History happens. Sometimes it occurs long before our birth and sometimes long after our death but on some occasions history throws its weight right in front of our eyes. And it's happening absolutely now in the streets of Iran as Friday's presidential election is being called by the people for what it is, a sham of epic proportions.
For many Iran is a place of simple mystery where the United States Embassy was once attacked and its staff taken hostage. A place where a president in casual dress denies the Holocaust and enjoys provoking western governments with a nuclear desire. It's a place that we in the western world often overlook and discount.
Iran cannot be discounted. It is a place that in many ways, defines modern history. Certainly a place where modern Islamic history is being sown and a true barometer of how the Middle East will fit into the new modern world.
It is a place where it would be of great benefit for us to pay keen attention.
The last few days in Iran have raised the eye of interest and the images streaking across the satellites are reminiscent of the Beijing news blots from Tiananmen Square. There is a revolution brewing and it will illustrate how Iran and the Middle East will play on the world stage in the 21st century.
In the briefest of nutshells, Iran had a presidential election on Friday that pitted the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against popular reform candidate, Mir Housein Moussavi. Emotions leading up to the ballot box put the polls on a razor thin, even line for the most extreme predictions and a sweeping victory for Moussavi on the side of the more conventional ones. The 'official' results released late Friday night showed Ahmadinejad claiming a 2/3 majority and with it, the office of the presidency.
To say these results are disputed is a titanic understatement and the protests that have clogged the streets of Tehran are the tip of a social iceberg that could threaten the status quo of Islamic rule and the Middle East power structure.
These are important times and as such they require some basic background to understand. Iran is the world's first, and the Middle East's only, Islamic state. The country is ruled by Islamic clerics, not aristocratic royalty. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 resulted in the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, a westernized ruler who had lost the respect and loyalty of his people. The Islamic theocracy that replaced the Shah is overseen by the Supreme Leader, formally the Ayatollah Khomeini who graced the American news cycles of the 1980's and currently the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who resides in the background of the Iranian political scene but who is never far from the leash that controls the political machine.
The Iranian Constitution grants the Supreme Leader the power that his title implies. No political decision in Iran is lawful until approved by the Supreme Leader, including the decision of who is allowed to run for president and most importantly who is allowed to serve as president.
The current president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has a dubious reputation as a world leader. Sometimes comical and other times frightening his image is scrolled across western news wires for his outlandish denials of the Nazi Holocaust or his repeated threats to arm Iran with nuclear weapons. I am not certain to what degree his rhetoric is scripted by the Islamic theocracy but it is fair to say no political action from Iran would be performed without the explicit consent of the Islamic leadership.
Ahmadinejad's term has been marked not only by the foreign policy debacles he is famous for but also for tight government controls of speech and the distressing condition of the Iranian economy. The people of Iran began to lose faith and confidence in the government and the slow seeds of change began to sprout, opening the door for opposition. Proof once again that restrictions on basic human freedoms had better come with a healthy dose of material substance if the powers that be intend to remain in those positions.
The apathy of the 2005 Iranian elections which allowed Ahmadinejad to take office was replaced by an almost fanatical turnout in 2009. Announcing his campaign in March (we Americans could certainly learn something from this) Mir Houssein Moussavi ran on a platform of reform focusing on the economy and increasing freedoms of speech and promoting equality for women. The younger generation, born after the 1979 Revolution received this call with rabid passion and the 2009 election witnessed massive voter turnout and Iran seemed poised to once more lead the Middle East in cultural and political ideology.
And then the opposition websites were shut down, text messaging eliminated and the and the blockage of news from outside Iranian borders enacted. And late Friday night the results were announced. Ahmadinejad wins in a landslide grabbing 62% of the popular vote. When voter fraud is released on the population it is important to at least make that fraud sound plausible. The Iranian people are not an ignorant people and this 'official' result mocked their intelligence and was not accepted. And thus, we are now witness to scenes of citizen protests that have eclipsed even those of the 1979 Revolution. The very existence of the current government is threatened.
The importance of the events occurring in Iran right at this moment are far beyond symbolic. This is history at its ignition point. By week's end this story could be over and the government crackdown could turn deadly violent thus snuffing any chance for Iran emerge at its rightful place on the world stage. Or this could be the beginning of the modernization of the Middle East, a true democracy incorporating both the cultural and spiritual necessities of Islam with the world community.
Islam must find a way to bridge the gulf between its theology and its politics. The western world cannot do this. The avenue must be paved from the Middle East outward. This is the chance for Iran to show that its people are the voice of Islam and for the Iranian government to show that it is the voice of the people.
