The Iranian elections ended in expected victory for Tehran's former governor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The result may have come as a shock to many outside Iran but the fact is that 70 million Iranians decided, in free and fair elections, who will run their country. Those who blockaded Iran and undermined the reform course of moderate President Mohamed Khatami have only themselves to blame. They failed to back Khatami because of their bias to Israel, among other things. The tug of war between Iran and the US is anything but new. Iran's recent history is replete with tragic events that resurface every time demonstrators take to Tehran's streets to shake their fists in anger. It began when the CIA brought down Mohamed Mossadaq's government in 1953. During the Iraq-Iran war Washington sided with Iraq's Baathist regime against Tehran. The US attacked petroleum installations in Abadan in 1988, a year after USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airbus killing all 290 people aboard. In 1993 Martin Indyk conceived a dual containment scheme against Iraq and Iran. In 1996 the D'Amato bill prevented foreign companies from investing more than $40 million in Iran's oil and natural gas industries. The US has pressured Russia and China to halt nuclear cooperation with Tehran, and Europe, Japan, the Arab world and Central Asia to scale down cooperation. Ankara faced enormous pressure from Washington to abandon a �23 billion liquid gas deal with Iran. Two years ago Congress earmarked $20 million for secret intelligence operations aimed at destabilising Iran's Islamic regime. Washington has mounted a strenuous campaign against Iran's nuclear programme, and in 2002 the US president denounced Iran as a member of the axis of evil. More recently the US abolished a ban on the export of weapons to Tajikistan in its bid to create a new balance of power in Central Asia. The US has urged NATO to extend membership into Central Asia to include Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan in a bid to separate Iran from Russia and China. The crucial lesson of the Iranian election is that US policy helps hardliners tighten their grip on power, thus aiding and abetting dictatorship. The US blockade of Iran and its attempts to undermine reformists brought the conservatives to power. But this is only part of the story. Iranian voters elected conservatives because they were fed up with the inability of reformists to fight corruption and poverty.
