Two pieces recently in the news show how at least one faction in the foreign policy establishment is going to great lengths to create victory for Ahmadinejad. The first, appearing in Politico, provocatively entitled Ahmadinejad won. Get over it is a sister piece to the second The Iranian People Speak, which appeared in WaPo yesterday. Come below the fold to see how consent is manufactured in the US media....
The Ballen and Doherty piece in WaPo entitled The Iranian People Speak discuss a poll conducted by their organization, the Washington-Based "Terror Free Tomorrow." This poll has already been debunked by Nate Silver at 538.com, who was among many observers that pointed out that B&D poll, while showing Ahmadinejad with a 2-1 lead over the next contender, has only 33% support. Moreover, a significant minority, 15%, refused to speak, and another 27% were undecided. In a nation like Iran in which expression is controlled and monitored, when 15% don't speak, it means they are voting for the opposition.
But on to the manufacture of consent. The piece in Politico that tells us all to "get over it" says:
More fundamentally, American "Iran experts" consistently underestimated Ahmadinejad’s base of support. Polling in Iran is notoriously difficult; most polls there are less than fully professional and, hence, produce results of questionable validity. But the one poll conducted before Friday’s election by a Western organization that was transparent about its methodology — a telephone poll carried out by the Washington-based Terror-Free Tomorrow from May 11 to 20 — found Ahmadinejad running 20 points ahead of Mousavi. This poll was conducted before the televised debates in which, as noted above, Ahmadinejad was perceived to have done well while Mousavi did poorly.
What's the connection? Here's the blurb at the bottom of the B&D piece:
Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups' May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
...and the blurb at the bottom of the Leverett piece:
Flynt Leverett directs The New America Foundation’s Iran Project and teaches international affairs at Pennsylvania State university. Hillary Mann Leverett is CEO of STRATEGA, a political risk consultancy. Both worked for many years on Middle East issues for the U.S. government, including as members of the National Security Council staff.
Hey! What a coincidence! Two pieces from individuals with links to the same foundation appear 24 hours apart in disparate media, both referring to the same poll from TFT. Obviously someone wants to whitewash the Ahmadinejad election.
Let's examine how the propaganda is being catapulted a bit more closely:
The Leverett (Politico) piece -- how do they deal with the election "irregularities"?
Without any evidence, many U.S. politicians and "Iran experts" have dismissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reelection Friday, with 62.6 percent of the vote, as fraud.
They ignore the fact that Ahmadinejad’s 62.6 percent of the vote in this year’s election is essentially the same as the 61.69 percent he received in the final count of the 2005 presidential election, when he trounced former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The shock of the "Iran experts" over Friday’s results is entirely self-generated, based on their preferred assumptions and wishful thinking.
......
With regard to electoral irregularities, the specific criticisms made by Mousavi — such as running out of ballot paper in some precincts and not keeping polls open long enough (even though polls stayed open for at least three hours after the announced closing time) — could not, in themselves, have tipped the outcome so clearly in Ahmadinejad’s favor.
Moreover, these irregularities do not, in themselves, amount to electoral fraud even by American legal standards. And, compared with the U.S. presidential election in Florida in 2000, the flaws in Iran’s electoral process seem less significant.
Similarly, the B&D piece (WaPO) merely observes....
Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world. Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, with the grave consequences such charges could bring, they should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.
Note that neither piece clearly and concretely grapples with the immense body of evidence that shows that the election was totally rigged: the shutdown of the texting systems in Iran and the turnout of state security forces, the multiple and conflicting vote totals, the accusations from regime-connected officials that the fix was in, the rejection of results by the oversight body specifically elected to oversee the vote count, and the massive protests all across Iran. Rather, each piece simple dismisses the "allegations" without examining them (the Politico piece by the Leveretts is especially ripe -- it simply begins "without any evidence" as if reality doesn't exist). The Leverett piece even piously mentions that Ahmadinejad won by 60% in Azeri land in 2005, without mentioning -- as Nate Silver points out -- that there were accusations of similar manipulation then as well.
Why the New America Foundation wishes to create the impression that Ahmadinejad won I will leave to the comments to sort out. Paid gig? Some right-wing establishment thing? Faction fight among the Iran experts (much foreign policy that is critical of other experts is actually the outgrowth of faction fights that never become public? Sheer contrariness?
You make the call.
Vorkosigan