Gush Watch

Just to add to Greg's post on our event in Washington yesterday, I'd like to remind readers to not get taken up by the cursory gushing of a few commentators regarding tomorrow's presidential election in Iran.

For some perspective, I would recommend the more stayed and balanced analysis of Laura Secor:

These days, Mousavi calls himself both a reformist and a believer in revolutionary "principles" (the latter is a catch-phrase among the fundamentalists around Ahmadinejad), and he enjoys support from both camps. He has accepted the endorsement of the main reformist party, but at the same time, he has made a point of keeping his distance. In a televised presidential debate with Ahmadinejad on June 3, Mousavi openly accused the president of dictatorial tendencies. From his public statements, it seems likely that as president, Mousavi would ease up on political repression and bring technocrats back into government (under Ahmadinejad, they have been replaced largely by political cronies). These are important steps for the long-term health of Iran's economy and civil society, but it would be foolish to expect even as significant a change as that which followed Khatami's election in 1997.

Mousavi is not Iran's Barack Obama. He's more like John Kerry, and this election year is strikingly like 2004 in the United States. The incumbent president is deeply unpopular at home and abroad. He came to power with a dubious mandate, but governed in a polarizing fashion that has divided even his one-time allies. Iranians have paid the price in every area of life that is touched by the government. The election is Mousavi's to lose--but to win it, he will need to unite a divided opposition, and inspire at least a few of the beleaguered urban voters who have stopped going to the polls.