While many observers have lauded the U.S. administration’s cautious approach to the unrest in Iran, other voices have lamented what they see as a failure to support Iran’s democrats and civil society activists.
The New Republic’s Leon Wieseltier makes a forceful and eloquent case for a more principled and assertive international solidarity with Iran’s protesters:
So it is important to be clear that the strong articulation of American principles by the American president when those principles are being bravely upheld by a people in revolt against a dictator— this is not only a statement of emotion, it is also an element of strategy. It emboldens the right side. It allies the United States with peoples against regimes, which is almost always the surest foundation for the American position.
Wieseltier finds it “hard to imagine that the young men and women suffering the blows of the Basij would not welcome our support.” To the contrary, he argues: “If these events have shown anything, it is that their enemy and our enemy are the same.) There is nothing more sweepingly in the interest of the United States in the Middle East than the withering away of the theocracy in Iran.”
A moral and strategic case for supporting Iran’s protesters.
Regarding to the Middle East in general and Iran in particular, knowing History is a very important asset. This knowledge is more valuable today than ever.
Seeing the militias of the Mollahcracy beating peaceful protesters in Iran is shocking. Seeing the young lady killed is more than shocking.
I agree that democratic people in the world should condemn the oppression in Iran, as in other countries.
But when I see the NECONS commentary pressing the President Barack Obama to become harsher toward Iran, I think that these guys have forgotten the lessons of the failure of the Bush doctrine and policies in the Middle East. They have also forgotten that these same policies and doctrine have pushed America and the Middle East where they are today.
When we know the Middle East History, we can easily remember that the wetern interventions have made it easy to enforce the anti-western sentiments in this region. Nurtured by this historic lesson, the President Obama is aware that Iran (like every other country) is hostile to any external intervention in its domestic affairs.
It is easy to critic the President Obama or to say that he is weak. But the real challenge now is to think to what to do to really enforce the position of the internal and liberal opposition.