RUTHFULLY YOURS

Any distinction between “extremists” and “moderates” in Iran’s political establishment is false.

Whatever the results of the upcoming Iranian elections, there will be no shift in Tehran’s human rights violations or core aims of regional hegemony and pursuit of nuclear weapons.

What does matter is the behavior of the West, particularly the United States, in the near future. If it again resorts to cooperating with Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria, Khamenei will not only be able to pursue his regional and global interests unfettered, but will be better equipped to contain crises at home.

The presidential elections in Iran, scheduled for May 19, have observers wondering whether the “white turban” incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, will retain his position, or be defeated by his likely contender, the “black turban” mullah, Ebrahim Raisi, known for his key role in the 1988 massacre of more than 30,000 political prisoners.

Iran’s elections have observers wondering whether the “white turban” incumbent, Hassan Rouhani (left), will retain his position or be defeated by his likely contender, Ebrahim Raisi (right), the “black turban” mullah. (Images source: Wikimedia Commons).

More importantly, the question on Western minds is how and in what way the Islamic Republic will be affected by either outcome.

The two periods in Iran’s recent history that need to be examined in order to answer this question are that of the tenure of former firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005 to 2013), who also announced he is running again, and the one that has followed under Rouhani.

At the outset of the Ahmadinejad era, Iran’s GDP (using purchasing power parity) soared beyond $1 trillion, and two of the country’s greatest threats — Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Afghanistan under the Taliban — were eliminated. Both enabled Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to solidify his stronghold.

Midway through this period, however, Iran’s economy fell sharply. Iran became the country with the fifth highest inflation rate in the world. Iran fell into a serious recession, and millions of Iranians found themselves unemployed. All this was going on even before the international community imposed sanctions on the regime in Tehran.

In the years that followed Ahmadinejad’s replacement by the so-called “moderate” Rouhani, sanctions were lifted; oil exports reached pre-sanction levels; billions of dollars’ worth of assets abroad were unfrozen; and hundreds of agreements were signed to expand business transactions with the West.

Nevertheless, the last year of Rouhani’s first term was characterized by yet another economic crisis, summarized in March by Iranian Road and Construction Minister Abbas Akhoondi as: banks going bankrupt, crippling national debt and low economic efficiency.

This isn’t the kind of victory that Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted.

Turkey’s president, after all, has long enjoyed most of the executive powers that he formally obtained in Sunday’s vote on constitutional changes. His role as head of the country’s governing party, with its pliant parliamentary majority, ensured that real authority was already concentrated in the presidential palace.

What Mr. Erdogan needed, after the July coup attempt against him, was a public affirmation of his leadership—and of his drive to root out dissent. That drive saw hundreds of thousands of opponents, including most leaders of the second-largest opposition party in parliament, hounded from their jobs or thrown behind bars.

With the broadcast media under tight state control and “No” campaigners branded by government officials as traitors or terrorists, Mr. Erdogan’ aides just a few weeks ago confidently predicted that “Yes” would carry the referendum by 60% or more.

Instead, despite all the intimidation and the widespread reports of fraud during Sunday’s vote, the preliminary results, as released by Anadolu state news agency, showed “Yes” barely eking it out at 51.2% versus 48.8%.

That didn’t deter Mr. Erdogan from issuing congratulations on the victory. “The entire country has triumphed,” he said, calling for an end to “unnecessary discussions.”

In a speech to a crowd of supporters gathered under the rain in front of the ruling party’s headquarters, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim described the vote as providing a popular mandate for Mr. Erdogan. “It’s a turning point in the history of our democracy,” he said. “Against the traitors and dividers we stood united as a nation.”

Yet, instead of cementing Mr. Erdogan’s authority, such a thin—and contested—margin may end up threatening his ability to govern unchallenged in the months to come.

“Erdogan may discover that this is a Pyrrhic victory,” said Henri Barkey, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “He may have won now, but he may find that in the medium term opposition to him at home and abroad may harden.”

Turkey’s opposition politicians have already claimed that massive fraud has occurred, particularly in the ruling party’s strongholds in rural Anatolia and in the war-ravaged Kurdish areas of southeast Turkey. These complaints are likely to further delegitimize the result in the eyes of many Turks opposed to Mr. Erdogan.

“It’s the first election in which people have serious doubts about the legitimacy of the process,” said Asli Aydintasbas, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “This means nothing gets solved, and this remains a deeply polarized and divided country. That’s a very dangerous place to be in.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Images of protesters in Caracas running through clouds of tear gas and bloodied by state security forces have been front and center in recent media coverage of Venezuela. Other cities around the country also have been hit hard by police, national guard troops and the regime’s paramilitary forces as the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro tries to contain a wildfire of rebellion.

Since 1999, when Hugo Chávez launched his Bolivarian revolution, sporadic periods of social unrest have been quashed with force. But this time things are different. The government is running out of money to buy imports, and since it has crippled domestic production, privation is growing more profound.

These protests were initially sparked by the Supreme Court’s attempt to shut down the opposition-controlled National Assembly. They have flourished because of hunger. Venezuela remains a long way from a return to the modern liberal democracy that its 1961 constitution envisioned. But the status quo is unsustainable.

So far this month pro-government militias or the police have allegedly killed three protesters in and around Barquisimeto, the capital city of Lara state. A demonstrator was fatally shot in Valencia—the third largest city in the country—and the governor of Carabobo state has admitted that the police were responsible. Another young protester was killed in a satellite city of Caracas, and an 87-year-old Caracas woman died when tear gas inundated her home.

Roving bands of government-sponsored militias terrorize civil society as they have for more than a decade. On Wednesday one gang burst into the Basilica of St. Teresa in Caracas, where Cardinal Jorge Urosa was to say Mass, and began attacking parishioners.

Yet protests are swelling and becoming more frequent. Video taken from a tall Caracas building on April 8 captures a mass of humanity blanketing the wide Avenida Francisco Miranda as far as the eye can see.

At a February forum for youth in Miranda state, a 16-year-old girl politely informed Mr. Maduro that students in her school often faint from hunger. She also reported a hole in the school roof and a shortage of desks.

The young men in the streets have a different way of communicating, oozing fury as they dart among heavily armed security forces. Casualties only stiffen their resolve. Mr. Maduro was pelted with stones as he left a military rally in Bolívar state last week. CONTINUE AT SITE