The election of Mahmud Ahmadineyad has been a surprise the experts of the main media did not expect. In fact, due to his profile, it is difficult to know what to anticipate. Ahmadineyad is the first president of the Islamist Republic who is not a religious despite being faithful to the theocratic model. He is the first former Revolution Guardian to reach such a post; he embodies a new generation of Iranian political leaders and was elected on the bases of a socialist program. It is difficult to anticipate what his next measures and policy will be. To such uncertainty, the hesitation of certain Atlantist circles with regard to a possible attack against Iran, an adversary that could be complicated and could retaliate firmly, must be added. This series of doubts can be perceived in the forums published by the Atlantist authors and their traditional transmission carried out by Israel. The beautiful unity that usually prevails in topics such as Syria, Lebanon or Iraq has been destroyed.

Such division is not seen in France. The analysis of the results of the Iranian elections is still dominated by a binary approach between “reformists” you can trust a little bit and “conservatives” you must not trust, for certain.
Thus, in Le Figaro, the former spokesperson of the Lebanese Christian phalanx, the director of the Observatory of the Arab Countries, Antoine Bashous, has been concerned with the hardening of the regimen. He thinks Iran is getting ready to confront the United States and an Iranian youth the government can not longer organize. Due to a coming confrontation in two fronts, the government closes ranks around Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the revolution. The author anticipates Iran will soon be like the Afghanistan of the Taliban.
_On his side, Atlantist analyst Bruno Tertrais has said in Le Monde that the election of a conservative in Iran will make discussions with the European Union more difficult. For him, Ahmadineyad is supported by those who want Iran to have nuclear armament and do not want to discuss with the United States. Tertrais thinks Iranians want to save time thanks to the negotiations and take advantage of them to develop the facilities to manufacture nuclear weapons.
However, in the same newspaper, Farhad Khosrokhavar, a researcher of the School for Higher Studies in the Social Sciences has deepened the analysis. For him, this election has shown the exhaustion of the reformists who abstained, but above all, it has shown the development of the popular sector of the population towards the egalitarianism preached by the conservative Shiites. Although he is not happy for the election of a president he considers an Iranian “neoconservative”, he affirms progress can be expected on the nuclear negotiations: today the Iranian government is coherent and this will make discussions a lot easier.

Outside France, however, positions are more surprising. Iranian analyst of neoconservative public relations office Benador Associates, Amir Taheri, has launched attacks against Ahmadineyad in the Gulf News that have been published in the international media. For him, the accusation regarding the participation of the new president in the taking of hostages of the American embassy in 1979 is not founded. On the contrary, Ahmadineyad opposed this kidnap. The author is much more inclined to believe the accusations on his involvement in the death of the three Iranian Kurds in Vienna in 1989. But he does it to minimize his role and to question whether he knew the crime was being prepared.
Mahan Abedin, collaborator of Daniel Pipes, has made also an ambiguous analysis in the Daily Star. The new Iranian president was elected on the basis of a social program; he is not a mullah but was supported by supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini and a new generation aimed at taking the Islamic Revolution back to its original course. Starting from this premise, his hypothesis is that the traditional conservative Iranian circles might not accept this newcomer easily. Nevertheless, he has reached to a double conclusion: there can not be a change of regime in Iran. For the author, does it mean Iran is not capable of reforming itself without a foreign intervention he wants? Or does it mean the population is too clung to the ideals of the Revolution of 1979 to allow the imposition of a regime allied to Washington? It is difficult to know what Abedin actually thinks about this.
However, all neoconservative circles are neither that ambiguous or show the same care. After occupying for three days the pages of the Washington Times last week, Kenneth Timmerman, of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, insists on his anti Iranian propaganda in the Jerusalem Post. According to him, there is no doubt Ahmadineyad got the power thanks to rigged elections, is an extremist and wants to develop the Iranian nuclear program at all costs. For Timmerman, Iran has acquired some fifteen nuclear warheads with the assistance of Pakistan, China and Russia and with the tacit complicity of Germany. Nowadays, Teheran is about to equip long range missiles with the said warheads and the United States can not expect anything from the United Nations Security Council. This is the reason why he invites the United States and Israel to quickly attack the Islamic Republic.

On the other side of the geopolitical board, pro- Syria analyst Patrick Seale has shown an unusual enthusiasm with regard to Mahmud Ahmadineyad. In the Gulf News and in the Dar Al-Hayat, Seale affirms the new president will implement a social and nationalist policy that could be an example for its Arab neighbors. For Seale, Iran benefits today from the oil and the close links with China and Russia, whereas the United States is bog down in Iraq, a situation that favors Ahmadineyad. The idyllic vision presented by the author can be approached in a relative way for the issue of an attack against Iran has not been decided by Washington. Actually, what the analyst has welcomed is the defeat of Ali Rafsanjani. It was thought he was willing to sacrifice his alliance with Damascus and the Hezbollah in the interest of an understanding with Washington.

Voltaire Network