Nowruz is Iran’s new year, celebrated every spring. You may recall that last year, President Obama scored a ton of points from just about all quarters by sending this personalized Nowruz video message directed straight at Iran’s people. It was a great move that bypassed any formal communication with the mullahs in Tehran and successfully engaged Iranians on a personal level. From last year’s video:
You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right — but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.
This year’s Nowruz (#1389 if you’re scoring by the Persian calendar) takes place on March 20th. And suffice it to say that some things have changed since then: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole an election last June from Mir Hossein Mousavi, which triggered millions-strong, largely peaceful (on the civilian side, anyway) demonstrations in Tehran over several weeks. The mullahs actually remain fairly divided lot, but since the Revolutionary Guards hold the balance of power in Iran, the status quo will reign for the time being. However, the protests continue to flare up, but with diminishing strength, on every subsequent public holiday or event. Their potency has been contained in large part because the Ayatollah learned the importance of crushing momentum from the country’s experience in 1979.
This raises the question: After a tumultuous year in American-Iranian “relations” that has seen the Obama administration change tack from guarded optimism of dialogue to renewed talk of targeted sanctions, what (if anything) will the administration do this Nowruz? With Tehran’s crackdown on social media and internet freedom, it might be more difficult to get a similarly successful message through. But it’s worth a try, given the negligible price of recording a three-minute message from the Oval Office.
If he does record something, part of the president’s Nowruz goodwill message to Iranians should focus on expanding Internet access in Iran, which began in earnest earlier this month when the White House lifted restrictions for the first time on U.S. companies exporting online software like chat and data-sharing programs. That’s an incredibly important step, and has been generally described as a win-win-win for Iranians, companies and American diplomatic efforts. But lifting restrictions is just one side of the equation — actively promoting this kind of software in Iran should follow next.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/arasmus/ / CC BY 2.0
