No subject

has deeply conformist values that do not portend liberation for all.

I contend this not because tens of millions of oppressed Muslims, even
in Sunni-majority nations like Egypt, regard Ahmadinejad as a beacon
of hope and freedom. Nor do I describe Iran's opposition as conformist
only because Mousavi's declared vision is a return to the unremarkable
times preceding Ahmadinejad. Rather, Iran's protest movement should be
considered unenlightened because it affirms, more than it contradicts,
the worst aspects of globalization and global domination.

Those of us who struggled unsuccessfully throughout the Bush years to
draw Iranian   Americans to antiwar protests are shocked to suddenly
see thousands of them, bedecked in Mousavi green, protesting the
Iranian elections on the streets of major U.S. cities. It is, of
course, gratifying that Western peace and justice activists are
finally able to connect with the expatriate Iranian community. But let
us not assume that every newfound Iranian American friend belongs to a
"civil rights movement" until we hear whether they also marched
against U.S. and Israeli threats to bomb Iran.

Mousavi and his top aides, too, are not on record criticizing U.S. and
British aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan or the West's illegal
threats against Iran. "Provocation is for the extremists," one of
Mousavi's lieutenants explained to me, referring to the Ahmadinejad
faction. By contrast, reformist publications regularly feature tirades
against Iran's alignment with left-leaning governments in Latin
America. If Erlich could read Farsi and speak directly to Iranians who
cannot communicate in English, he might not have been so quick to
criticize Hugo Chavez for siding with Ahmadinejad.

Another reformist candidate in this year's election who practices
moderation rather than speaks truth to (global) power is former
parliament speaker, Mehdi Karroubi.

During a series of first-ever televised debates that preceded the June
12 elections, Karroubi ridiculed Ahmadinejad's one-time claim that
"the Americans" plotted to assassinate the incumbent in 2008 while he
was on a state visit to Iraq. Before a television audience of record
size, Karroubi then praised U.S. authorities for protecting him while
he visited New York in 2000. One does not have to have faith in Iran's
recent elections or see a Western hand in the ensuing protests to
recognize that deference to, as Rev. King put it, the world's
"greatest purveyor of violence" is improper for an aspiring civil
rights leader.

In another move sure to please Western elites, Karroubi made a
campaign splash when he listed incremental de-nationalization of
Iran's oil industry at the top of his promised economic reforms. In
1953, the CIA overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran's best
hope for secular democracy, because he nationalized Iranian oil.
Thousands of Iranians sacrificed their lives or careers for the
nationalization campaign to succeed. The widow of Mosadegh's
nationalist foreign minister endorsed Ahmadinejad in this year's
election. As Karroubi's top advisors, Massoud Nili and Abbas Abdi,
have argued for years, the goal of the proposed privatization of oil
is to take away the Ahmadinejad faction's ability to "buy" working
class votes with social spending.

If the opposition is to qualify as a genuine civil rights movement, it
needs to change drastically. It must show a commitment to equality
within Iran and in international relations as much as it champions
freedom. With reformists siding with local and global privileged
classes, it is na=EFve to dismiss Ahmadinejad as a demagogue relying on
brute force to block a progressive mass movement.

Judging from what I hear during frequent trips in Iran, citizens of
nearly all backgrounds, including the president's supporters, want
more social freedoms and political choices. But a great many are not
willing to live without the services they have come to expect from
their government or abandon the current leadership's foreign policy.
The election of a person of color as president of the United States
suggests that Americans have a renewed distaste for trickle-down
economics and imperial conquests. It shouldn't be difficult to
understand that a sizeable segment, perhaps a majority, of Iran's
population shares those concerns and may vote accordingly to keep the
reformists out of power. Reverend King would understand.

Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Rostam Pourzal is an independent
Iranian-American analyst specializing in the politics of human rights.