Theodore Couloumbis – Two Steps Forward, One Step Back in the Middle East
Up until the June 12th election in Iran, most observers outside that country thought there was a good chance that former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi would unseat President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A week before the election, most experts believed it would certainly be close, perhaps there would be a run-off between the two, but few, if any, predicted that Ahmadinejad would win in a landslide. And no one foresaw massive street protests over a “stolen election.”
Everything seemed to be going well for the U.S. in the Muslim world, in no small part because President Obama is not President Bush. The more Bush attacked the Iranian regime, the greater the support for Ahmadinejad. By contrast, Obama reached out to Iran, recognizing its pivotal role as a regional power.
