The Obama administration has questioned Iran's assertion that its conservative leader was re-elected to office by a significant margin on Friday, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 12).
(Jun. 15) -
Supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi pass a burning police motorcycle during protests on Saturday. The United States has reserved judgment on the country's Friday election, in which conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed victory (Olivier Laban-Mattei/Getty Images).
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received 62.6 percent of vote, the nation's government announced.
"We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran, but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday.
Almost immediately after Clinton made her remarks, the White House issued a release referring to "reports of irregularities" in Friday's election while praising "the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated" (Carolyn Thompson, Associated Press/Google News, June 14).
U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden yesterday reaffirmed the administration's skepticism about the vote, Agence France-Presse reported.
"There is an awful lot of questions about how this election was run," Biden told NBC. "We are waiting to see. We don't have enough facts to make a firm judgment."
"It sure looks like the way they are suppressing speech, the way they're suppressing crowds, the way in which people are being treated, that there are some real doubts about [the election result]," Biden said. "Seventy percent of the vote comes out of the city, that's not Ahmadinejad's strong place. The idea he gets 68 or whatever percent of the vote in a circumstance like that seems unlikely."
Iran indicated that Ahmadinejad's closest competitor, moderate former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, won support from 34 percent of the electorate.
Biden stressed, though, that Washington was still willing to pursue dialogue with Tehran on its nuclear program.
"Our interests are the same before the election as after the election, and that is we want them to cease from seeking a nuclear weapon and having one in his possession and secondly to stop supporting terror," he said. "We are ready to talk."
"We are not going to allow Iran to go nuclear any more than the rest of the world is going to allow Iran to go nuclear," Biden added (Jim Mannion, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, June 14).
Negotiating a compromise on Iran's disputed nuclear activities would be much harder if Ahmadinejad retained power, Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told AP. Washington and other Western governments have expressed concern that Iran's nuclear program could support nuclear-weapon development, but Tehran has insisted the effort is strictly aimed at generating electricity.
"It's going to make it incredibly difficult for the Obama administration to acquiesce on Iran's enrichment of uranium," Sadjadpour said, referring to a process that can produce nuclear power plant fuel but also nuclear-weapon material.
"I don't see the probability of Ahmadinejad taking a more moderate or conciliatory approach his second time around. Similar to what President Bush said when he was re-elected in 2004, he said, 'I've earned political capital, and now I am going to use it'" (Thompson, Associated Press).
President Barack Obama did not call in high-level officials yesterday to discuss the election, but he reviewed intelligence from Iran and discussed the situation with Biden before the vice president's appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," the New York Times reported.
Some members of the administration pushed for a stronger critique of the vote, but diplomats called for a more subdued statement that would not throw overtures for diplomacy in jeopardy, one high-level U.S. official said.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana indicated through his spokeswoman that if Iran took "unacceptable actions," the Middle Eastern state could force the United States and its allies to step away from diplomatic outreach (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, June 15).
"The [EU] presidency hopes that the outcome of the presidential elections will bring the opportunity to resume dialogue on the nuclear issue and clear up the Iranian position in this regard," the Czech Republic, which now hold the European Union's rotating presidency, said in a statement.
"The presidency expects the new government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will take its responsibility towards the international community and respect its international obligations," the release says, according to Reuters (Reuters I, June 14).
Ahmadinejad yesterday indicated that his nuclear stance would not change, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
"Iran's nuclear issue belongs to the past. ... Now we want a global disarmament of nuclear weapons," Ahmadinejad said. "We express our readiness to participate in and manage (the issue)."
Ahmadinejad's government has primarily expressed interest in entering broad disarmament negotiations with other nations while playing down the possibility of talks aimed at halting its own controversial nuclear activities.
When questioned about the possibility of U.S. or Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, Ahmadinejad said: "These are just the propaganda. No power dares to threaten Iran ... Iran will make any attacker regret it. There is no possibility that one does such a stupidity" (Xinhua News Agency, June 14).
Meanwhile, an organization of Iranian exiles urged Western powers to drop their "policy of appeasement" in order to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Reuters reported.
"Sadly Iran will get the bomb if the West continues with its strategy of negotiations. This is just giving the mullahs more time to play with," said Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
The organization brought Iran's nuclear activities to light in 2002 but is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. government.
"Lots of sources say they will get the bomb in 1-1/2 years, but Ahmadinejad will now speed things up and he will have the bomb in one year maximum," Rajavi said.
"The West can stop the nuclear program if they stand up to the mullahs. They need strong sanctions, generalized sanctions on oil, on the economy and political sanctions," she added (Crispian Balmer, Reuters II, June 13).