Iranian Elections an Opportunity

By Dale McFeatters

Scripps Howard News Service

Like many of his predecessors, President Barack Obama, at least during the campaign, seemed to feel that he could succeed with Iran where others had failed.

In an interview aimed at the Muslim world, he told an Arab news channel, ``If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they find an extended hand from us." Iran's erratic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Iran would welcome talks based on ``mutual respect," whatever that means. And this week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the two nations needed to "work out a way of talking."

The fact is, we've tried ― pleading (Carter), bribery (Reagan), bluster (the second Bush) ― nothing has worked. But we do have a lot to talk about.

There are issues of mutual concern like Afghanistan, the security of the Persian Gulf and Iraq, even though the recent Iraqi elections may have substantially undercut Iranian influence.

And there are issues of intense disagreement like Iran's potential to build nuclear weapons and its demonstrated capacity to build intercontinental missiles. Three rounds of U.N. sanctions have failed to budge Iran on its nuclear program.

The nuclear weapons capability must be largely a matter of national pride, a way of showing off in the Mideast. Militarily the nukes would be useless and even dangerous if Israel becomes sufficiently alarmed.

But there is a possible turning point ― Iran's June 12 presidential elections. The voting is free but the elections themselves are rigged in the sense that Iran's theocracy screens the candidates, allowing only those it approves on to the ballot.

Ahmadinejad was popular at the outset of this term but he has failed to deliver on his promises to the poor and unemployed and now, with the falling price of oil, couldn't deliver on them if he wanted to.

And it hasn't been lost on the Iranian elites that Ahmadinejad has been an embarrassment abroad. Surely his convening of a Holocaust denial conference made educated Iranians cringe.

And now the scrappy little president has an opponent ― Ali Khatami, a reformist cleric who was Iran's president from 1997-2005.

One of Khatami's goals was better relations with the United States and he even delivered a televised address to the American audiences. Like many of his reforms, this one was thwarted by the senior clerics who hold the real power.

But if the fist is to be unclenched Khatami is the more likely to do it and be truly receptive to talks with the U.S. as well.

Dale McFeatters is an editorial writer of Scripps Howard News Service (www.shns.com).