Centerfield

Why Iranian Polls Were Worth Boycotting: Because Iran Wasn't a Democracy!

Hossein Derakshan wrote a NYT piece on democracy that just seems wrong to me (hat tip: Instapundit). Caedroia agrees with me

THE day before Iran's ninth presidential elections last June, President Bush sent a discouraging message to potential voters. Iran's electoral process "ignores the basic requirements of democracy," Mr. Bush declared, and these elections would be "sadly consistent" with the country's "oppressive record." For Iranians, there was no mistaking the American president's point: he was tacitly sanctioning the call that some Iranian exiles and activists had issued for an election boycott, based on exactly this logic
. . .
In Iran last June, the call for a boycott resonated with frustrated and apathetic voters. Many, if not most, moderates and reform advocates stayed home from the polls. And we all know what followed: the philosophy-loving moderate, Mohammad Khatami, was replaced as president by a radical militant, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a former military commander who presides over one of the most extreme governments post-revolutionary Iran has yet had.

There are two things wrong with this quote. It tends to a lazy reverse imperialism, blaming the outcome on us rather than the locals. In fact, Ahmadinejad also ran a major, serious election-faking campaign on the ground to get his win, with some collusion from the theocratic militias that keep the Mullahs in power.

The other mistake is to assume that the elected Iranian president has much power. Most power, including foreign policy, military control, and almost certainly control of any nuclear weapons, rests in the unelected Guardian Council, already securely Islamofascist. No way were they going to trust Khatami with that. And now, despite Ahmadinejad's call for destroying Israel, I doubt he has the power to start war (of course, the Guardian Council probably has its own temptations on the subject).

The new president's allies in Parliament recently concluded that nearly 80 percent of the books published under President Khatami violated revolutionary values and should be placed under restrictions. Films that promote feminism, secularism and liberalism are to be banned. And while President Khatami built his international reputation on his call for a "dialogue among civilizations," President Ahmadinejad has reached out to racists and anti-Semites instead.

Yeah, that's all bad. But is that really all that important compared to the bottom-line reality during all of Khatami's administration as well, that opposition elements can be taken away in the night and tortured, an utter lack of an ability to say what you want, and an enforced subservience to theocratic militia whims?

It's true that Iranian elections are not quite democratic, because the unelected Guardian Council reserves the right to bar candidates. But the real problem here is that boycotting semi-democratic elections ultimately will not make such a system more democratic.

Most of you probably remember President Fujimori being turned out of Peru for faking his elections after such a boycott. I severely doubt they'd agree with that paragraph.