The Return of Persian Ameriphilia?
Michael C. Moynihan | June 2, 2008, 4:29pm
Yesterday, the
Washington Post ran
this fascinating story by Azadeh Moaveni, author of
Lipstick Jihad and
Time magazine's Iran correspondent, tracking Iranian's ever-shifting attitudes towards America and Americans. Long considered the most pro-American country in the region—world's tallest midget, obviously—opinion towards The Great Satan, Moavenu argues, has ebbed and flowed during the Bush years. Back in 2004, Nicolas Kristof
wrote that he had finally "found a pro-American country." The twist was, of course, that he was writing from Tehran. Kristof spoke with an inordinate number of Iranians who were "exceptionally friendly and fulsome in their praise for the United States, and often for President Bush as well." Well, that was 2004.
According Moaveni, public opinion turned against Bush and America the following year: "Starting in about 2005, Iranians' historic esteem for the United States gave way to a deep ambivalence that is only now ending. President Bush's post-9/11 wars of liberation on both of Iran's borders—in Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east—rattled ordinary Iranians, and Washington's opposition to Iran's nuclear programa major source of national pride—added to their resentment." But the sands, she argues, are again shifting:
"I used to hear similarly pro-American sentiments frequently back in 2001, when Iranians' romance with the United States was at its most ardent. A poll conducted that same year found that 74 percent of Iranians supported restoring ties with the United States (whereupon the pollster was tossed into prison). You couldn't attend a dinner party without hearing someone, envious of the recently liberated Afghans, ask, "When will the Americans come save us?"
It's highly unlikely that this is a widely held sentiment these days. But, Moaveni writes, the incompetent and corrupt rule of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shifted the focus from problems in countries that border Iran (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq) to more pressing economic problems at home:
"I lived in Iran until last summer and experienced all the reasons why Ahmadinejad has replaced the United States as Iranians' top object of vexation. Under his leadership, inflation has spiked at least 20 percent, according to nongovernment analysts—thanks to Ahmadinejad's expansionary fiscal policies, which inject vast amounts of cash into the economy. My old babysitter, for example, says she can no longer afford to feed her family red meat once a week. When I recently picked up some groceries—a sack of potatoes, some green plums, two cantaloupes and a few tomatoes—the bill came to the equivalent of $40.
Full story.charlie | June 2, 2008, 6:11pm | #
Rather than just get a cheap shot in at Moynihan for allowing the "liberation" comment to go unchallenged, I should also point out that the article is pretty much garbage.
First off, how many dinner parties did our enterprising Time magazine reporter attend where people expressed their yearning for an American liberation? I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that she probably didn't attend too many parties at the homes of Islamic fundamentalists -- Ahmadenijad's base of support since becoming mayor of Tehran -- and maybe, just maybe, her contacts weren't representative of the people of Iran as a whole.
I also find it interesting that the reporter considers hoping for a U.S. invasion to be an example of "pro-Americanism" akin to liking Britney Spears and Coca Cola. Iranians have liked American goods for a long time -- that's not news -- yet that doesn't mean there is increasing support for a U.S. "liberation," which the reporter defined as "pro-Americanism" in the beginning of the article. Clearly one can like materialism without liking the U.S. government -- as evidenced by the posts at Reason every day.
Also, notice that the reporter reduces all opposition to U.S. polices as coming from "a pious bazaar merchant" and "liberal college kids in designer parkas" (any guesses as to what the Time magazine reporter was wearing?).
Plenty of Iranians that I've encountered are still pissed about the 1953 coup that overthrew Mossadeq, and we're expected too believe that only the fundamentalist crazies and those darned liberals in "designer parkas" are the ones who disapprove of U.S. foreign policy? Please.
And, typical of a reporter at an establishment publication like Time or the Post, the reporter never once even bothers to mention just why so many Iranians may be tempted to view the U.S. as the "Great Satan." There's certainly no mention of the U.S. backed dictatorship of the Shah, so we're left to view this people as silly fundamentalists, rather than, perhaps, people with legitimate grievances about U.S. policy in the region.
We are also led to believe that only those few backward reactionaries who still support the Iranian government are the ones that could possibly still hate the U.S. government, when clearly one can hate both.
joe | June 3, 2008, 3:10pm | #
That's a function of Iran's nuclear weapons program and has little to do with Iraq.
You do remember the Axis of Evil speech, right?
The administration was sabre-rattling and denouncing the Iranian regime, while its proxies talked about "onto Tehran" and "onto Damascus" immediately after the fall of Baghdad.
They occupation and invasion are obviously related, but also obviously not the same thing. Iranians could both cheer the invasion and be dismayed at the conditions that followed. Agreed, and that's precisely what happened, in my view. Had the consequences of invading Iraq only been the toppling of the regime and the wonders that were supposed to follow, the reaction throughout the region would likely have been very different.
But, of course, the consequences of that invasion were what we've seen for the past five years.
On the contrary, Iraq proved we are deadly serious about expanding liberal dmeocracy in a way nothing else could have.
And this is where you differ - you think that "nothing else" but American guns can bring about democracy in a Muslim society, and we liberals disagree. We think they can do it on their own, and look to the popular uprising in Tehran as an example.
Remember, the idea we would promote liberal democracy in Iraq was widely scoffed at, even here at home. Juan Cole said in 2004 that we would more likely impose some kind of friendly strongman.
You are talking about "would," that is, your intentions. I'm talking about "could," that is, our capacity. I think that at least some people in the adminstration were actually serious about democratic reform. They weren't just using pretty words to justify a Mesopotamian power grab, but genuinely did want to turn Iraq into a warm version of Minnesota, politically.
They just weren't able to, because democratic reform just doesn't work that way.
