Is the US too late?
First, it's a shame on the US for having been so quiet for the week that's been, while other countries' leaders: From Gordon Brown to Angela Merkel to Nicolas Sarkozy have spoken the words we should have been speaking, words of support to the protestors in Iran.
Second, it is not the first time the US has been late to the fight against tyranny when Europe was there first, but it is no less ignominious. We've been desiring non-military regime change for years in Iran and the people rose up to it and where have we been? We've been saying we respect the sovereignty of a country that has almost no legitimacy in its own case for sovereignty.
Third, President Obama finally did speak yesterday--but he did not go far enough; merely intoning that we will continue to "bear witness" puts us at the rank of observer status. I think now there can be no compunction about telling the protestors on the streets that we are squarely with them and we support them. He might say something along the lines of:
"We had hoped for a peaceful resolution to this travesty of an election that the whole world knows was a travesty. The truth of the regime has now made those results eminently clear: it is a regime that would rather rule by bullets than ballots, and that we cannot sit idly by and watch. This is a regime that has been at war with us for 30 years. It is now clear to the world it is a regime that is also at war with its own people.
"I spoke in Egypt about the democratic aspirations of both free and unfree peoples and I said there are basic human rights we will support wherever they are at a discount. So a word to the brave protestors and the reform movement on the ground in Iran: You have been brave for those universal rights all people are entitled to while the leadership of Iran has shown itself barbaric to them. Let there now be no doubt: We stand with you, the people of Iran who want and know better.
"A knock on your door at midnight should not be accompanied by nightsticks; peaceful rallies for democracy should not be free fire zones for the government.
"The US has stood by too long in the hopes of the regime of Iran becoming responsive to its people--it is clear it is now at war with them and we will not remain neutral, we cannot remain neutral. On one side is power, gas, stoning, and gunshots all in the name of repression. On the other are popular demonstrations in the name of liberty and democracy. We are with the latter."
These words or something like them are imperative not just for Iran and the rest of the world that is watching but for ourselves. Having been so silent for a week makes them harder to utter but the outbreak of violence does allow some degree of making up for that and turning a new leaf.
There have been several moments of ignominy for the US in the struggle for freedom. We didn't do much for Hungarians when they rose up against tyranny, nor the Czechs, nor the Chinese, nor the Shiites after the first Gulf War. But having cast our bet on the Mullahs is worse than any of those instances because it flies in the face of modernity against a regime we have known to be not only at war with us but ripe for change with little outside help willing to support it. This was not the case with Hungary and Czechoslovakia which had the USSR willing to commit tanks to support those decrepit regimes.
Obama has been wanting to try and strike a negotiated deal with Iran's leaders on nuclear proliferation. It is folly. Achmadinejad has stated again and again that is a non-starter.
Organic revolutions are very rare things and while other European governments saw this for what it was, a moment of possible change, we dithered. Whose side do we want the protestors to be on should they affect change? Who do we want them to say was on their side? And who do we want them to say was of no help?
The time is late for our rhetoric, but it is not too late. We have been shaming ourselves for a week now, saying nothing about protests against a country that has sponsored more terrorist killings against more Americans than any other terror group until Al-Qaeda. This was not a hard call. Iran was once a place of stability; before 1979 you had a US ally, a country with good relations with Israel, and no Hezbollah. Why do we all know ex-pats from Iran now? Obviously it is not because they felt safer there. And why would we turn a cold heart to the desired end to a leadership that has openly spoken about ending our country's existence?
Finally, as for the lack of difference between Achmadinejad and Mosavi: Maybe at first that was a rational belief, before the election--it is now obvious who the Mullahs wanted and who the people wanted.
The Mullahs only allowed three candidates--they didn't allow the most democratic reformers; but the people, the youth, saw their best chances with Mosavi. For a week those people have been calling, the White House phone has been ringing at 3 a.m., still it remains unanswered.
One more point: Since when in foreign policy do we make the perfect the enemy of the preferred? Not in Afghanistan. Not in Iraq. Not in Pakistan. Not when the USSR was crumbling--almost never.
The truth is a protest movement has formed, making Mosavi's past almost irrelevant, he is smaller than the protest movement around him and what it stands for, and he could be made better if we are able to help shape things.
The President's continued moral equivalence between Mosavi and Achmadinejad has served only to dispirit the protest movement; and Mosavi and his spokesmen have criticized such comparisons--rightly. As we've seen, for seven days, Mosavi is the "not-Achmadinejad" and it seems to me, given all we've seen with Achmadinejad, that's a pretty good place to start. An even better place would be with the protestors who are looking for any and all the help they can get.