IRAN AND THE WORLD

Iran is an important country of the Persian Gulf region, a non-

Arab Islamic Republic with huge deposit of oil. It is a Shiite dominated
Islamic Republic in the midst of Sunni populated Muslim countries like
Iraq and Pakistan. While its oil riches made it a prosperous country, the
oil deposits rendered it a politically sensitive and dangerous field of
super power rivalry and manoeuvres. Iran is now ruled by a cliché of
Islamic Shia clerics under the constitutionally instituted Supreme
Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, who has the last word on the
state matters and advised by the constitutionally instituted
“Expediency Council”, a powerful clerical body that arbitrates disputes
between the legislature and the government. The electoral process
monitored by “the Guardian Council”, an oversight body constituted to
oversee elections in Iran, elects the President of Iran as head of the
Government.

NUCLEAR PATH

Iran’s nuclear ambitions are posing a serious problem to the

United States of America, Britain and other western countries in the
background of increasing differences between them concerning
Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and such political issues of West Asia.
Though Iranian need of electric power is genuine, the difference
between the peaceful use of nuclear energy and its use for producing
nuclear weapons is rather thin, and the United States of America and
other western countries fear that nuclear weapons and technology in
the hands of Iran is a sure passport for its proliferation to other Islamic
countries in West Asia and subsequently to Islamic militants. USA
named Iran along with North Korea and Syria as an “Axis of Evil” and
calls them as rogue countries. But, world opinion against has not
deterred Iran from its nuclear path like North Korea though made Iran
circumspect and somewhat retarded its progress in this direction.
Russia supports and collaborates with Iran in the latter’s nuclear
ambitions.

2009 ELECTION DISPUTE

The Iranian Elections have got a very important significance for

all the countries in the world. The United States of America under
President Barack Obama is planning to become friends with Iran and
this election that was held in 2009 hold utmost significance when it
comes to the future of the world. President Ahmedenijad won the
elections again in 2009 with huge eleven million votes. However, his
main opponent in the election, Mousavi and his followers and
supporters mainly constituted of students refused to accept the defeat
and claimed that elections were rigged and that Mousavi would have
won the election if it was held fairly. A very large number of followers
and supporters of Mousavi came on streets against the election results
and there were wide spread protests and violence in Tehran and other
Iranian cities for many days. Iran also saw counter protests from the
supporters of Ahmedenijad and factional fights ensued on Iranian
streets. Iranian Government crushed the rebellion with firm hand and
brought peace again to the streets of Iran. Iranian Government argued
that the huge swing of eleven million votes itself disprove the theory of
rigging and unequivocally proves the popularity and majority of
Ahmedenijad in the election. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali
Khomeini, after due deliberations announced that he was satisfied with
the election results and expressed his suspicion about outside
conspiracies to destabilize Iran. He called protestors to stop agitation.
Only after strong-arm methods by the Iranian security forces, Mousavi
reluctantly agreed to distance from the agitation and peace slowly
returned to Iran. The people of Iran are caught in the middle in this
event.

Iran went aggressively against Britain blaming it for conspiring

and inspiring the agitation and arrested Iranian staff of the British
Embassy in Iran for involvement in inspiring the agitation. It was for
the first time ever that Iran blamed a western country other than USA
for mischief in the country though it blamed President Barack Obama
of following the policy of President Bush in the incident. It also means
that the President Barack Obama magic is working on Iran. It is a good
sign. China and Russia supported the Election results while western
countries generally supported Mousavi. Most of the World Press
commented on these elections with different opinions and judgments.
Germany’s newspapers have all been on the side of Mousavi. The
United States of America under President Barack Obama showed
commendable restraint by calling the whole affair as unfortunate and
remained unnaturally quiet and rather bland on the whole on this topic.

RELATIONSHIP WITH BRITAIN

The leaders of Iran say that the post-election agitation in Iran is

due to external conspiracies that amounted to interference with its
internal affairs and caused lots of harm to Iranian interests.

They primarily blamed Britain. They have not blamed the United
States of America and this can be because of the ‘Obama effect’.
Iranian leaders called Britain as the most evil country in the western
hemisphere of the world. This blame game infuriated Britain and united
them in condemning Iran for the accusation. The Opposition MPs of
Britain who usually boo the Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown in
Parliament, applauded him for a break when he took on Iran for those
accusations.

Then Iran threw two British diplomats and a BBC journalist out of
the country and arrested a British journalist for involvement in the
unrest. Britain in response threw out two Iranian diplomats. Iran
arrested a few Iranian officials of the British embassy for instigating
the unrest and announced trying them in Iran. Britain has been talking
about closing down its mission in Iran.

Britain has a history of bad relationship with Iran and its

misadventures in the Iranian election independent of the United States
of America further added to the embitterment. Iranians already see
Britain as the “small Satan”.

OBAMA MAGIC

Mousavi has not shown any form of grace at all during the
agitation. Massive demonstrations from both sides on the streets of
Tehran and other places in Iran resulted in other countries taking sides
in the election, though it is purely an internal matter of I ran and a
dispute between its people and the Government. The Mousavi party
has said that these elections were sabotaged, even though, elections
just cannot be sabotaged in such a way that five million votes can
swing.
 Mousavi has not taken his defeat in good grace. This much is
obvious. Neighboring countries as well as Russia and China have
accepted the results of the Iranian election in a fair sense. However,
Britain and the United States were openly vague in their responses.

President Obama has been criticized quite a bit because of his

vague and rather wrong stance in support of Britain in the matter. The
United States of America has expressed sympathy for the protesters
and was criticized for this and for the indecisive manner of handling of
this whole issue. It has already corroded the Obama Magic in Iran and
he will have to do some thing to redeem it.

The famous Cairo speech of Obama has somewhat smoothened

Iran’s hurt feelings towards the United States. How Obama will handle
Iran and its nuclear ambitions is a trillion dollar question and decide
the future of the world and mankind.