IRAN - Days To Tell

Our friends from the left remind us that the US must act in a measured way to the current crisis, that any untoward support for Mousavi for example would simply convert him to the status of a stooge for the West, granting legitimacy to the mullahs in the process. Ok. But how is this a contribution to the discussion, of the task at hand? How is this not but surface feeding, a demonstration of a lack of scholarship?

They and Obama can read our past posts on Iran for guidance. It is all there. Until they do, Obama and our friends will miss the point. This crisis / opportunity is not about an election; it is but the child of an election.

Iranians are fed up with the corruption and incompetence rampant in the Islamic Republic. This dissatisfaction was galvanized by the regime's contempt for their votes and found an accidental leader in Mr. Mousavi. The movement has now taken on a life of its own. The young folk on the street in Iran are no more rooting for Mousavi than they are demonstrating disgust with Ahmadinejad’s policy, that which thoroughly alienated the West and put Iran’s economy in the tank. They know instead that it is the Muslim medevielists - the Khamenei regime, which must go.

None of us, left or right, would argue that it is not in our direct interest to birth a democracy in Iran. We all agree on that point. The ramifications are obvious. As Krauthammer notes, "It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism -- leave it forever spent and discredited."

But how best to accomplish that task? We know we have a window (see last post). Unfortunately Obama’s strategy, at least this week, has done nothing but add legitimacy to the mullahs. Those who heard Khamenei yesterday know that another Tiananmen Square may be only days away. And Obama? Afraid of meddling, of taking sides between thugs, and, folks beaten (or shot) on the street who only want to be free. Obama’s response, "I’m deeply troubled by what I’ve seen on TV," then speaking favorably of, "some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election." "Supreme Leader"? Obama’s sickening, nauseating abject solitictiousness, as totally repulsive as his complete misunderstanding of the "Iranian people" is disappointing. Hillary, although generally bankrupt in matters of truth, did speak exactly that when she made her campaign point about BO’s inexperience and lack of instinct in a crisis; she was down right prescient in fact.

Iran's entrenched interests read Obama's meant-to-be-conciliatory remarks as a confession of weakness. Is that a surprise? The result was that the mullahs no longer saw a need to play pretend. Bush worried them. Obama doesn't. They judged, correctly, that Washington wouldn't issue a tough-minded statement in response to this mockery of an election, or, to their ongoing brutal attempted put down of acts of free speech. And the administration? Stunned, unable to believe that its self-abasement toward the Middle East didn't inaugurate the next Age of Aquarius.

Robert Craven