Iranian Election (and TV debates)

"The bitter exchanges have underscored the surprising vigor of Iran’s limited democracy. The country’s theocratic rulers weed out all but a few ideologically acceptable candidates before each election. But within those confines, the races are hard-fought and unpredictable." This is an important point that Robert Worth is making. I have been thinking about that as of late because Saudi media have been constantly airing segments from the TV debates by the presidential candidates. The aim of Saudi media, especially Al-Arabiyya TV (the station of the brother-in-law of King Fahd) is to air Iranian criticisms of the Iranian president who they detest without saying it--Saudi rulers are always under-handed. But no matter what we think of the controlled Iranian political system, it is certainly superior to most of the political systems in the region. I will argue that those scenes of the TV debates are really hitting a cord throughout the Middle East and revealing to the Arab viewers what they knew not before about the Iranian political system. Arabs will not measure the Iranian political system by the criteria of some abstract notions of democracy or by the features of Swedish democracy, but the standards of the lousy regimes. There is no one country in the Middle East (outside of the Cyprus and the usurping entity--which is a democracy for the Jewish citizens of the state with superior status for the European immigrants) in which the head of state is not known before hand. Even in Lebanon, with the exception of the presidential election of 1970, we always know who the president will be because it is determined before hand by regional and international powers. Present-day president of Lebanon, Michel Sulayman, was picked by Husni Mubarak, and the choice was known months in advance. So the scene of presidential debates may be hurting Saudi interests but Al-Arabiyya editors may not be smart enough to realize it. (Of course, it should be added that the top position of government in Iran--that of the Guardian Faqih--remains out of contestation.)