The crucial and delicate early days of post-election rioting, when dissidents had to calculate whether it was worth flooding into the streets: the Obama administration maintains that Iranian diplomats are still welcome at July 4 celebrations. That doesn’t take the wind out of protesters’ sails and the regime crackdown begins in earnest. In the middle of that State reverses its position.
The crucial and delicate hours leading up to Ahmadinejad’s inauguration, when dissidents again had to make calculations about relative odds of success vs. relative risk: the Obama administration declares that Ahmadinejad is “the elected leader” of Iran in response to a question about his legitimacy. Whether that had any influence on protesters can’t really be measured, but in any case critical mass obviously failed to form.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Wednesday said he had misspoken in calling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Iran’s elected leader and that Washington will let the Iranian people decide whether Iran’s election was fair. “Let me correct a little bit of what I said yesterday. I denoted that Mr. Ahmadinejad was the elected leader of Iran. I would say that’s not for me to pass judgment on,” Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One. “He’s been inaugurated. That’s a fact. Whether any election was fair, obviously the Iranian people still have questions about that, and we’ll let them decide about that.”
I’m not saying the WH is intentionally abandoning pro-democracy activists at exactly the worst moments and then backtracking to save domestic face. Seriously. Foreign policy can be guided by moral imperatives or hardheaded realism or both. When you try to use only hardheaded realism but you also happen to be flat wrong about the world – well, these things will just kind of happen.
Although if the point is to gamble on the probability of regime instability and adjust accordingly, it’s hard to understand why the WH moves toward the protesters exactly when the regime seems most in control. Another few examples and people might begin to suspect that the WH was signaling to the mullahs that anti-regime statements were meaningless boilerplate designed for public consumption.
References:
* Awesome: State Publicly Reassures Iranian Diplomats They’re Still Invited To July 4th Parties [MR]
* White House: Ahmadinejad Is “The Elected Leader” Of Iran [Video] [MR]
* White House reverses statement on Iran election [Reuters]
Previously:
* Huge Relief: Obama’s Awesomely Awesome Charm Means Anti-Americanism Isn’t A Problem Any More
* Clinton To Arab States: Don’t Bother Worrying About Iranian Nukes, We’ve Got Your Back
* Obama To Israel: Stop Growing Domestically And Stop Trying To Defend Yourself From Iran
