Persians push for Bush
As long President Bush stands with the Iranian
people, the Iranian people will stand with him
February 15, 2005
iranian.com
The BBC world service website recently released
the results of their 2004 presidential poll. Of the sixteen linguistic
ethnical groups surveyed, Persians were overwhelmingly the most
supportive of President Bush. In fact, over fifty two percent of
Iranians preferred Republican George W. Bush to challenger John
Kerry who'd received a minuscule forty two percent of the
vote. Thus, surprisingly, unlike in the United States where the
presidential race was relegated to a couple of percentage points,
in Iran - President Bush won by a landslide.
Numerous other sources of plausible acclaim have confirmed these
results. Renowned intellectuals, as well as award-winning journalists
have written pieces on this critical issue. For instance, Pulitzer
Prize winner Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times who spent an
entire week in the country recently wrote, "Finally, I've
found a pro-American country.
Everywhere I've gone in Iran,
with one exception, people have been exceptionally friendly and
fulsome in their praise for the United States, and often for
President George W. Bush as well." Thomas Friedman another Pulitzer
Prize winner and ardent critic of the war in Iraq wrote "young
Iranians are loving anything their government hates, such as
Mr.
Bush, and hating anything their government loves. Iran . . .
is the ultimate red state."
The well-documented emphatically pro-Bush leaning in Iran, which
is relatively widespread, has perplexed many western technocrats.
Part of the answer may be that Iran is changing at such a rapid
rate that the media has had a difficult time reporting and/or understanding
the situation inside the country. Also, Friedman may be right that "young
Iranians are loving anything their government hates, such as Mr.
Bush and hating anything their government loves", but there
are even deeper social as well as geopolitical reasons such as
the availability of satellite dishes and the internet.
Millions of Iranian homes receive illegal satellite television
beamed in by Iranian-American expatriates in California. With a
mix of pop music, political discussion and international news these
stations have had a profound impact on the cultural, and political
situation inside of Iran. The Iranian dictatorship has repeatedly
tried to crackdown on these dishes as well as the Internet, but
they've been largely unsuccessful. Presently, it is estimated
that between five to seven million homes receive satellite television
and an estimated three million have Internet access. Hence, to
the dissatisfaction of the reigning ayatollahs Iranians do not
live in a closed off cave.
Due to the availability of satellite television, millions of
Iranians were able to hear President Bush's State of the
Union speech. The Persians were once again encouraged by the President's
vision when he said "To the Iranian people, I say tonight:
As you stand for your own liberty, America Stands with you." thereby
reiterating his support to the Iranian freedom fighters inside
of the Islamic Republic. Several political analysts have confirmed
that this was in direct reference to the pro-democracy movement
in Iran. "The President was sending a message to the people
of Iran that if they rise up America will stand by their side," said
political analyst Charles Krauthammer.
 Of course, President Bush's declaration of support to the
Iranian youth does not mean military intervention for the purpose
of regime change. According to a recent poll by the National Iranian
American Council a non-profit civic organization in the United
States over ninety percent of Iranian-Americans are against any
type of military attack on Iran. In fact, although Iranians are
openly pro-American any type of military attack by the United States
and/or Israel will turn the nationalist population in Iran immediately
anti-American.
The political ideology advocated by the Republican Party for
a free, democratic Iran is one of a peaceful transition to democracy.
For example, Republican Senator Rick Santorum recently introduced
the Iran Freedom and Support Act, legislation that commits America
to "actively support a national referendum in Iran with oversight
by international observers and monitors to certify the integrity
and fairness of the referendum." The act further calls for
financial and moral support to pro-democracy groups as a means
towards a peaceful transition to regime change. There is no mention
of military intervention, nor has there ever been any such mention.
Many questionable organizations have promoted a theory originally
initiated by Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani dubbed the 'Nationalistic
Tactic'.' This theory rallies nationalistic feelings around
a fictional military invasion of Iran as a final survival tool
for the dying regime in Iran. The strategy calls for the suffocation
of the free exchange of ideas within the Iranian community and
for the luring of naïve apolitical Iranians with nationalistic
pride.
 In the end, the theory calls for barraging the truth to
such a degree that anyone speaking otherwise is regarded as an
enemy of Iran. Unfortunately these groups are far from doing
a service to the people of Iran and should not be regarded as friends
of freedom. Luckily, in spite of their propaganda campaign polls
from within Iran show that people of Iran have not been fooled.
As evidenced by a Tehran University student who said, "The
Iranian people support President Bush because he supports our cause.
As long President Bush stands with the Iranian people, the Iranian
people will stand with him."
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