The American Misreading of Iran The Changing Reality of the Middle East http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/06/02/the-american-misreading-of-iran/

The idea that an Iranian opposition group based in London and operating with foreign funding could actually play a significant “role in shaping public opinion in Iran and various Arab countries” should be readily seen as absurd. But many of the Wikileaks cables show how American officials constantly attempt to understand Iranian politics and public opinion through precisely such sources, see, for example, here. One of the more ridiculous cables, from the American consulate in Istanbul in August 2009, see here, reporting on the imminent demise of Ayatollah Khamenei, highlights some of the problems with this approach.

Contrary to claims made by Obama and much of the political establishment in the United States, most Iranians viewed American attempts to support the riots in Tehran as an effort by outsiders to thwart democracy and impose their will upon the Iranian people. While American and European officials claim otherwise, the fact that U.S. and EU policy has been to make the Iranian population suffer through sanctions—something that is also confirmed by the Wikileaks cables, see, for example, here—strengthens Iranians’ belief that the United States is seeking to impose its will on them.

Whether the United States was really trying to undermine Iranian democracy and bring down the Islamic Republic or whether U.S. officials and the media simply put too much faith in their “elite” sources is something that will become clearer in the future. Nevertheless, what is clear is that most of the so-called Iran experts who influence U.S. government policy towards Iran, know relatively little about the country; many of them are agenda-driven and basically say what people in positions of power want to hear.

 Contrary to what is often stated in Western think tanks and academic centers close to the political establishment, to say that the Iranians are pleased with what is going on in the region is an understatement. They believe that almost all the countries of the region are all controlled by Western-backed corrupt and despotic regimes that do not reflect the will of their own population or the people in the region at large. From this perspective, almost any change in the region is good for Iran.