DOES IRAN'S GREEN PARTY NEED U.S AID?

Iran’s clerical regime has forcefully reasserted its power, and the authorities in Tehran are  now trying to sweep recent election protests under the carpet. The streets are now quiet, and Iran’s top cop says that many of those arrested in the recent crackdown now face prosecution in Tehran’s public and revolutionary courts.
So what next? The Obama administration is moving ahead with plans to bankroll Iranian opposition groups, for starters. USA Today’s Ken Dilanian notes that the U.S. Agency for International Development is planning to dole out $20 million in grants to support “democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in Iran.”  The deadline for those grant applications passed yesterday.

According to Columbia University professor Hamid Dabashi, handing out U.S. taxpayer money to Iranian dissidents is precisely what Iran does not need. “This financial aid is not only a waste of taxpayer money under these severe economic circumstances, but is in fact the surest way to kill that inborn and grassroots movement,” he writes in a CNN commentary. “It mostly will be abused by expatriate and entirely discredited opposition groups ranging from the monarchist supporters of Reza Pahlavi to the members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization, and it will in turn strengthen the hand of the regime to denounce the Green Movement as funded by Americans.”

In other words, the United States shouldn’t be shopping around for an Iranian Ahmad Chalabi.

The role of U.S.-funded “civil society” programs in supporting pro-democratic movements is a worthy subject for a book. The United States, for instance, helped provide advice and support to Serbia’s opposition in its peaceful campaign to topple Slobodan Milosevic; U.S. taxpayers paid for spray paint used to tag walls with anti-Milosevic graffiti. Some U.S. money went to support individuals and groups who helped organize Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.

But in both of those cases, U.S. assistance was not the deciding factor: Both Ukraine and Serbia were swept by genuine grassroots movements that sprang up in response to widespread electoral fraud. Somewhat perversely, U.S. aid to pro-democracy groups has helped authoritarian regimes like Russia promote the idea of the “post-modern coup d’etat“: If you buy the Kremlin’s line, the U.S. government is actually pulling the strings behind all these global democratic movements — so by extension, your domestic political opponents are also on Uncle Sam’s payroll.

That’s precisely what Iran’s beleagured opposition does not need: To be painted as U.S. stooges, monarchist throwbacks, or nutty fifth-columnists. As Noah has pointed out here before, the really hard part is providing the right kind of support to Iranians without undermining their cause.