U.S. Hardens Tone Toward Iran as Election Nears

WSJ

The Obama administration has sharply increased its economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran's rulers in recent weeks in a bid to shape how the country's presidential election on Friday is viewed both in and outside the country.

The highly public and critical U.S. strategy marks a sharp break from its approach toward Iran's last presidential election, in 2009, when the White House was focused on talks with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Iranian government to curb its nuclear program.

This year, American diplomats are publicly questioning the credibility of the June 14 election, which will elect a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, especially after two prominent politicians were banned by the government from participating.

The Treasury Department, meanwhile, has sought to aid the ability of the Iranian government's critics to communicate by dialing back restrictions on certain software and telecommunications equipment entering Iran.

The U.S. has also intensified its financial war on Tehran in recent weeks by seeking to ban the use of Iran's currency, the rial, internationally and sanctioning companies that allegedly laundered billions of dollars on behalf of Mr. Khamenei.

Those steps come as the Obama administration casts doubt on the international legitimacy of Iran's next president, who will come from a whittled-down ballot of six candidates and is expected to be a confidante of Mr. Khamenei.

"We witness a process that appears to be unfair, unjust and unrepresentative of the Iranian people who deserve better from their leaders and from their government," the State Department's No. 3 diplomat, Wendy Sherman, said of Iran's electoral process at a Senate hearing last week.

Four years ago, the U.S. largely refrained from commenting on the vote in the weeks leading up to it. President Barack Obama then was widely criticized by Iranian democracy campaigners and their supporters for not aggressively supporting opponents of the government who took to the streets to protest Mr. Ahmadinejad's re-election, which they alleged was fraudulently obtained.

Millions of Iranians are estimated to have taken part in the 2009 political unrest before it was violently put down by Mr. Khamenei's government. Many Middle East analysts believe the uprising helped galvanize other Mideast populations to rebel against their governments in recent years.

Since then, Obama administration officials have grown increasingly skeptical that negotiations with Tehran will result in it scaling back its nuclear program. U.S. officials question whether a new Iranian president will be able to alter Tehran's nuclear course when key policies are tightly controlled by Mr. Khamenei.
[image]

The Iranian leader has shown no willingness to make concessions during a string of negotiations with global powers that have taken place over the past four years, these officials said.

"In the run-up to Iran's 2009 presidential elections, the Obama administration hoped that a more conciliatory U.S. approach might beget a nuclear deal with Tehran," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "Four years later, no one has any illusions."

Of the six remaining candidates for Iran's presidency, five are confidantes of Mr. Khamenei.

The sixth, Hassan Rohani, a former nuclear negotiator, has been embraced by Iran's reformist camp, but isn't seen as having the political clout to challenge the supreme leader.

Iran's government banned from the election the two politicians seen as challenging Mr. Khamenei on Tehran's foreign policy: former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Meshaei, a close aide to Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Saaed Jalili, who is head of Iran's National Security Council and the country's lead nuclear negotiator, is seen as a favorite of the regime.

Though the candidates represent a narrow range of political views, the presidential debates have been more contentious and spirited than many Iran experts anticipated. Some candidates sharply criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad's government for its managing of the Iranian economy and for failing to reduce the impact of international sanctions.

They also attacked Mr. Jalili's record in overseeing the nuclear negotiations with the U.S. and other global powers, claiming they have made no progress after four years.

Iran analysts were particularly surprised that Mr. Khamenei's foreign-policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, was among the candidates most critical of Mr. Jalili's record. They said his remarks in a debate this week raised questions about whether the supreme leader is questioning Iran's approach to the nuclear talks.

"It is obvious Mr. Jalili doesn't want the nuclear talks to move forward," Mr. Velayati said during the debate. "Our diplomacy is obviously flawed."

Mr. Rohani is considered a wild-card in the election. When he served as Iran's chief nuclear negotiator in 2004, Tehran agreed to Western demands that it suspend its production of nuclear fuel. Some members of the political opposition, known as the Green Movement, have emerged to back his candidacy, potentially giving him a boost on Friday.

Iran analysts are split over the impact of the U.S. approach to the Iranian vote.

Democracy campaigners are encouraged that Washington is speaking out on human-rights issues heading into Friday's election.

But concerns remain that the tightening of sanctions will embolden hard-liners in Tehran, including Mr. Khamenei, who have opposed direct negotiations with the U.S.

"There is the reality that the hard-line U.S. policy could strengthen conservatives internally," said Alireza Nader, an Iran expert at the Rand Corp. in Washington.