Ayoon Wa Azan (Will the Wounded Regime Try and Amend its Policies?)

The crisis brought by the results of the Iranian elections, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remaining in power, and the religious authority in Qom being challenged, will all serve the interests of the Arab countries in and outside the Gulf. This is because Iranian policies, whether towards its greed and ambitions to extend Iran’s sphere of influence, or towards its nuclear program, will not change with a different president. Nevertheless, Ahmadinejad remains a lousy advocate of his countries issues and causes, and if he were to be replaced by a “moderate” president, the latter would only sugar-coat the same policies, and render them more exploitable in foreign affairs. It may even be possible that Ahmadinejad’s victory serves Israel, since he is a denier of the Holocaust who repeats his threats to wipe Israel off the map, and makes frequent claims about Zionist conspiracies - even in those demonstrations that took place in protest against the election results in Iran. That kind of extremism does not benefit Iran's cause abroad, although if a moderate had been elected President instead, Israel would have found it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to incite the global public opinion, especially the American one, against Iran.

I want to pause here and mention a side note. I do not read “secret” websites or those that do not reveal their sources. However, I do not hold it against them if they provide me with material where my name was mentioned. As such, I recently read an article posted on an American website that claims that I was in agreement with Israel when I said there is no difference at all between the hardliners and the moderates in Iranian leadership, since they all are in favour of Iran’s nuclear program.

This is half true, and the fact that Israel thinks the same does not invalidate the truthfulness of this half. The other half, however, is that I support Iran’s bid in possessing nuclear arms as long as Israel possesses them, and this definitely is not a position that any Israel government would take, while it was and will continue to be my own stated position.

Going back to Iran, its elections and its reinstated President, I think that he [Ahmadinejad] definitely won the election. This is because his support base – which includes the working class, the poor, and the farmers and peasants in rural areas – represents the vast majority of Iranians, a majority that is not represented by the intellectuals, reformers, and liberal women in Tehran and some other cities. However, the demonstrations against this result, as well as the violence and the incitement that followed, have all caused the Islamic Revolution a wound that will not heal easily.

Will the wounded regime then try and amend its policies? Will the regime ease down its policies to render them more acceptable both at home and abroad? I doubt that. Quite the contrary, I think – and this is my personal opinion and I could be wrong – that the regime will intensify its dosage of hawkishness, just to reassert its abilities. This will be translated into more support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and a more barefaced hostility to the West, with a focus on the Zionist enemy, holding the latter directly responsible for the violence and accompanying plots and conspiracies.

I had noted earlier that President Barack Obama committed himself to moderation in the early comments he made about the Iranian elections, to the extent that neo-conservatives and the known Likudian supporters of Israel started attacking him. He only started criticizing Iran and changed his tone when violence erupted against the demonstrators, and when many were killed or injured. This is when he condemned the violence and defended the right of people to demonstrate and express their opinion. Ahmadinejad's response was, as usual, inappropriate. He asked Obama not to interfere in Iranian internal affairs of Iran, even when the President clearly didn’t.

In fact, the U.S. President tried to keep all the lines open with Iran, while the Iranian President responded in a manner that disrupts attempts for future contacts and renders any agreements even more difficult. In fact, this is what a moderate president –or one who claims to be moderate - would not have done.

Meanwhile, just as Arab countries will benefit from the extremism of Ahmadinejad's foreign policies, they will also benefit from the hostilities which he unleashed at home and which will probably keep him occupied throughout his second term.

In this regard, the defeated candidate Hussein Mousavi remains less important than Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the other pillars of the Islamic Republic. Whether extremists or moderates, Ahmadinejad had antagonized them and entered in personal battles against them, when he accused them or their children of corruption, to which they replied by accusing him of stealing the election. Furthermore, the attendance by only 105 deputies out of 290 deputies of his victory party is only further evidence to the size of the internal difficulties it he will face. In fact, the parliament is dominated by conservatives, and if this is its stance towards the President, one can only imagine what the reformists’ and moderates’ stances will be.

The elections are over, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the new president for the next four years. However, all real power is in the hands of the religious establishment behind the government. Nevertheless, the lingering aftermath of the elections will definitely weaken the Islamic revolution, following its 30 years of reigning supreme, and of not facing any challenge to its full control of the country's fortunes.