But what has been flagging so far has been leadership from the United States. Only in his second statement, a week into the crisis, did President Barack Obama underscore the importance of nonviolence, though he still declined to support the Iranian protestors. I understand the reluctance to provide Iranian leaders with the opportunity to smear the protestors as American stooges. But can the leader of the Free World find nothing more intimidating than bearing witness when it is clear that the regime doesn't care who is watching?
Sen. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and Fareed Zakaria on CNN, among others, have defended Mr. Obama's extreme caution. Mr. Zakaria even compared the president's actions to how George H.W. Bush responded timidly to the impending collapse of the Soviet Union and its hold on Eastern Europe in 1989. Mr. Zakaria explained, "Those regimes could easily crack down on the protestors and the Soviet Union could send in tanks." True. But the Soviet Union used tanks to quash dissent when it could. Dictatorships use force when they can get away with it, not when a U.S. president makes a strong statement.
President Dwight Eisenhower might have learned that lesson in 1956 when he said nothing and the Soviets sent tanks into Budapest anyway. Likewise, in 1968 the Soviets cracked down in Czechoslovakia even though the West said little. Regardless of what Mr. Obama says, the Iranian leaders will use all the force at their disposal to stay in power.
There is no reason to withhold external pressure that can tip the balance inside Tehran. Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is not an ideal democrat. But should he and his supporters win power they will owe their authority to an abruptly empowered Iranian electorate. It is reasonable to expect that the people will hold a Mousavi government accountable for delivering the freedoms that they are now risking their lives to attain.
Showing posts with label Mousavi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mousavi. Show all posts
26 June 2009
Garry Kasparov: 'Citizens Who Once Chanted "Death To America" Now Call For The Blood Of Ayatollah Khamenei'
25 June 2009
Checking In With Dr. Ronen Bergman Part II
At the NYT blog, "Room for Debate," they asked several "Middle East experts" for their opinion on the happenings in Iran. Dr. Bergman was one of those they asked.
In Tehran the earth is shaking, but in the Arab world there has been no public official response to the post-elections riots. Bernard Lewis, the renowned orientalist, told me on Monday that this is because Arab governments are concerned about backing the wrong horse.Click the link to read the rest as the rest of the experts hold forth on all things Iranian.
By contrast, debate is lively in the Arab media and on Arab-language Web sites. But there is one exception: the Palestinians seem almost indifferent to what is going on in Iran. This may seem surprising. After all, the Iranian regime is a major supporter of Palestinian hardliners, providing funding, training and weapons, particularly to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of whom owe their ability to confront Israel to direct Iranian support. But surfing the major Palestinian Web sites at noon today (Tuesday, Tel Aviv time), reveals very little interest in what is happening in the streets of Tehran.
The most prominent Palestinian to have publicly expressed an opinion on the events is a former Israeli Knesset member, Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel and is wanted for questioning for allegedly spying for Hezbollah.
In an op-ed piece earlier this week in Al Jazeera, Bishara concluded that the events in Iran reflect the views of middle-class Iranians, not those of the majority of the population. And to the extent that Iran becomes more westernized, he stated, this process will result from an ideological clash within the regime itself.
Bishara did not say a word about how all of this might affect the Palestinians. Even when his piece was copied to Hamas’s most active forum, Paldf, it did not give rise to a discussion on what the impact on the Palestinians would be.
Perhaps this is because the Palestinians realize that what happens in Iran — short of a complete overhaul of the regime, which is highly unlikely — is not going to have an effect on the support they receive from the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence. This is contrary to the view of much the Western media, which sees the events in Iran as a sign of an impending regime change.
The turmoil in Tehran, as far as the Palestinians are concerned, is a dispute between rival political factions; it does not concern them, and it does not interest them.
The Iranian governmental entities in charge of exporting the Islamic revolution will continue to do so under a reformist government just as they do now and just as they did in the past when the reformist Mohammad Khatami was in office. One way or another, the Iranian regime will keep stoking the flames of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Checking In With Dr. Ronen Bergman Part I
Not personally mind you, but via the web. What can I say? I trust Cambridge-trained historians to get the facts right more than I trust western journalists with an ax to grind.
The first thing I found, from The Jewish Week in NYC, was essentially a recapitulation of what I heard from Dr. Bergman and then put in my notes a couple weeks ago. This part, however, is new:
Q: What can you tell us about Mir Hossein Mousavi, the so-called pro-reform opposition candidate who spearheaded the protests over the election returns?
A: Mousavi was the Iranian connection to the Americans in the Iran-Contra affair, and American and Israeli intelligence said he was the most extreme person they had met. He reminds many of another so-called Iranian moderate, former President Mohammad Khatami. Khatami came in [in 1997] as a great hope and people said he would be the Gorbachev of Iran — that he was going to change Iran. But the big leap forward in the Iranian nuclear project was under Khatami. Khatami cherished suicide bombers in the [Palestinian] territories and twice he called for the destruction of Israel.
Q: If Mousavi became president, could he change anything?When I say that I support the revolution in Iran, it is with eyes wide open about the political realities of Mousavi's nuclear ambitions. I understand that he is similar to Ahmadinejad in this regard--or rather, that even if he weren't different, he's not the one calling the shots, it's the supreme leader. I get all that.
A: No, because I don’t see Mousavi bringing about change. And the fact we see him as a more moderate element of the regime and see him as a reformer, does not mean he is a reformer. He does not call all the shots.
I support democracy in Iran because I believe that the more democratic Iran becomes, the less likely they are to both build a bomb and use it against their enemies--specifically Israel. I do not believe that the Obama administration's attempts at diplomacy have a snowball's chance of succeeding. What has happened in North Korea is a cautionary tale.
24 June 2009
Democracy For Democracy's Sake: Obama & Iran
1. He didn't want to give credence to the likely Iranian claim that the protests were the work of American Imperialists & Zionists.
2. Ahmadinejad was going to win anyway and Obama didn't want to do anything to harm his future negotiating posture. And anyway, the other guy wants nukes too, so what's the difference?
Regarding the first point, the supreme leader & co. are always going to blame the American imperialists and the Zionists, regardless of what Obama says.
Regarding the second point, regardless of Mousavi's similar nuke ambitions, democracy & democratic outcomes are inherently good. And they are particularly good when they push back against a totalitarian regime. A more democratic state is probably the only way Iran gives up its nuclear dream and quits funding world terror.
As unpersuasive (to me, anyway) as these arguments are, they are entirely refuted by the fact that Obama has done a complete about face and dropped a lot of critical rhetoric on the supreme leader, Ahmadinejad, and the rest. Oh, and the Iranian dips are no longer invited to Obama's July 4th weenie roast--or rather, they had the good sense to decline the Obama administration's invitation even if Obama didn't have the decency to rescind it.;
Apart from the fact that his silence last week was wildly unpopular, what about Iran has changed to cause Obama's rhetorical shift?
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