Watching the Web for Change in Tehran
How Influential is the ‘Marketplace of Ideas?’
By: Colette Mazzucelli*
The 2009 Iranian national elections were striking for the range of media the population used to participate in the debate among the presidential candidates. In the midst of protests about the disputed outcome, which re-elected incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian elites argue that dissent emanates from the Western media rather than the populace. In the days and months ahead, it will be interesting to observe how those who voted for the reformist challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, will air their grievances. How will popular dissent be channeled in a regime driven to act by fear of change? (1) How will Ahmadinejad’s declared victory impact on the increasing rivalries among Iranian elites, which the election revealed?
For these elites, the 2009 elections are not about an overthrow of the system that serves their interests. The last word on matters of religion and state is that of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Supreme Leader’s style is to encourage competition among rival players for influence. Although his institutional position is unassailable, power in Iran is increasingly diffuse. This makes the regime as hard to read from the inside as from beyond the borders of the state. There are those who argue that the 2009 elections reveal the potential to open the Iranian system to democratic forces, particularly since the 60% of the Iranian population under 28 years of age clamors for reforms. This leads observers to inquire about what Snyder and Ballentine have identified as the marketplace of ideas. (2)
The Iranian state is unique in the world today. Since the 1979 Revolution, different governments have left their mark on the revolutionary Islamic Republic’s regime. Under Ahmadinejad, observers are witness to the progressive and systematic undermining of republican government. International reports confirm that institutions, which, in a republic, should be responsible to break up government information monopolies, are under state control. Professional journalists inside the country are the victims of brutal repression. Public forums online, which normally allow a variety of ideas to challenge erroneous argumentation, are subject to deliberate interruption. The Ahmadinejad government is using the landslide results to propagate the myth of legitimacy.
There is much more at stake in the way elections were manipulated. Elites behind the president are consolidating power by punishing those who participated in the vote because of their conviction that reform is possible. Significantly for the United States and the rest of the world, the ultimate victor in this election is Persian nationalism, and, more fundamentally, the myths which Ahmadinejad and his supporters in the Revolutionary Guard exploit to “overemphasize the cultural and historical distinctiveness of the national group, exaggerate the threat posed to the nation by other groups, ignore the degree to which the nation’s own actions provoked such threats, and play down the costs of seeking national goals through militant means.” (3)
Elite manipulation also speaks to the “segmentation of demand” as defined by Snyder and Ballentine. In a vibrant marketplace of ideas, individuals must be exposed to diverse ways of thinking. A segmented marketplace is characterized by those blockages that prevent the exposure of individuals in one market segment to ideas expressed in others. Another possible occurrence is that individuals are exposed to ideas, which are simultaneously filtered through sources that lead to their distortion. The issue at stake is media vulnerability even with the activity Dalai Fazio describes in his commentary “Web 2.0 and New Democracy in Iran.” (4) Vulnerability leaves media in Iran open to capture by partisan segments. Is the media there spoiled as a neutral forum for criticism and debate? (5)
Although the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the final arbiter in questions of national policy, Ahmadinejad has successfully delineated his leadership role as Iranian President through his skillful use of the nuclear issue to forge an uncontested internal consensus. Iran’s nuclear program is perceived as a national prerogative that conveniently diverts public attention from the failed economic policies of recent years. In this context, the nuclear issue is primarily a domestic one, which creates a murky debate that dominates the Iranian landscape. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iranians have confronted their own identity. Is the Islamic Republic an exceptional or, increasingly after the Iran-Iraq War, a normal state? This confrontation still exists after the President’s declared victory.
The nuclear issue serves as a symbol of the national interest for a country that perceives its own role is being taken more seriously as a regional interlocutor. Iran under Ahmadinejad is not simply a revisionist power in the Middle East. The regime’s domestic and international aspirations are to punch above its weight as a great power and to define its specificity as a pivot state in a milieu of manipulated transitional interdependence. (6) In recent years, Iran has taken advantage of global dependence on oil and gas resources to generate income and promote strategic alliances. Iranian elites manipulate these overtures with the leverage that comes from ably dividing the members of the Security Council (US, UK, France (+ Germany in the E3) versus Russia and China) in nuclear diplomacy.
The opportunity to play for time is on Iran’s side as long as the United States does not engage in talks. Iranian elites act in ways that suggest an intention to define the country’s role in an interdependent system in a transitional way with greater or lesser degrees of interaction with America, Russia, China, India and Europe. To what extent will Iran’s elite strive to demonstrate that consolidating power at home offers different options to manipulate interdependence in the months ahead? Iran does not require a weapon to play this game. It must be able to convince others in the nuclear club that it has the technological capacity to acquire one. Either way, the 2009 election results confirm that Iranian elites are determined to make or break their own rules at will.
The danger inside the regime is that the rise of Persian nationalism poses a threat to Islamic fervor, particularly if the nuclear program is read as a way to glorify Islam. In the past four years, the Iranian President has made the choice to govern on the basis of pure ideology. His government is one the Supreme Leader can look to with pride because policies are ideologically correct. Ahmadinejad does not seek expert advice as Rafsanjani did when pragmatic technocrats were brought in to run the system. Personalities matter in the Iranian leadership. Although nothing can happen without the consent of the Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad’s presence makes a genuine difference. (7) His election victory aims to close the door on any return to reform, which Rafsanjani and Khatami support.
The Obama Administration continues to observe the dynamics after the Iranian elections closely. There are those who believe the results of the June 12 vote preclude an overture to a regime whose legitimacy is in question. Iran is undoubtedly following with keen interest President Obama’s actions on nuclear non-proliferation. Bilateral negotiations with Russia opened in Rome earlier this spring with a strict timetable for a successor agreement to START on the agenda. It is not likely that nuclear diplomacy will be the issue area that breaks the deadlock between the Islamic Republic and the United States. The challenge for the Obama Administration is to get beyond the nuclear issue to focus with Europe on a range of issues, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Middle East peace.
American diplomacy can still identify common interests with Iran and build on secondary issues to expand possibilities for cooperation over time. The Obama Administration is pursuing opportunities this year to convince Russia of its strategic view in global affairs. Through policy decisions in the START process, American negotiators aim to persuade their Russian counterparts that a united front in the Security Council vis-à-vis Iran on nuclear proliferation is in the interest of each state. President Obama also faces a historic occasion to transform the words in his Cairo speech into deeds and, if necessary, pressure on Israel. The violence provoked by Iran’s elections must not be compounded by the prospect of broader warfare between Israel and Iran in the region.
*Colette Mazzucelli, (MALD, Tufts/Fletcher; PhD, Georgetown) is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Political Science at Hofstra University and teaches on graduate faculty at the Center for Global Affairs, New York University.
[1] Dominique Moïsi, The Geopolitics of Emotion, New York: Doubleday, 2009.
[2] Jack Snyder and Karen Ballentine, “Nationalism and the Marketplace of Ideas,” International Security 21, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 5-40.
[3] As cited in Snyder and Ballentine in Essential Readings in Comparative Politics, eds. Patrick H. O’Neil and Ronald Rogowski. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006, pp. 195-96.
[4] Dalai Fazio, “Web 2.0 and New Democracy in Iran,” Conversations on Diplomacy and Power Politics, June 13, 2009, http://www.diplomacyandpower.com/?p=193
[5] Robert Mackey, “Landslide or Fraud? The Debate Online Over Iran’s Election Results,” New York Times, June 13, 2009, http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/landslide-or-fraud-the-debate-online-over-irans-election-results/?th&emc=th
[6] Michael J. Smith, “Humanitarian Intervention” in Ethics & International Affairs. A Reader, eds. Joel H. Rosenthal and Christian Barry. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009, pp. 67-69.
[7] Interview, Columbia University, May 29, 2009.
