tehran basically, and probably another big city, which is not Iran. I could refer in this regard to an Iranian phenomenon which is no secret. If we take Iran's history since the Islamic Revolution, we find out that each of the former presidents won two consecutive terms. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected president in 1989 and was re-elected in 1993. In 1997, he was succeeded by Mohammad Khatami who was re-elected for a second term in 2001. Ahmadinejad came in 2005 and followed his predecessors' path. In addition to the previous mistakes there is one that has been recurrent. Ahmadinejad was depicted as a hardliner and Mousavi as a moderate, though the latter's record shows no signs of moderation. He was prime minister during the war with Iraq when Iran witnessed the highest rate of political assassinations and executions and when universities were shut down for four years. As for Karroubi, I overlook his role in the Iranians' 2005 pilgrimage, only to refer to his performance as Speaker and to the campaigns against the freedom of speech and Iranian dissidents at the time. Had there been a genuine reformist candidate in the Iranian elections, I would have wished him victory. But as there is no such candidate, I have contented myself with objective monitoring. I am confident that any new Iranian president will enthusiastically pursue the nuclear program as Ahmadinejad and all his predecessors did. The nuclear program is at the core of Western relations with Iran regardless of the president. Ahmadinejad's election for a second term has brought a marginal benefit in that it annoys Israel, without the Obama administration changing its stance on negotiations with Iran over pending issues. Israel and its supporters pose a great threat. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a report on Iran's nuclear program citing “an intelligence official” in a foreign country, i.e. an Israeli and Israel, as saying that Iran halted its military nuclear program in 2003, as established by a US intelligence report, since it had completed the production of nuclear warheads. This falsification, along with my disagreement with the opinion of the US intelligence, reminds me of the falsification of the Niger uranium documents carried out in Rome by the Israeli intelligence services, in cooperation with American Likudniks who are still seeking another war in the Middle East, a war whose price we will bear, not anyone else. http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/
