I think of Les Gelb, the former head of the Council on Foreign Relations, as a sober-minded individual. Therefore, I’m curious how he could have lost his bearings when looking ahead to Iran’s presidential election, held today. Gelb strangely wrote:➢ [Iran] could be on a path to becoming America’s most important partner in the region.
➢ the electioneering has probably been the freest ever in that part of the world, and . . . [opposition candidate] Mir Hussein Mousavi talks like a man the White House could work with
➢ It is widely believed that the higher the turnout the more likely Ahmadinejad will lose.
➢ Mousavi. . . has become a pragmatic politician who . . . has called for greater freedoms and civil-rights protections[, whose] platform stresses Iran’s need to get sanctions lifted, to become part of the global economy, and to end its international isolation.
➢ This emerging Tehran and President Obama’s Washington are bound to find a common bond in fighting extremism both in Iran and among its volatile neighbors.
How do realists like Gelb let their hearts so openly control their heads? We all want Ahmadinejad to go away. Well, all of us outside Iran, that is. The Iranians who vote turned out in massive numbers. And as predicted by most who understand how that police state works, re-elected Ahmadinejad.
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