IMPACT OF US MID-TERM ELECTIONS ON THE “AXIS OF EVIL”

PARIS 8 Nov. (IPS) The Iranian ruling clerics do not lose one single occasion to state that the present US Administration, led by President George W. Bush, is hated both at home and by the international community, and promises the collapse of the US empire.

The outcome of the mid-term elections that gave President Bush a spectacular victory, placing both Senate and the House of Representatives under his control, -- a situation rarely seen in the history of the United States – is therefore a formidable rebuke to the Iranian leadership and is another slap for the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’í, who, despite a recent survey that showed clearly and without any ambiguity that a great majority of Iranians supports normalisation of relations with Washington, continue to state the contrary.

No doubt that Mr. Khameneh’í and his associates would continue to ignore the message of these elections, as demonstrated by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the Secretary of the Council of the Guardians who, in his Friday sermon, again reiterated that the “Iranian people were against of America” and charged that the famous survey was “fabricated” and those who conducted the polling were “spies, paid 45.000 US Dollars by the Americans”.

However, there is also no doubt that the results from these mid-term elections contain a “message” to the Iranian people: continue your unabated struggle for changing the theocracy into a real democracy.

In the following article, published by the Paris-based “Iran va Jahan” website, Dr Shaheen Fatemi, a veteran political analyst of Iran as well as the United States and Europe who teaches economics at the American University of Paris, reflects on the impact of the American elections over the Islamic Republic and other regimes Mr. Bush labelled as “evil states”, that also includes Iraq and North Korea.

The unprecedented outcome of the mid-term elections in America has significant implications far beyond the borders of the United States.

In spite of immense popularity of President Bush at home since the events of 9/11, in the European and some other countries, partly due to inaccurate and biased reporting of the press and partly due to the memories of the prolonged electoral controversies of the presidential race of 2000, the “Bush image” had remained a bit confused and somewhat negative in the public mind.

The message sent by this election stands in stark contrast to the perception of doubt and indecision, which was common two years ago. Ever since the events of 9/11, and its impact on the changing role of President Bush, the rest of the world has not been able to fully understand the political "sea change" which has occurred in America.

The message to the tyrannical regimes such as those currently in power in Iran, Iraq and North Korea, who are supporting international terrorism abroad and tyrannical oppression at home, should be a clear one: Your days are over! If you were counting on division among the American people and its government in Washington, you have miscalculated. At least for the next two years the government of the United States will remain committed to supporting democracy and free-market economics as the main objective of its foreign policy.

For the first time during the post-Cold War ear, there is a clear and well-defined goal associated with the global mission of the world's only remaining superpower.

The clarity and lack of ambiguity in such a policy will have an immense impact on the political make up of the governments in the Middle East as well as the rest of the developing world. The local dictatorships in this region who have survived either as outmoded legacies of the Cold War era such as the ones in Iraq and North Korea or as oddities resulting from the misguided American foreign policy of the Carter era, such as the one in Iran, are on the verge of extinction.

Such oddities cannot survive in a world of open communication and free exchange of ideas. Their centralized, bureaucratic and highly inefficient state-run economies are on the verge of total collapse. Their societies are in the state of total revolt, as is the case in Iran.

The reasoning behind this policy of open support for democracy and free-market economies is based on a very clear and correct notion that the West cannot continue to absorb millions of immigrants who continue to leave their countries in search of jobs and a decent living. Continued pressure of immigration will upset economic, political and social peace and harmony in the Western societies, spinally since as such immigration is abused by extremist and racist political movements.

Eradication of poverty and economic backwardness in the poor countries is the only effective solution to reducing the pressure of “invading” poor immigrants. Economic development in those societies is not possible as long as such societies are dominated by corrupt dictatorships which control both the political as well as the economic scenes.

Therefore, sooner or later, the Europeans as well as the Japanese will also realize that doing business with morally and politically corrupt regimes such the ones who rule in the "Axis of Evil" is not “good business” in the long-run. And then they too shall see the light and join the United States in support of genuinely free and democratic forms of government where people are in charge of their own political and economic destinies. ENDS US ELECTIONS 81102
Editor’s note: Highlights and some editorial changes are by IPS