Iran and the West: Where Do We Go From Here?

Re “Iranian Revolution Is Thriving in Iraq,” Commentary, June 28: Actually, the results of Iran’s presidential election are good news for the West and the pro-democracy Iranians.

The newly elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a religious hard-liner and very vocal about Iran’s nuclear program. And let’s not forget that some say he was one of the young activists who climbed over the embassy wall and took and held the hostages for 444 days.

In contrast, the previous president was a reformist and often got the benefit of the doubt from the West because of the potential for achieving true democracy.

Now the West is in a much better position to bring about positive chance. This can be achieved by breaking all direct and indirect diplomatic ties and isolating the fanatic government, and supporting Iranians inside and abroad in pursuit of a “domestic” revolution.

Ali Shahmiri

San Diego

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How can the Iran election be a replay of the Iraqi election, when 1,000 candidates were banned from running in Iran? Robert Scheer didn’t mention that in his column. That would seem to discount the similarities.

William W. deLorimier

San Gabriel

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed for democracy rather than stability in the Middle East during her recent visit to Cairo. The Guardian Council revised the list of candidates for the Iranian presidential election to eliminate women and democratic reformists and offered a “moderate” candidate and a “hard-line conservative” candidate.

The council proved it understood its voting public -- hard-line conservative Ahmadinejad won.

The clear result is that the anti-West candidate took 61% of the vote, and 48% of the voting population voted.

We are now stuck with an Iran that will focus on building its nuclear weapons and in doing its best to influence Iraqi politics. If true democracy spreads to some of the other fervent Islamic republics, will this Iranian experience repeat itself?

Paul Lieberman

Torrance