[R-G] Robert Baer: "The absolute worst things we could do: declare Iran's election fraudulent, refuse to talk to the regime, and pile on more sanctions"

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904953,00.html>
Tuesday, Jun. 16, 2009
Don't Assume Ahmadinejad Really Lost
By Robert Baer

There is no denying that the news clips from Tehran are dramatic,
unprecedented in violence and size since the mullahs came to power in
1979. They're possibly even augurs of real change. But can we trust
them? Most of the demonstrations and rioting I've seen in the news are
taking place in north Tehran, around Tehran University and in public
places like Azadi Square. These are, for the most part, areas where
the educated and well-off live — Iran's liberal middle class. These
are also the same neighborhoods that little doubt voted for
Mir-Hossein Mousavi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rival, who now
claims that the election was stolen. But I have yet to see any
pictures from south Tehran, where the poor live. Or from other Iranian
slums. (See TIME's covers from the 1979 Islamic revolution.)

Some facts about Iran's election will hopefully emerge in the coming
weeks, with perhaps even credible evidence that the election was
rigged. But until then, we need to add a caveat to everything we hear
and see coming out of Tehran. For too many years now, the Western
media have looked at Iran through the narrow prism of Iran's liberal
middle class — an intelligentsia that is addicted to the Internet and
American music and is more ready to talk to the Western press,
including people with money to buy tickets to Paris or Los Angeles.
Reading Lolita in Tehran is a terrific book, but does it represent the
real Iran? (See pictures of Iran's presidential election and its
turbulent aftermath.)

Before we settle on the narrative that there has been a hard-line
takeover in Iran, an illegitimate coup d'état, we need to seriously
consider the possibility that there has been a popular hard-line
takeover, an electoral mandate for Ahmadinejad and his policies. One
of the only reliable, Western polls conducted in the run-up to the
vote gave the election to Ahmadinejad — by higher percentages than the
63% he actually received. The poll even predicted that Mousavi would
lose in his hometown of Tabriz, a result that many skeptics have
viewed as clear evidence of fraud. The poll was taken all across Iran,
not just the well-heeled parts of Tehran. Still, the poll should be
read with a caveat as well, since some 50% of the respondents were
either undecided or wouldn't answer.

No doubt, Iran will come out of last Friday's election a different
country. But it would serve us well to put aside our prism that has
led us to misunderstand Iran for so many years, an anticipation that
there would be a liberal counter-revolution in the country. Mousavi is
far from the liberal democrat that many in the West would like to
believe he is. The truth is, Ahmadinejad may be the President the
Iranians want, and we may have to live with an Iran to Iranians'
liking and not to ours. (See pictures of Ahmadinejad's supporters on
LIFE.com.)

The absolute worst things we could do at this point would be to
declare Iran's election fraudulent, refuse to talk to the regime and
pile on more sanctions. Hostility will only strengthen Ahmadinejad and
encourage the hard-liners and secret police. We should never forget
that Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatullah Khameinei, along with
Ahmadinejad, have the full, if undeclared, backing of both the
Revolutionary Guards and the army, and they are not afraid to use
those resources to back up their mandate.

Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is
TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and,
most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian
Superpower.