William Rivers Pitt: Walking Soft

A lot of different things have been happening in Iran over the last several days, some of them hopeful, some of them ominous, and most of them as opaque and inscrutable as the country itself. Ever since last weekend's election, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the outcome of what is widely believed to have been a rigged vote. A portion of the masses have come out in support of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was declared the winner after a highly suspect election process, while a majority of those in the streets have rallied behind the so-called "reformist" candidate, Mir Hussein Mousavi.

What happened? According to Warren P. Strobel of McClatchy Newspapers:

There were scattered reports of opposition candidates' poll observers not being allowed into polling places, but no overt signs of voter intimidation or other troubles, in Tehran at least. What happened next is opaque. There were no international observers. None of the ballots have been seen publicly; they're under guard at the Interior Ministry in downtown Tehran, which is under Ahmadinejad's control.

By late Friday afternoon, the atmosphere in Tehran was beginning to change. Morning newspapers had carried news of "Operation Sovereignty," a police maneuver in Tehran that involved tens of thousands of police units. A reporter driving near the Interior Ministry at the time saw security presence being beefed up, as if the authorities expected trouble. According to a European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid, the Interior Ministry brought in loyalists from the provinces to tabulate the votes, furloughing its regular employees and locking them out of the building.

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The diplomat's account couldn't be confirmed; a McClatchy request to speak with someone at Iran's Election Commission was turned down Monday, and the next day the government ordered foreign journalists in Iran on temporary visas to stay off the streets and prepare to leave the country. Aides to Mousavi, who have an obvious motive to say so, speculate that the votes may never have been counted at all. If they were, the handwritten ballots were tallied amazingly fast. Around the time the polls closed, state-run news media reported that Ahmadinejad had a commanding lead of almost 70 percent with slightly less than a fifth of the votes tabulated.

At first, Ayatollah Khamenei raced out to bless the victory of Ahmadinejad and declare the election over, but when tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters roared into the streets, Khamenei was forced into a historic backpedal. "In a rare break from a long history of cautious moves," reported The New York Times on Monday, "he rushed to bless President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for winning the election, calling on Iranians to line up behind the incumbent even before the standard three days required to certify the results had passed. Then angry crowds swelled in cities around Iran, and he backpedaled, announcing Monday that the 12-member Council of Guardians, which vets elections and new laws, would investigate the vote. Few suggest yet that Ayatollah Khamenei's hold on power is at risk. But, analysts say, he has opened a serious fissure in the face of Islamic rule and one that may pro ve impossible to patch over, particularly given the fierce dispute over the election that has erupted amid the elite veterans of the 1979 revolution. Even his strong links to the powerful Revolutionary Guards - long his insurance policy - may not be decisive as the confrontation in Iran unfolds."

A week has gone by and the issue remains in doubt. Few expect Mousavi's challenge to be effective, and it is generally believed Ahmadinejad will still be president once the tumult has died down. But a dramatic step forward has been taken by the majority of Iranians who chafe under the religious rule of Khamenei and the mullahs, and the outrage over the election results has opened a long-desired wedge Iranian progressives are using to pry some freedoms from the iron hands of the ruling elite.

This is not a revolution, but a step, and a dramatic one at that. It is difficult, while watching these protean events unfold in the streets of Tehran, to avoid the conclusion that President Obama and his new efforts towards Mideast engagement have played at least some part in the changes that have been sweeping through the region.

Ever since taking office, President Obama has been taking an active role in the Mideast, but in a completely different manner than his predecessor. Mr. Bush thought he could bring democracy and freedom to the region with troops, bombs and depleted uranium. He failed, and in spectacular fashion; the invasion of Iraq brought the election of Ahmadinejad, who has turned the Iran-US relationship into an even more dangerous and acrimonious affair. Bush's detachment from the Israel-Palestine peace process brought about two shooting wars in Lebanon. The list goes on.

Obama, on the other hand, delivered a widely hailed address in Cairo, in which he reached out to the Muslim world without ever once using the words "terror" or "terrorist." He has told the bitter-enders on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict to sit down and shut up, bringing for the first time in a long while a real chance for a chance of some kind of resolution. And now, women and young people in Iran - who are the nation's majority, and who chafe at the box their religious and political leaders have put them in - are defying the Revolutionary Guard and the mullahs to demand in public that changes be made. At least to some small degree, given the retreat being beaten by the religious authorities in Iran, those changes have already come.

In five months, the Obama administration's active and non-aggressive engagement has done more to stabilize, modernize and liberalize the Middle East than George W. Bush could have dreamed of in the eight years he spent tearing the region up. Nothing is settled, and much is still in serious doubt, but for the first time, real change is coming to that troubled part of the world without wholesale slaughter and mayhem riding sidecar.

Another lesson learned in this brave new world.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.

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