GEORGE BUSH is not the only president with popularity problems.
In Iran — part of the Axis of Evil and potential maker of nuclear weapons — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is having his own midterm troubles. Two weeks ago, his supporters took a beating in local elections. In Tehran, students at a prestigious university staged a demonstration on campus that forced the president to cut short a speech.
The voters, Iran-watchers say, want Ahmadinejad to stop his international posturing and America-baiting and do something about Iran’s internal problems. Failing that, they just want him to go away.
The students took to the streets to protest government encroachments on academic and personal freedom. During the demonstration, students were heard shouting “Death to the dictator.”
In spite of its spot on Bush’s list of evil states, Iran is undeniably a democracy — a much more stable democracy than has emerged yet in Iraq — and is open to change through the ballot box. The secular government of Iran shares its power to an alarming extent with conservative religious authorities. But the balance of power between the religious and secular powers is — to some extent — dependent on the will of the voters.
Ahmadinejad’s local losses are not a sign that he will be booted from office soon. Like his adversary in the Oval Office, the Iranian president is in the middle of a four-year term. But the voters and the students have sent him a strong message: They do not want their president to alienate the rest of the world with his nuclear obstinacy and international gatherings that try to deny the reality of the Holocaust.
If Ahmadinejad listens to Iranian voters — and if Bush listens to U.S. voters — it is possible that the long wrangle over Iran’s nuclear program could be settled to the satisfaction of both countries.
Then each of the presidents could leave office with an accomplishment to be proud of.
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