Iran is 'Out Of Step' With Region: US State Department

Agence France Presse, Yahoo! News:

Iran is "out of step" with a trend toward freedom and liberty in its region, the US State Department said, after hardliner Mahmood Ahmadinejad won a presidential election condemned by Washington as "flawed".

"With the conclusion of the election in Iran, we have seen nothing that dissuades us from our view that Iran is out of step with the rest of the region and the currents of freedom and liberty that have been so apparent in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon," State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore said late Friday. READ MORE

"These elections were flawed from their inception by the decision of an unelected few to deny the applications of over a thousand candidates, including all 93 women," she said.

"We will judge the regime by its actions. In light of the way these elections were conducted, however, we remain skeptical that the Iranian regime is interested in addressing either the legitimate desires of its own people, or the concerns of the broader international community," Moore said.

"The United States believes in the right of the Iranian people to make their own decisions and determine their own future, and as the Iranian people stand for their own liberty, we stand with them."

Hardline Tehran mayor Ahmadinejad swept to a shock victory in Friday's second round vote in Iran, a win set to spell an end to years of difficult reform and place the Islamic republic on a collision course with the West.

The interior ministry said Ahmadinejad, a self-proclaimed fundamentalist seeking a return to the moral "purity" of the early years of the Islamic revolution, thrashed his more pragmatist rival Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Ahmadinejad's victory leaves anti-Western ultra-conservatives in complete control over every elected and unelected institution in Iran, and Rafsanjani's humiliating defeat will remove what has been a moderating influence within the 26-year-old theocracy.

In Los Angeles, exiled Iranian opposition leaders hailed Ahmadinejad's victory, saying it would bring Tehran's Islamic regime a step closer to collapse.

While the election of the conservative Islamist might bring tough times for Iranians in the short term, they said, it will ultimately fuel internal opposition, put external pressure on the government and expose cracks within the regime.

Some 400,000 to 600,000 Iranians live in the United States, most of them in California.

Earlier Friday, before the result, a senior State Department official speaking on condition of anonymity said Washington would watch carefully the policies crafted and actions taken by the new Iranian president.

"It goes back to policies and actions as opposed to personalities," he said, not expressing any preference for Rafsanjani or Ahmadinejad.

Asked whether the United States would be "engaging" with the new Iranian president, the US official said: "The issue of who wins is not going to determine whether we engage or not.

"The issue of engagement will be a factor (based on) policy decisions the Iranian government makes and specific actions that it takes," he said. "That will be the criteria by which we decide what we do."

US officials including President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly heaped scorn on Iran's presidential poll in recent days.

"Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy," Bush said in a statement last week.