Citizen Jeff

Whether it’s attributable to routine incompetence or more nefarious motives, most U.S. media organizations have been treating allegations of election fraud in Iran as statements of fact. In particular, talk radio and cable news interviewees who claim the recent presidential election was fixed, are not being asked to support their assertions even though articles published by The Washington Post, Truthdig and Politico offer compelling evidence that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the likely victor.

In the past few days, Western journalists and pundits have focused on the seemingly telltale indications that more votes were tabulated than there are voters in Iran, and the response from Iran’s Guardian Council that the phenomenon did not affect the outcome of the election. But Press TV (English language Iranian state network) has reported that the council also provided another explanation which most media outlets have apparently overlooked or chosen to ignore: Each voter in Iran is permitted to vote more than once in presidential elections. Such a legal oddity, if true, would not inherently benefit any particular candidate over the others, or establish that Ahmadinejad was the predetermined winner.

At a Los Angeles rally attended Saturday by several hundred Iranian expatriates including Persian pop sensation Kamran & Hooman, I asked various demonstrators the previously unasked question, and I couldn’t find anyone who was prepared to argue that Mir Hossein Mousavi, the declared runner-up in the Iran election, actually garnered more votes than Ahmadinejad.

Many of the Los Angeles protesters refused to be interviewed on camera. Interestingly, those who did speak with me (see video below) expressed disappointment over the unwillingness of their fellow emigrants to publicly criticize the regime of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The undaunted ones said the possibility of their relatives in Iran being targeted for retribution is too remote, and the cause too important, for them to remain silent.

Just what the cause is seems to be a political work in progress. In their June 15 Washington Post op-ed, Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty lonesomely warned: “Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world.” The current violence in Iran and reaction to it appears to vindicate Ballen and Doherty, but it’s doubtful they expected the situation to rapidly escalate to anarchy as it has.

As the world watches anxiously, the supposedly tainted election remains the most oft-stated reason for the uprising. The lack of convincing evidence makes the debate over U.S. President Barack Obama’s hands-off approach, a moot issue. Implicit in the calls for Obama to endorse the protesters, is the belief that if it were not for the reported election irregularities, Mousavi would be Iran’s next president. The media, focused on how such a pronouncement might backfire if Obama were to say every vote should be counted, is ignoring the possibility that the demonstrators have leveled false or greatly exaggerated charges.

Ironically, by imposing severe restrictions on the media, lashing out violently at protesters and drastically curtailing communications services, the Iranian government is giving everyone the impression it fixed the election. I assume even Khamenei loyalists are none too pleased by the daily interruptions in cell phone and internet service they’ve been forced to endure.

But if election fraud remains the main offense ascribed to Khamenei, his critics will need to do a much better job of proving their case lest they be exposed by Ahmadinejad supporters and anyone who cares about evidence. It seems the only other hope for those seeking a radical transformation of the Iranian government, is a flat-out revolution.

While Iran teeters on the brink, an American sea change is underway as our population suddenly finds itself empathizing with the Iranian people, a far cry from the recent past. Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote an eye-opening but under-appreciated piece for The Nation in 2006 which revealed how little Western and Iranian societies differ from each other. He was imploring the Bush administration to resume diplomatic relations with Iran. Such a shift in American foreign policy didn’t become a real possibility until Obama was elected president, and now that Iranians have been humanized in the eyes of Americans, the time has never been more ripe for a national discussion on how to deal with Iran.

However Obama handles the situation, it’s becoming increasingly clear that protesters in Iran seized the opportunity presented by their nation’s recent presidential election to broadly challenge the authoritarian control under which they live. But while those who suffer at the hands of a dictator may be forgiven for presenting only scant evidence that the election was indeed fixed as they claim it was, the American media deserves condemnation for failing to examine such a central aspect of the controversy.

This story was also published by The Public Record.

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Video report by Robert Corsini and Jeff Norman.