One Voice Among Many

For the United States, promoting democracy in Iran these days is no easy task. Push too hard for the reformists and America risks making Iran’s democracy advocates look beholden to America. Speak up too much and the budding democratic movement in Iran might fail. Yet doing nothing is an unacceptable alternative—simply neglecting the situation affronts America’s fundamental democratic beliefs.

Now that Iran’s Guardian Council has kicked more than 2000 reformist candidates off the ballot for this month’s parliamentary elections, this bind between sticking to ideals and satisfying the demands of pragmatism is even more acute. Such a flagrant disregard for the democratic process should not go unchecked. But the U.S. cannot stand alone and expect to do any good; America’s voice should be one of many objecting to Iran’s anti-democratic behavior. President Bush should leave his undue pride on the doorstep and approach the United Nations to pass a resolution condemning the Guardian Council’s actions.

There are two reasons to go to the U.N. First, it would help the message. After Bush identified Iran as a part of the Axis of Evil during last year’s State of the Union Address, it is not surprising that many Iranians dislike the United States. The president’s unnecessarily overblown talk of American crusades against Islamic terrorism didn’t help, either. A Security Council declaration condemning Iran’s Guardian Council might get the message across to a few Iranians that would otherwise have blown off a purely American objection. Second, going to the U.N. would also help the United States regain a little of its credibility lost after the Iraq war. Bush should be trying to buck the image of the go-it-alone cowboy and demonstrate that he has at least the capacity to be a team player.

But a Security Council resolution could easily get passed off as just empty words. So it is up to the Bush administration to pull whatever diplomatic strings it can to help the reformists. The Bush administration has productively exerted pressure before, helping the International Atomic Energy Agency get inspectors into Iran to monitor the regime’s weapons program last year, for instance. The United States should also use diplomatic channels to encourage the European community to exploit the economic leverage it has over Iran. European countries such as France, Germany and even Russia have a lot more they can threaten to take away from Iran if the theocrats continue to stifle the democratic movement. Indeed, Russia has assisted in the construction of a nuclear reactor in northern Iran; the prospect of losing that help just might get the Guardian Council’s attention.

The last thing President Bush should do is use the kind of loudmouth language that has distinguished his rhetoric about Iran and Iraq in the past. More on the Axis of Evil won’t help us, and it certainly won’t help Iran’s reformists. In this case, we hope that the president will take a hint from his own campaign plank in 2000—that the United States should be proud, yet humble.