Iranian Elections: What Do You Know, And Why Should They Care?

Michael Moynihan notes below quoting Richard Just from New Republic, "so many Americans of so many different political inclinations are watching a struggle over freedom in a faraway place, and are ready to take sides" (an outcome that strikes me as dangerous and to be feared, by the way, not to be cheered, as it's the impetus to all sorts of potentially dangerous and destructive actions on the part of the U.S. government). Ryan Sager at the True/Slant site wonders what's behind all this side-taking:

I believe the Iranian election was stolen. Millions of Americans believe the same. Millions of Iranians believe the same.

But how, exactly, have we come to hold this opinion?….

….many Americans are constructing a narrative where the great mass of Iranians wanted to throw out Ahmadinejad — despite the fact that some 40%-50% of Iranians, in the best polls we have, were perfectly happy to reelect him.

It seems a few common errors are occurring here….

* Projection: Americans are projecting their hatred of Ahmadinejad onto the mass of the Iranian people.

* Confirmation bias: People, on both sides, filter all the information they take in through their own preconceptions — particularly easy to do when all the information coming out of Iran is a mishmash of rumor and propaganda.

* Halo effect: Thinking only bad (or good) things about the Iranian regime makes one think all of its characteristics and actions must be bad (or good)…..

Writing our own little narrative of what must be going on is unavoidable — humans need stories — but it's worth keeping in mind at all times that we're in the "fog of war," and the "truth" we think we're uniquely privy to is changing every instant.

As much as I admire the work being done by bloggers in this haze — see, of course, Andrew Sullivan — it's doubly biased: The bloggers are looking only for anti-regime information, and the readers are absorbing only anti-regime information. If there are mistakes, these mistakes will be remembered as the truth — even if corrected.

Ron Jacobs at Counterpunch notes the subtle insinuation in New York Times reporting that American opinion on the Iranian elections should matter to Iranian voters, and asks: Why is that?

[The Times' Bill] Keller's most honest analytical statement in his entire piece: "Saturday was a day of smoldering anger, crushed hopes and punctured illusions, from the streets of Tehran to the policy centers of Western capitals."  Keller and his fellow journalists accept that the desires of Western capitals, especially Washington, should be important to Iranians.  While this may certainly be the case among a small number of the intelligentsia and business community in Iran, the fact is that the West, especially Washington, is still not very popular among the Iranian masses.  Not only are they aware of decades of western intervention in their affairs, the fact that thousands of US troops continue to battle forces in two of Iran's neighbors makes Washington unwanted and detested.  Why should they do anything to please it?  Yet, in the minds of the US news media, it is Washington's needs that dominate all discussion.