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Cheney wishes Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad to elections { June 24 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d6614e78-e44b-11d9-a754-00000e2511c8.htmlhttp://news.ft.com/cms/s/d6614e78-e44b-11d9-a754-00000e2511c8.html
US hawks rooting for hardline Iranian candidate
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Roula Khalaf in London
Published: June 24 2005 03:00 | Last updated: June 24 2005 03:00
As hardliners and pragmatists battle it out in the final round of Iran's presidential election today, rifts within the Bush administration have exposed a lack of coherent US policy towards the Islamic republic, as well as serious differences with much of Europe.
"The Bush administration is as deeply divided as the Iranian government," commented Ken Pollack, analyst at the Brookings Institution.
US "hawks", he said, had a bizarre preference for Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, a fundamentalist and hardliner, over Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who sought to establish his more pragmatic credentials in part by making overtures to the US during his election campaign.
For the US hardliners, led by Vice-President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, Mr Rafsanjani presents the danger of exacerbating the divisions between the US, which is essentially trying to contain Iran, and Europe which favours the engagement approach.
The US hawks also believe that a convergence of hardliners in Iran with the victory of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad is more likely to precipitate the collapse of the Islamic regime through popular unrest than the "Chinese model" of social pacification likely to be embraced by Mr Rafsanjani. One hardline official told the FT he saw no evidence that Mr Rasanjani was less committed to developing nuclear weapons. The Bush administration, he said, harboured deep scepticism over the prospects of success in the nuclear freeze talks with Iran led by France, Germany and the UK.
Even before Iranians had cast a vote in the first round last Friday, the Bush administration and conservatives in Washington had denounced the election as a sham and illegitimate.
President George W. Bush said on the eve of the vote that the Iranian electoral process, where all candidates are vetted, "ignores the basic requirements of democracy". He said it was a regime that "brutalises its people".
Iranian activists said the exiled opposition had lobbied the administration and members of Congress to condemn the vote in advance.
Even analysts like Mr Pollack who advocate a constructive and united US-EU diplomatic approach towards Iran admit that Mr Rafsanjani would be a "deeply problematic" president for the US. "No one trusts Rafsanjani," he said.
Much would hang on the position - as yet unclear - of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, who has shown pragmatic inclinations of his own on occasion but is heavily under the influence of hardline clerics vehemently opposed to rapprochement with the US.
Hadi Semati, an Iranian analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, said Mr Rafsanjani might be able to persuade the conservatives in Iran to be more receptive to dialogue with the US but only if the US was willing to moderate its position. And there was no sign of that, he said.
The most recent exposition of US policy towards Iran was delivered to a Senate hearing on May 19 by Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs. He spoke of the "perverted process" of the Iranian elections, the intolerance of its theocracy, the pain still felt by the US by the storming of its embassy in 1979, Iran's "appalling human rights record" and its support for terrorists.
European diplomats said yesterday that a victory by Mr Ahmadi-Nejad would complicate nuclear talks as the UK, France and Germany prepare to make a detailed compromise offer on curbing Iran's enrichment activities.
If Mr Ahmadi-Nejad presides over the executive in Iran, said one diplomat, Iran's engagement with Europe promoted by outgoing reformist president Mohammad Khatami would become more "difficult".
MAHMOUD AHMADI-NEJAD
CAREER
Age: 49:
Elected mayor of Tehran in 2003. A leading member of a rising hardline group calling themselves 'fundamentalists' and seeking to return to the ideals of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This new generation of politicians are fiercely loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in matters of state.
ON RELATIONS WITH US
"We should announce firmly that we will not accept imposed relations. But if the US gives up hostility and recognises our nation's rights, then there is the possibility of considering relations."
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