Iran's Electoral Farce

The US Alliance for Democratic Iran:

Iranians know it full well: The upcoming June 17 presidential election in Iran is a farce, a futile attempt by the ruling regime to give itself an aura of legitimacy so its advocates and apologists abroad can justify their lucrative commerce with Tehran. The June election therefore must be viewed only from the prism of factional rivalries within the clerical rule. READ MORE

Since coming to power in 1979, the ruling theocracy in Iran has used elections to serve the clerical establishment, which is built on the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, the absolute supremacy of clerical rule.

All institutions of power in Iran such as the Guardian Council, the Parliament, the Assembly of Experts and many other local councils provide a veneer of democracy and popular participation. Their main task, however, is to safeguard the pillars of the theocracy.

To this end, the June election will be no different from the other two dozens held since 1979. The Guardian Council, which acts as a vetting body to filter out those deemed un-Islamic and disloyal, has disqualified every candidate except eight: four former senior Revolutionary Guards commanders, two top mullahs, and two establishment figures turned “reformist”.

According to Iran’s Constitution only those with unfettered allegiance to the velayat-e faqih could become a candidate, making it impossible for Iran’s genuinely democratic political forces, which appropriately reject the whole velayat-e faqih doctrine to run. Indeed, every election since 1981 has been boycotted by the democratic opposition.

Call them reformist, pragmatist, conservative, the fact remains that those running in the election, the “crazy eight” as they are known in Iran, are absolutely committed to preserving the terror-mongering theocracy.

The first four years after Khomeini’s death in 1989, the so-called moderate Rafsanjani's band wagon was packed with many leaders of Western capitals. The following four years, however, was marked by people stepping on each other to get off it.

In1997, Khatami’s band wagon was even more crowded and the second Clinton administration was fully on board. Indeed, Khatami’s presidency was the height of a delirium in Washington, Paris, London, and Berlin, which suffered from a paralyzing notion that with the “Ayatollah Gorbachev” at the helm, Iran was going to be on its way toward a major rehabilitation.

With hollow rhetoric about the “rule of law” and “civil society” at home and “dialogue among civilizations” abroad, Khatami became the darling of the West. The most fundamental fact about Iran was lost on the Europeans: Iran’s velayat-e faqih system of governance is structurally and intrinsically incapable of democratic change. The notion of democracy co-existing with velayat-e faqih is a delusion whose propagation has only served to prolong the clerical rule.

The misreading of Khatami’s presidency was not just a futile theoretical exercise in political science. It indeed played a major role in perpetuating the false notion of “change from within” the theocratic system and resulted in all-out policy of appeasement by capitals on both sides of the Atlantic.

While Khatami was being given red-carpet welcome in Europe, Tehran was relentlessly perusing its secret and ambitious nuclear weapons program and expanding its terror network across the globe. While fascination with Khatami’s citation of Western philosophers became fashionable in our policy circles, public execution and amputation of limbs and death by stoning inside Iran continued unabated.

Eight years on, one would expect that lessons have been learned and the era of drafting policy based on the illusion of change from within the theocracy has come to a definitive end. Alas, that’s not how the EU’s big-3 is dealing with Tehran. There is a growing, albeit exceedingly dangerous, tendency to pin the success of the otherwise failed nuclear talks with Tehran on Hashemi Rafsanjani victory in the upcoming elections.

The suggestion that Rafsanjani, a disgraced murderer and godfather of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program, could play this role speaks volume of the appeasement camp’s desperation. They know full well that once appeasement of Tehran rogue rulers has been put aside, there is no other option except recognizing the indigenous anti-regime movement in Iran that is seeking to establish a secular democratic government.

The lucrative trade with Iran, in light of the mullahs' readiness to auctioneer the country’s national wealth in exchange for diplomatic and political incentives, prevents the EU-3 leaders and their Europeanist allies in Washington from realizing that only when Iran is free of tyranny, there would be an end to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.