By Tom Ridge
As Hassan Rouhani commences his second term as
president, the West must realize that he is not and has never been as agent of
change in Iran.
In the run-up to his election, Rouhani routinely invoked
“violence and extremism” in his campaign rhetoric to bolster opposition to his
leading opponent, Ebrahim Raisi, in the ongoing roleplay where the incumbent
represents a more moderate approach than his acknowledged hardline alternative.
This despite the fact that Rouhani had already demonstrated during his first
term that he had no intention of challenging the violence and extremism of the
clerical regime.
Many Iranians boycotted the
presidential election to draw international attention to the fundamental lack
of choice in a system where even self-described moderates
like Rouhani are vetted by unelected clerics and judiciary officials
based on their loyalty to the Supreme Leader and the ruling theocracy.
The Iranian people have alwaysrecognized Rouhani as a veteran regime insider who was a seniorsecurity official during the systematic execution of 30,000 political prisonersin the summer of 1988, many of whom were supporters of the main opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
In 2015, the five permanent
members of the UN Security Council plus Germany brokered a deal with the
Iranian regime, imposing restrictions on the Iranian regime’s nuclear program
in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief. The agreement
has rightly been criticized for offering too many concessions to Iran’s ruling
theocracy, while effectively abandoning the original goal of definitively halting
permanently the mullahs’ march to nuclear weapons.
This approach by the previous
administration was prompted in large part by the expectation that Iranian
behavior and U.S.-Iran relations would improve under Rouhani’s presidency.
Wrong, it was a gross miscalculation. It didn’t and they didn’t.
Tehran’s anti-Western rhetoric
has intensified, backed up by illicit ballistic missile tests and public
declarations of readiness for war by officers of the Iranian military and theIslamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
IRGC military and financial support for the murderous Assad regime
has continued, as has its arming and funding of the terrorist group Hezbollah
in Lebanon. And in Iraq, the regime in Tehran wield more influence than the
United States, despite all the blood and treasure we have invested in that
country since 2003.
At home, dual nationals have
been nabbed and put behind bars for use as bargaining chips. They join
thousands of Iranians incarcerated on political charges and subjected to
torture during interrogation. Executions take place en masse and with little warning,
while other prisoners risk death from abuse and the absence of basic medical
care and sanitation.
Not only did
the Rouhani administration implement these abuses, it also oversaw a spike
in death sentences. More than 3,000 people were executed during his first term
in office, including political prisoners, women and juveniles.
Less than a week before the
election, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a statement practically begging
Iranians to vote regardless of their political views. But by phrasing his call
in terms of “maintaining the regime’s authority,” he effectively added to the
incentive for a boycott by all those rejecting that authority.
Contrary to the usual regime
propaganda about large voter turnout, Iranians stayed away, rejecting choice
between the white and the black turban. In doing so, they expressed more than
just general frustration with a political system in which both factions act
against the interests of the people. They also exhibited support for the
alternatives to those factions – alternatives that have enough social capital
and public support to organize a boycott, yet are barred from participating in
elections or, in many cases, from even speaking publicly about their secular,
democratic platforms.
Support for opposition
organizations like the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and
the MEK seems to be on the rise. For example, I and many of my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle are planning to attend an international convention in Paris, which is
expected to draw upwards of 100,000 Iranian expatriates from around the world
and will be broadcast live to millions of Iranians. Even though support for theMEK can be punished with a death sentence inside Iran (as was the case in the
brutal massacre of 1988), the willingness to take such a risk should tell us
something about how limited the options are for regime-sanctioned political
expression.
And it should also tell us how
fragile that regime is, and how effectively the international community can
encourage the democratic transformation of Iran by supporting the democratic
alternatives to the current regime. Time and again, the U.S. and its allies
have bought in to the moderate versus hardliner narrative, despite proof to the
contrary. This time, let’s get it right.
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