Ground temperature reading in Iran

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 27 November 2004

As we contemplate the newsletter, we hope to catch and package the best of the responses we get to the blog. The following email is a good example. Where do I find this guy and his information? I don't. He finds me.

The Internet permits this sort of data-free research: I'm a pattern spotter. I've had certain patterns in my mind about Iran for years, and so I keep pushing certain ideas, waiting for the data to appear. That's really all futurism is: spotting the weather changes on the horizon and then waiting for the evidence to appear.

I wrote a blog recently about the proposed return of their old president Rafsanjani, who ruled with some moderation across most of the nineties, only to be replaced by (at the time) even stronger reformist Khatami (who, like Rafsanjani in 1997, is also looking long in the tooth in terms of reform, but his excuses [9/11; Axis of Evil speech] were at least better). The article cited a lot of conventional wisdom among the political commentariat of Iran that Rafsanjani would be a serious--even leading--candidate to replace Khatami. If true, it would be a Nixon '68-like resurrection.

I liked the article because it told me that--at least among the political elite--there was a groundswell for a return to the practicalism of the mid-1990s, or before this recent return to hard-line nonsense. So to me, the discussion itself was the interesting sign, not whether Rafsanjani is the guy. The better outcome would be, of course, an even stronger but lower (meaning on the street) groundswell for someone not so used up and perhaps with both more domestic political capital and external diplomatic standing to rise up and be the next president. I'm still looking for someone Nixon-like, meaning someone who can talk the hard-line talk (can't pass mullah muster otherwise, and rememeber: the only good reformist presidential candidate is the one who can actually win), but has the sense to go to Washington before the Pentagon comes to Tehran.

Who would such a person be? And does this groundswell exist?

One data point arrive in the email from a YoungHusband just back from Iran. If you check out his site listed below, you'll see an obvious bias (good one, but obvious), so you judge his judgment as you see fit. Clearly he wants change too, but that's no reason to doubt his analysis of Rafsanjani vis-a-vis other potential candidates.

Here's his email to me:

Mr. Barnett,

Great book, love the blog. Now onto this: /weblog/archives2/001166.html

I just returned from a month in Iran, and my feelings on the ground are that Rafsanjani doesn't have a chance if he gets vetted for the next election. He is the target of much scorn on the part of the Iranian people, and is considered a greedy opportunist that used his terms as prez to cash in. Out of every person I talked to, young and old, no one said that they would vote for Raf. In fact, one guy told me he would vote for Tony Blair in the next election and another told me George Bush! But by far the most popular candidate seemed to be Rohani, the man currently negotiating with the EU3. Another candidate that popped up was Molavi.

But of course Iran has notoriously low election turnout (somewhere around 50%) and if there is some meddling by the Council like earlier this year. . . http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3510573.stm

Just passing on some news from the street.

Younghusband

http://www.cominganarchy.com

We're at a weird point with Iran that is very similar to late Brezhnevian Russia: this is the only country in the region where the government hates us but the people basically like us. Elsewhere, it's mostly the other way around.

This is one of many reasons why I think the U.S. needs to rethink its approach to Iran, something I write about in the February issue of Esquire (a piece I'm still editing with Mark Warren). I expect more hate mail than I can possibly answer on that one! But you need to remember one thing when you finally read that one: it's not about the means but the ends in foreign policy, which is always a realistic balancing of security requirements and economic needs--and it's always (at least for us) about getting what America wants. That's the discussion we so rarely have in this country: not about what we think others want us to do or what we think history wants us to do, but about what we--deep down--know what we want from the outside world because it's right, it makes sense, and it'll keep us who we are.