In My View: Iran is not a democracy

By Micah D. Halpern

Issue of June 19, 2009 / 27 Sivan 5769

Americans have been duped, hoodwinked by mainstream media, fed false hope and provided with erroneous information.

I need to set the record straight. Iran is not a democracy.

Because the Iranians use the terms and adopt the trappings of democracy, does not make it a democracy. Because the American media would like Iran to be a democracy, does not make it a democracy. Because the White House wishes for a democratically run Iran, does not mean Iran is a democracy.

The Iranians went out to vote, but their votes did not count. The only vote that counts in Iran is the vote of The Supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah Khameini. And the Grand Ayatollah has declared that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad retains his position because of “divine involvement.” Challenging that edict is tantamount to challenging Allah.

There is no questioning the word of the Grand Ayatollah. According to Iranian law The Supreme Leader is the real and true leader. It is he who has the final say on all matters religious and political. The president is merely his mouthpiece.

So how could the Western press portray the charade perpetrated in Iran as a democratic election? The fix was in from the outset.

There was a reverse, almost a perverse, democratic model that evolved in Iran around this election. It seemed as if there were four actual candidates. In actuality, there were 400 wannabe candidates and only four made it through the vetting process conducted by the Supreme Council which is controlled by The Supreme Leader who then monitored, judged, evaluated and decided upon the winner of this election.

The Western press was dazzled by the appearance of choice in this election and chose to pay little attention to the subtle, but all encompassing, maneuverings of The Grand Ayatollah. And the Western press paid little attention to the baggage that the four contenders brought with them to this election.

Mousavi, the only possible contender for Ahmadinejad’s position, never had a chance. For decades, Mousavi has been the nemesis of the Ayatollah Khameini. When Mousavi was prime minister, Khameini was president and the two fought incessantly. Mousavi retained his PM position only because of his close ties with the man who founded the Revolution and held the position of The Supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini.

Mousavi was popular. He was liked by the people. And because there were such massive numbers of people supporting Mousavi, the international press adopted him as their poster boy for democracy and propelled his candidacy forward. They shaped him into a candidate who could be a true alternative to Ahmadinejad ignoring the fact that Ahmadinejad was always The Supreme Leader’s man.

Being duped is never a good feeling. But just because the people of Iran and the Western world were duped this time, it does not mean that democracy will never find its way into Iranian politics. The possibility for political change exists.

Iran is ripe for a revolution. Demographically, 75 to 80 percent of the country is under 30 years old. But they are not there yet and it cannot happen on a Western inspired schedule. When it happens, this election will serve as inspiration. Until then, anyone who challenges Iranian leadership will suffer the ugly and truly pre-modern punishments of a prison system that Western democracies cannot even begin to fathom.

Micah Halpern is a social and political commentator and, most recently, the author of THUGS. He maintains The Micah Report.