I’m not a fan of Barry O.
To clarify, I didn’t vote for him. Not only because I’m a big fan of John McCain, a great American patriot, war hero, and statesman – I still wouldn’t have voted for him if the Republicans had gone with Paul, or Giuliani, or Huckabee, or the Thompson Twins (either of them). If my state had open primaries, I would’ve even voted for Hillary as a protest vote against him. The only way I’d have ever put a check mark next to his box (in a totally hetero way) would be if the GOP had nominated Romney, or if Edwards ran as an independent and was polling above the Republican.
I disagree with nearly everything he stands for, and I don’t like him personally. He built himself up as a Messianic figure, fully equipped with a personality cult, and after a few months of scrutiny, it appears that the emperor has no clothes on. He’s a false prophet, and a mere mortal. He is flesh and blood like you and I, and he makes mistakes just the same.
However, his stance on Iran is not one of them.
In a country where the opposition shout Allahu Akbar! every night, it is clear that the people rioting in the streets aren’t doing it for us. Moreover, they’re not doing it because they’re opposed to Islam, or clerics in general. Mousavi is a cleric. Rafsanjani is a cleric. The only major figure in Iranian politics who does not come from a religious background is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and they’re certainly not fond of him.
While the reformists in the opposition are certainly more pro-Western than the government, having the President of the United States throwing his support behind the opposition could push fence-sitters to the government’s side. While the college-educated women fighting for emancipation aren’t likely to shout Marg bar Amrika! any time soon, their aims will not be successful without more powerful figures joining their cause. And in order to be powerful in a dictatorship, you have to be a part of the establishment… an establishment that hates Israel more than anything, and by association the United States and the United Kingdom.
We were the ones who propped up the unpopular Shah as their monarch before the revolution. We had our chance to get involved. Our parents’ generation, in a moment of utter stupidity voted for Jimmy Carter and threw that useless fuckbucket into the White House. As a result, when the Shah was forced out of office, he never returned to power… and then when the Iranian revolutionaries held Americans hostage for over a year, we did nothing to stop them. It wasn’t until Ronald Reagan was elected that they backed off and let the Americans go.
Ronald Reagan was more forceful than Jimmy Carter, and certainly more forceful than Barack Obama is going to be. Force is what tyrants rule by, and force is what they understand. While it’s absolutely necessary for the Iranian people to know that the world stand in solidarity with them, the American government needs to remain as quiet and reserved as possible for the time being, because there is absolutely nothing they can do to weaken the Iranian regime short of an invasion. We can’t sever diplomatic ties. For starters, we haven’t had an embassy in Iran in decades. We are represented by the Swiss embassy. Secondly, President Obama ran on a campaign of promising to negotiate with the Iranian government. If he were to turn his back on that pledge, he would only do further damage to his reputation, as he’s already burned bridges with the Jewish and homosexual communities after going back on campaign promises.
So, the two men that I voted for President in 2004 and 2008, George W. Bush and John McCain have gone after President Obama and his reserved way of handling the situation, and I find their remarks unfortunate. Congress voting on a measure to condemn the Iranian government isn’t going to help the men and women in the streets of Tehran. Iranians must do this for themselves. The only thing foreigners can do is what they are already doing: Helping combat the government’s attempts to block their internet access from Twitter, Facebook, and other sites that they are using for communication. As long as they are able to organize, I don’t see the government winning. These are people who are willing to die.
Even Mousavi, the establishment figure who led Iran as Prime Minister during the war against Saddam Hussein has said that he is willing to become a martyr. His fate, and the fate of his followers are in the hands of the Iranian Army and the Revolutionary Guard. So, while Mr. Mousavi may not have screamed Marg bar Amrika! as he stood atop a car last night, many of the people he is going to need to win over are still very anti-American and anti-Western. Once the Iranian revolt has an American flavor, all those who have died and will die will have done so in vain as the protests are condemned to fail.
We lost our bargaining chip in Iran in 1979. If we’re not able to accept that and watch from the sidelines, more people will lose their lives.
So at the risk of sounding like Alan Colmes, the left is right and the right is wrong.
…I think I need to take a shower now.
