Interviews

Why Israel Dares not and U.S Will Not Strike Iran
By Shahram Vahdany

Last month Iran broke United Nations seals on the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, triggering a diplomatic crisis that most believe almost certainly will lead to a standoff with United States, Britain and the European Union. The U.K., Germany and France -with support of U.S.- have called for Iran to be hauled before UN Security Council to face possible sanctions.

We will look at Iran’s situation beyond the hysteria and propaganda from both sides in our interview with Dr. Muhammad Sahimi,

Sahimi is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California and co-author, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, of the recent op-ed "Defusing Iran with Democracy”

SHAHRAM VAHDANY- Thank you professor Sahimi for your time. What is your view with regards to Iran’s situation, either domestically or internationally?

PROFFESSOR SAHIMI - In order to understand what is happening in Iran and what president Ahmadinejad is doing, we must first understand the views he, his administration, and his supporters within the Iranian political hierarchy have and compare them with the views that his predecessor, Mr. Mohammad Khatami, and his administration had.

President Khatami believed that Iran could reach an agreement with the European countries and in particular with France, Britain and Germany regarding Iran’s nuclear energy program, especially the most “worrisome” aspect of it, namely, uranium enrichment. President Khatami and his administration believed that through transparency and cooperation they can reach an agreement whereby they can have both cooperation from the European countries and their participation in Iran’s energy program, and preserve the nuclear infrastructure that Iran has built for uranium enrichment. However, the view of president Ahmadinejad and his administration is that, regardless of what Iran does, the United States is never going to be satisfied; that they are really not after Iran’s nuclear program or uranium enrichment per se, but that they are after changing the regime in Iran. They also believe that a direct confrontation between Iran and the US may be inevitable. Therefore, they need to do something in order to be prepared for that. Note that I am not implying that they are trying to make a nuclear bomb, but I believe that their mentality is such that they would like to have the capability to develop a nuclear bomb on a short notice if that becomes necessary, or they view it as necessary.

Therefore, you can see there are fundamental differences between the views of Mr. Ahmadinejad and his administration and those of Mr. Khatami and his administration.

At the same time, we must remember that there are considerable differences between different factions within the Iranian political hierarchy. Not every one agrees with what Mr. Ahmadinejad is doing. In particular, former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami, former speaker of the parliament Mahdi Karroubi, former chief nuclear negotiator Dr. Hassan Rouhani, and more generally the more moderate fraction in Iran are opposed to what Mr. Ahmadinejad is doing. So, a sort of tug of war is also going on within the Iranian political hierarchy about what to do with and about the present crisis, and that is why many contradictory statements are coming out of Iran. For instance, the government spokesperson, Mr. Gholam Hossein Elham, said the other day that Iran is not going to negotiate with the US, but Mr. Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and chief nuclear negotiator says that Iran is ready to negotiate with the United States.

So, as you can see, there are all sorts of differences between different factions. There is a tug of war; there is fissure within the political hierarchy. The radical elements led by Mr. Ahmedinejad and his supporters within the military want to push forward with the enrichment program, but the more moderate ones, while still supporting the enrichment program, want to reach an agreement with the European Union and the US, to make the program as transparent as possible, and then move forward. The relatively moderates do not want any confrontation, in particular military confrontation, or harsh economic sanctions. That is what I believe is happening right now within Iran and, therefore, the coming days and months should be very interesting to watch.

SHAHRAM VAHDANY- I will get back to Iran’s nuclear program later, but I first want to ask you about the Ahmadinejad presidency and what in particular led to his election. What were the contributing factors for Ahmadinejad to win the election?

PROFFESSOR SAHIMI - Well, there were many factors that contributed to the rise of Mr. Ahmadinejad to the presidency, but the most important fact was, of course, that the elections that were held which ultimately led to Mr. Ahmadinejad presidency were undemocratic. In fact, they were neither democratic nor fair. There was a certain level of competition in the election, especially in the first round because we had several candidates from different political factions within the Iranian political spectrum. But the elections were not democratic and fair.

They were not democratic because not everyone who wished to run could run, and they were not fair because the most important conservative elements and centers of power within Iran’s political hierarchy totally threw their support behind Mr. Ahmadinejad, using the vast resources of the State in order to gather votes for him. As is well-known, there were also irregularities in the vote counting, and so on.

These factors greatly contributed to Mr. Ahmadinejad making it to the second round of Iran’s presidential election. Now, in the second round, as I had predicted and said in my interviews right before the second round, almost any candidate who would run against Mr. Rafsanjani would win, regardless of who he was. Because, right or wrong, Mr. Rafsanjani is considered in Iran as symbol of economic mismanagement and/or corruption and what has gone wrong with Iran’s economy over the past two decades. Mr. Rafsanjani could win only if the level of people participation in the elections was very high, for example, the 80% participation that we had in 1997, when Mr. Khatami won, but that was not going to happen, given what had happened during Mr. Khatami’s tenure in office.

The mismanagement of the economy that people associate Mr. Rafsanjani with includes wasting of the resources that Iran has in the projects that were not very useful for Iran, but consumed billions of dollars to be developed. Therefore, almost anyone who was going to run against Mr. Rafsanjani in the second run could win. At the same time, Mr. Ahmadinejad is from a humble background and poor family, and promised that he would bring the oil income to “Iranian families’ tables.” That’s the way he put it during the elections.

People were also tired of political infighting that was going on for 8 years between the moderates and hardliners. In the final analysis, people thought that Mr. Ahmadinejad would improve the economy. That explains, in my view, why in the second round he did get the votes. I believe that although he should not have made it to the second round because of the many irregularities and all sort of things that I explained, once he made it to the second round, he did get the votes. One may question the number of the votes that he got; nevertheless, the votes that he got were to some extend legitimate as he was running against Mr. Rafsanjani who could not get elected. In fact, the reformists in Iran urged Mr. Rafsanjani to withdraw from the second round to allow Mr. Karroubi to run against Mr. Ahmadinejad, but Mr. Rafsanjani was not willing to do so.

This indicated that the reformists also knew that Mr. Rafsanjani was going to lose, unless, of course, they could have the turn out that they had back in 1997 when close to 80% of the people went to the ballot boxes and voted. In that case, Mr. Rafsanjani could have had a reasonably good chance of winning. But the turn-out was much lower this time.

The difference between the potential and actual turn-out that we had in 1997 is made of intellectuals, university students, the middle class and, more generally, the more enlightened people. If they had voted, they would most probably have had voted for Mr. Rafsanjani, because they knew the extreme positions of Mr. Ahmadinejad and his supporters. However, that significant percentage (about 20 to 25 % of the population) did not vote this time.

I believe all these factors contributed to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s election to Iran’s presidency.

SHAHRAM VAHDANY- Many believe Ahmadinejad and his group are somewhat nostalgic about the beginning of revolution and the war between Iraq and Iran, and their focus is to turn back the society to that time when everything was supposedly clearer and people more united against a common enemy. What is your take on this?

PROFFESSOR SAHIMI -Your question has two parts: the first part is whether Mr. Ahmadinejad and his group are nostalgic about the early years of the revolution. Yes, they are. They have been talking about the ideals of the revolution and how they were somehow “stolen” or deviated from their original forms.

We must remember that Mr. Ahmadinejad used to work with the Revolutionary Guards which was the main military force that fought in the internal conflict that Iran had in the early years of the revolution with “Mujaheddin –E- Khalgh” organization that began to fight with the government in 1981. They were also the main force that fought with Iraqi’s invading forces in the 1980s. So, their mentality and ideas all go all the way back to the early years of the revolution, which one must remember that, in their view, was a time that forces that were working for the revolution were purer and more idealistic. So, yes, it is true that they indeed are nostalgic about those years. And they believe that if they turn the clock back and go back to the early years of the revolution, they may have a “better” country.

The second part of your question is whether they can turn the clock back. In my view, that is a very false idea and wrong assumption.

First, the world has changed. The world that we have today is not the world that we had 25-30 years ago, when we had a bipolar world, with one side being the Eastern block and the Soviet Union, and the other side being the Western nations and America.

Secondly, while it is true that in the early years of the revolution Iran did not experience the rampant corruption that it has now, but it also experienced severe political repression. Therefore, there is no reason to believe if they can go back to the early years, they would actually be able to root out the corruptions, impose the repression, and return the country back to where it was in the 1980s.

There are many other forces that are involved. The revolution in the information technology and means of mass communications, like the internet, fax, e-mail, and so on enable people, and more specifically the young people (who make up about 70% of the population), to learn about events around the world, know about liberty, the freedom that people in other countries enjoy. They also want freedom. Not necessarily exactly the same type of freedom that, for instance, young people have in a country like the US, but, nevertheless, they would like to be able to freely express their opinions without fear of prosecution, they would like government not to interfere in their privet lives, and they would like Iran to have a more efficient economy that can provide employment for the mass of the young who is graduating from Iranian universities every year.

Note that in the early years of the revolution, Iran only had a few universities around the country. Now, Iran has about 60 to 70 institutions of higher education, which produce large number of highly educated people. Because the government has not been able to provide adequate employment for them, large numbers of these graduates have been migrating to other countries. According to the United Nations and World Bank statistics, Iran has the largest brain drain among the developing countries.

Therefore, there is no way to create the same situation that Iran had in early years of the revolution. Furthermore, Iranian people revolted against the previous regime in the hope of political and economical improvements. But now that they have experienced the last 25 years, they are more pessimistic and more cynical. They would certainly be far more skeptical to entertain the prospect of returning to the early years of the revolution.

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